NetGear FVS318G ProSafe 8-Port Gigabit VPN Firewall

• Average user rating: 1.0 stars out of 5 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 1 stars

  Horrible Device, Netgear is replacing router

  by xanthaos on February 9, 2011

  Pros: The product description and technical specifications

  Cons: The fact that the router lives up to none of these specifications. I am willing to answer factual questions regarding the nature of the failure and the failed attempts to resolve the failure, just contact me.

  Summary: I am an IT technical user with strengths in networking and security. Prior to implementing this router in my network, I contacted Netgear concerning functionality and stability. I was assured ...

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  Summary: I am an IT technical user with strengths in networking and security. Prior to implementing this router in my network, I contacted Netgear concerning functionality and stability. I was assured that the router was completely stable. However, on receiving and setting up the router, I experienced immediate and critical failures. When I contacted Netgear, they informed me that this device has a list of known issues. So far the only function that works correctly is that the LED's flash and light up as expected. Contradiction anyone? Here is a list of the issues, attempted fixes, and results:
  
  The router comes stock with the 3.0.6-16 firmware. At least once every 24 hours, most often many more times every day, the router will experience a clock skew to Dec 31, 1969. This severe clock skew results in a de-validation of the DHCP leases on both the LAN and WAN sides, thus disconnecting every device connected to the router. In order to regain connectivity, the router must be restarted by unplugging and replugging the power. This issue has been documented in detail in many sets of logs I maintain.
  
  Netgear will attempt to resolve the issue by having the user dance their way from firmware to firmware, eventually running through all 7 available firmwares (including the beta firmware). To date, the 3.0.7-21 firmware is the most current, and experiences the same problem. In addition, within the new firmware, computers within the network will be dropped back to 100mbps or even 10mbps without cause or explanation. Netgear will then offer to RMA the router with another FVS318G. They are doing this knowing that the fault is affecting the entire line of FVS318G routers. You then spend another month testing firmware and suffering downtime and incurring losses.
  
  In the end of the process, Netgear will offer only one recourse. They will require you to upgrade to the FVS336G, a 4 port gigabit router. This is regardless of your infrastructure needs or regardless the fact that the FVS336G has been reviewed and shown to be unstable as well. In order to upgrade you are required to pay an additional $120 dollars for the transition to the new device. If your network needs more than 4 ports, the cost of an additional switch is also yours to burden.
  
  Netgear's equipment is showing increasingly negative trends in stability, resulting in huge amounts of downtime. Additionally, Netgear's customer service is the poorest I have ever encountered. They acknowledge that they have misinformed you about the device, offer no recompense for having been blatantly lied to before the purchase, constantly pressure you to purchase their service contracts on an unstable device, and end with bullying you into spending more money for a replacement that is both unstable (according to many reviews) and may not even suit your networking needs. They are outright refusing other options to replace the router, insisting rather that you pour more money into an already costly loss situation.
  
  In the end, my faith, as an IT and Networking savvy and educated customer, is somewhere between shaky and shattered. As stated in my cons, I am willing to share factual and documented experiences with those who require further information. I am not just some guy with an axe to grind. As a professional I do not wish to see home users or professionals suffer the same problems and losses that I have had to endure. I am currently reviewing many other devices, and will potentially update this review later with an alternative recommendation to this complete waste of LED's.

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  3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  Complete waste of time!

  by Jeffreyp16 on January 10, 2011

  Pros: Nothing! Nothing at all!

  Cons: Everything

  Summary: On the box its a VPN/firewall/router. Well the thing is nothing more than a good door stop. It crashes all the time and takes forever to reboot. This ...

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  Summary: On the box its a VPN/firewall/router. Well the thing is nothing more than a good door stop. It crashes all the time and takes forever to reboot. This is not acceptable when trying to run a business. And trying to get the VPN setup, which is the main reason for purchase, is a nightmare. Save yourself the gas from the trip to return it and just don't buy it to begin with.

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  2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  Didn't meet even my limited expectations

  by TM_YYC on November 21, 2010

  Pros: It is an eight port gigabit router, seemingly the only affordable one.

  Cons: The firmware is horrendously buggy, I need to pull the plug almost daily after it freezes. Doesn't support jumbo-packets in those rare moments it isn't frozen.

  Summary: The problems with this router are well documented, it is just a third rate product. Hopefully a firmware upgrade will make it usable someday.

  Summary: The problems with this router are well documented, it is just a third rate product. Hopefully a firmware upgrade will make it usable someday.

  2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 3 stars

  very confusing device, with limited capabilities.

  by Peter.Ebbelink on December 16, 2011

  Pros: it works, kinda, for limited needs.
  Has EIGHT ports all GIG !
  small form factor.

  Cons: confusing interface.
  confusing nomenclature.
  Very limited functionality.
  Poorly documented.
  Not everything works (as expected)

  Summary: My set up is multi extermal IP-addresses and NAT.
  This is supported only very limited (one IP-address for the NAT, the others could be used by fw rules (does not ...

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  Summary: My set up is multi extermal IP-addresses and NAT.
  This is supported only very limited (one IP-address for the NAT, the others could be used by fw rules (does not work yet)
  The interface is confusing.
  They are using confusing names for functionality.
  Very limited functionality: Differentiates only between LAN and WAN.
  Multi external IP-addresses support is dreadful and confusing to configure (and I'm an IT-pro)
  DMZ support not documented.
  Multi-homed configuration not documented properly, not functioning as expected.
  I expected yet another implementation of mono, pf, iptables, but nothing of the kind.
  Very elementary, very limited.
  No support for VLAN-tagging
  All seven ports are treated equal. (DMZ is treated seperate)
  No IPv6 support.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 4 stars

  DMZ not documented. Netgear Forums no help.

  by zampaz on March 13, 2010

  Pros: Nice reports and logging. Easy setup for most customers/

  Cons: The documentation for the DMZ configuration is minimal. Poor online support.

  Summary: If you were thinking of buying this router and putting your clients public WAP (WRT300N) in the DMZ forget it.
  The WAP in the DMZ won't see the RTR ...

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  Summary: If you were thinking of buying this router and putting your clients public WAP (WRT300N) in the DMZ forget it.
  The WAP in the DMZ won't see the RTR gateway. The Netgear work-around is to put the WAP on a RTR LAN port, and use DHCP to assign the WAP an IP address . Great work around. Put the wireless access point behind the firewall and on the same network as the Physician, the Accountant and your mothers attorney. I don't think so.
  You are not allowed to use the same subnet for the DMZ that the primary router uses so your WAP can't see the 318G gateway to the internet. Configure your WAP to use 10.100 1.x addresses while your 318 is using the 198.168. addresses. I never encountered this issue with the Linksys RVS4000.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

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