TP Link Ban and Alternatives

[@TRYLIKTO]

If companie is based in china, they all have representatives in ccp, so they all being controlled by cinese government

[@bills6946]

Pro tip. Look at your non TP Link router sticker. It also says “ Made in China”

[@WillieHowe]

@@bills6946 Yup.

[@WillieHowe]

@@bills6946 no one is arguing that

[@La7arus]

Parts yes, but what about software that runs the router? The issue is with THE SOFTWARE ... it has holes like swiss cheese and allows those commies to conduct the espionage.

[@jasonanderson1341]

The issue… TP link is a Chinese based company. Meaning they have to adhere to the Chinese government and help them hack foreign networks if they are asked too. Yes netgear and other major companies have Chinese made routers, but they are US based companies and not under the authority of the Chinese government.

[@bills6946]

@ If the factory is in China and manned by Chinese workers, the US based country has limited options to say no to the Chinese government. All it takes is one line of code in the firmware to open the device to future hacking and the company will never know or protest.

[@Optimus02357]

Who the furk in the federal government was buying TPLink gear? Why not just fire them instead of banning TPLink?

[@vinezero]

I use them for my ISP customers, I am stocking up. Face it Cisco has as many Chinese parts in them as TP-Link, and many are just flat out made in China.

[@wiziek]

Realy comparing Cisco to TP-Link? What's next Cisco, ARista?

[@vinezero]

@@wiziek Cisco is made in the same place.

[@dank9561]

Cisco may be manufactured in China but are a US company and the software is made in the US. I recall a few years ago Cisco were accused of letting the US government build backdoors in their software.

[@pfitz4881]

Where are the recommended routers manufactured? Are they verified to be safe?? Is there a way to test a TP Link router to see if it is vulnerable? But seriously.. with allowing all this technology to be brought into the US from communist China, who didn't see this coming??

[@looseycanon]

It's not that big of a deal. Zyxel is Thawanese and they've had... trouble... that even TP-Link didn't get caught with.

[@aallien]

Is this tied to routers and mesh systems like the XE75 Pro or is this also an issue for the Omada line of products. I have lots of AP's and switches out there.

[@rs6w]

Isn't part of the issue that they've been really slow in updating for security issues?

[@WillieHowe]

@@rs6w there's a lot of issues. I could see this being on the list.

[@dank9561]

I also wonder whether this potential ban will extend to TP-Link's other product ranges like the Kasa smart sockets.

[@supremerulah420]

I am wondering the same. As far as the routers go, can you just replace the firmware with DD-WRT and be safe? 🤔

[@wiziek]

@@supremerulah420 No you can't, not every device support DD-WRT or other system you can flash on it, be it TP-Link or other vendors.

[@pfitz4881]

@@wiziek You don't know that for sure.

[@bigsky1970]

I think it's more about existing routers for sale and not routers out in the wild that are already installed. Those routers that are out in the wild are up to the end user to deal with who can either stick with their current router or swap it out for a competitor brand.

[@BenjaminCankalp]

But all those recommendations have old network standards and have not been updated in a long while a specially the amplifi

[@jacksukerman5150]

I have an intel atom c3245r or something like that running opnsense. Is that safe? I have one ubiquiti access point and two tp link eap's. Should i bin the tp links? I bought them because they are much cheaper than the ubiquiti and perform better, or can i vlan them out or something to keep them from sensitive addresses?

[@WillieHowe]

@@jacksukerman5150 you could setup rules that don't let the APs themselves talk to anything outside your network.

[@zk_6312]

So could you use something like a raspberry pi with pi-hole as a frontend to the router to fix these security flaws of TP-Link routers? Of course it might cost just as much as buying a new router, but from what I have seen it could make your network more secure as well as getting rid of annoying ads. I don't have a pi-hole, but I was contemplating installing it even before the possible TP-Link ban. Too bad really as I like my TP-Link router. I might have to go back to Syslink or netgear.

[@James-xg4jr]

How did I know it would be a plug for grandstream…….they gotta be paying top dollar for sure….been in the industry for 20 years never saw a grandstream device other than a phone that I was replacing.

[@danwilhelm7214]

A follow-up with a list of openwrt supported tp-link devices would be helpful to a lot of users who are unaware of alternative firmware/software solutions available for their devices. Thanks Willie.

[@rdottwordottwo2286]

I seriously thought about purchasing TPLink SDN products. I have a couple of smart switches. I didn’t know they were Chinese based company. The equipment worked and was priced competitively. I decided to go with Ubiquity products instead.

[@seanwoods1526]

Don't forget Alta labs as well, They would be a good solution for those people that are looking to do a little better than the basic router combo.

[@micromonde]

could it be a Trojan to ONLY installed APPROVED 1984 routers?

[@LarcR]

There's not enough info yet. I'll keep using my TP-Link router until provable facts replace the hand wringing.

[@WillieHowe]

@@LarcR With our govt it's hard to tell, but Congress did fund it.

[@RockTheCage55]

I have two TP-Link systems (both mesh). I don't use the firewall component. Its have it behind an enterprise firewall. Just have both setup as AP. I hope it doesn't go so far that I can't even use them. I just upgraded it a couple months back (wifi7). If i have to switch i will probably go with Eero Wifi 6e system (their Wifi7 mesh system is WAY to expensive)

[@leosiwicki2013]

I recommend Unifi products. Unifi express for your home.

[@ironcross420]

Well, Govt can't ban it and you have to give it up (at least without compensation) and grandfathered.

[@looseycanon]

Nah, they'd just need to extend civil asset forfeiture to cover your home too and it's done.

[@markarca6360]

I'll just install OpenWRT. Most TP-Link home routers are compatible with it.

[@ShaneS071]

like you said it is a political situation, but as you said a lot of the other brands have had vulnerabilities, what new? one man makes it and another tries to hack it, while hacking someones else stuff is completely wrong, hacking your own is a way to get things improved. Question, is it really the issues of hacking by a foreign country or is it due to the fact that they have as you said 60-80% of the market share of the SOHO routers and US based companies putting pressure on the politicians?

[@WillieHowe]

@@ShaneS071 The world may never know.

[@wiziek]

Lol what a bullshit, not being made or having parts from huawei, dahua, hikvision but plenty of other chinese vendors and manufacturers of parts of electronics are fine?

[@dave56ize]

Thanks for the video Willie!

[@geerliglecluse5297]

I say Mikrotik, value for money that's hard to beat!

[@richardperritt]

Synology may be investigated too 🙄. They're HQ'd in Taiwan which is a separate country and they will argue to the end that they're not Chinese BUT... OFFICIALLY... they are Chinese. I don't think of them as Chinese but departments of the US government do. Grandstream is HQ'd in Massachusetts. Ubiquiti is HQ'd in New York City. I've used Synology, Ubiquiti, TP-Link and Grandstream and have not had any issues nor have I seen any nefarious traffic (which I do look for). We can only watch what happens. I'm 99.999% sure it won't affect me north of the border 🇨🇦 but there's always that long shot.

[@TheSparkybon]

Curious what does " BUT... OFFICIALLY... they are Chinese" mean. What is the link to Chinese government with Synology??

[@TransitAndTeslas]

Ban them all except for UniFi. Ban Cisco. Ban Netgear. 😂😂

[@dn7923]

Unifi will just hand out your credentials and pretend it didn't happen, no back door needed.

[@looseycanon]

@@dn7923 Which is the point! :D

[@TheSparkybon]

MiKroTik ??

[@WillieHowe]

@@TheSparkybon see my tik comment above

[@looseycanon]

You sadist!

[@ArthursHD]

How about Mikrotik?

[@WillieHowe]

While they make a great product they aren't quite as drop in and replace as the three I mentioned.

[@Practical-IT]

Thanks Willie. I always thought Omada was just a Unifi knock-off. Much happier with my plan to move to GS products.

[@jacksukerman5150]

It is, but performs better and is cheaper so..... ??

[@wiziek]

Was it? Like one car is knock off or another?

[@jacksukerman5150]

@@wiziek the u6 lite does 80mhz. The tplink aps do 160hz and are nearly half the money. And the the tplink software is just as good imo. I always thought ubiquity was overpriced but I didn't consider it was subsidised to backdoor me. In the end.... price is attractive and they probably aren't watching me

[@looseycanon]

@@jacksukerman5150 Well, using 160mhz or even 80mhz can be problematic, though. I never used anything above 40mhz on the count of having many legacy devices, but even if I had state of the art stuff, I'd be hard pressed using those higher ranges, because just on the channels I use, I have four "neighbours" and those are the least populated ones. You can imagine, what evening would look like if I tried to move a file.

[@jacksukerman5150]

@looseycanon I'm the same i set a custom 2.4 wifi network to run at 20mhz for anything old, then run 5ghz/6ghz on the wider bands on the dfs frequencies. Most home kit doesn't use the high ranges

[@Airbear50]

I did return my Tp link wifi 7 router. There was no firmware update when I was setting it up...too old the one that it had. I am keeping my smart plugs.

[@WillieHowe]

@@Airbear50 If it's a full out TP-Link ban it's gonna get wild.

[@damiondick7584]

Uncle Sam be on some BS sometimes 😑

[@dank9561]

The issue of manufacturers ending firmware updates too quickly seems to be a common issue among many manufacturers. I bought a TP-Link MR400 4G router during the first Covid wave that's had no firmware updates since 2019. Even my Synology DS1815+ went a year with no DSM updates until they quietly pushed out a security update a couple of weeks ago, possibly after seeing the bad press D-Link got for telling customers to buy a new device to get a critical security patch.

[@buddy19805]

Who cares about firmware last update , just want router to work fine everyday 24/7

[@Optimus02357]

You didn't mention any multigigabit routers. Thumbs down

[@GrishTech]

What’s your use case? Are you in a business or at home? Do you have a multi-gig wan?

[@RobertoCarlos-tn1iq]

so willie gets a thumbs down because he didn't do what YOU wanted?

[@nmf220]

For small business or home office, just make the move to ubiquiti. A little pricier than most of the soho market but well worth the investment and they have a few different platform models

[@Optimus02357]

gl-inet Flint 2. Cheaper/better/safer then anything TPLink has made.