ASUS rolled out an update to its firmware (3.0.0.6.102_34791) that now requires users to be over the age of 16 and to send a slew of metrics and data back to ASUS. If you do not agree or do not check the box to verify you are 16y or older, you cannot use the router. At this time, I’m not sure if ASUS has meant to disable the router for anyone under 16 or if it’s a bug.
You can opt out at any time but lose access to a slew of features:
Please note that users are required to agree to share their information before using DDNS, Remote Connection (ASUS Router APP, Lyra APP. AiCloud, AiDisk), AiProtection, Traffic analyzer, Apps analyzer, Adaptive QoS, Game Boost and Web history. At any time, users can search the contents of the terms at this page or stop sharing their information with other parties by choosing Withdraw.
Moreover, ASUS disables automatic firmware updates and worse, all security upgrades unless you opt into the data sharing. Security upgrades perform the following:
Security upgrade incorporates security measures that continuously update its security file and scans to protect against malware, malicious scripts, and emerging threats in order to secure the router and ensure system stability. Some upgrades addressing important security issues or meeting legal/regulatory requirements will still be downloaded and installed automatically, even if “Security Upgrade” is turned off.
Edit: I have personally contacted their CEO’s office, but if others would like to voice their disapproval as well, here is a link: https://www.asus.com/us/support/article/787/
deleted by creator
Unfortunately, lots of ASUS routers (especially the “gamer” oriented ones) use Broadcom chipsets. Broadcom support is severely lacking, (because Broadcom has refused to allow open source drivers) so in many cases switching to openwrt will severely cripple the router. Even basic shit like WiFi will stop working, because there isn’t a WiFi driver available.
Fresh tomato does Broadcom.
deleted by creator
Give it a minute: Tech Jesus and his Nexus friends are having a great time with ASUS recently. I’m sincerely looking forward to how far they take things.
Who is this “Tech Jesus”?
Stephen Burke, Editor-in-Chief and founder of Gamers Nexus. They do computer hardware reviews, consumer advocacy and sometimes even investigative journalism. Steve has a majestic mane, earning him that nickname.
See https://gamersnexus.net/ and https://www.youtube.com/@GamersNexus
Ah, fair enough.
Top level comment to remind the Open WRT fanboys that this ASUS router uses a Broadcom chipset, which is not supported on OpenWRT. Been seeing it recommended by a lot of replies to comments when it won’t be helpful in this case, since Broadcom chips don’t have open drivers
However, freshtomato is another router firmware, that isn’t as feature rich or well supported as opwnwrt, but is focused on supporting broadcom chipsets.
https://wiki.freshtomato.org/doku.php/hardware_compatibility
I flashed it to my netgear router with a broadcom chipset, it works wonderfully!
Yeah I’ve stayed out of those because it’s just felt like a knee jerk without actually even reading anything. “Someone said something critical about a router firmware, quick put OpenWRT on blast!” 😏
I remember seeing that Openwrt is working on getting their own hardware sometime in the future. Might be worth looking at when the time comes. I’ll stick with merlin until that goes the same way.
never use stock router firmware
Any other open source alternative you recommend?
Usually it’s OpenWRT
openwrt or ddwrt
openwrt
Next DEFCON is in two months, can’t wait to see them get absolutely pwned.
Asus would do good in hiring a real lawyer. Parents accept, kid uses router, data collected of child, illegal. So easy to rip them a new one.
Asus went the bad way. Check out louis rossman vídeos about asus, héroes one of them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHQqKi9NcTs It is a company to be avoided. It went the non ethical way.
It went the non ethical way.
Sadly, you can swap Asus with pretty much any popular company’s name and it still holds true.
Gamers nexus mentioned two decent brands (arctic and fractal) in their most recent video about Asus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYdtpU8FKO8 around the 11:11 mark
But yes, sadly most popular companies seem to be garbage nowadays.
Yes… But some more than others
Every other company seems to charge for parental controls. It’s so stupid, I don’t need another fee just because I have a child in my life.
I wanted to degoogle, so I looked for a new router and ended up with an Asus.
Is Asus just asking to have a shitload of lawsuits?
It doesn’t seem like they give a shit. This is the company that strong armed NexusGaming with their repairs and have scammed a slew of people thru their warranty system.
If you search for “ASUS repair scam” they have a sorted history of this kind of douchery.
And in return Gamers Nexus is teaching all of their viewers what their consumer rights are, and how to report fraudulent activity to the proper regulatory authorities. This isn’t the first time Gamers Nexus has gotten regulatory agencies involved with computer part manufacturers fucking over customers, and the history of those incidents didn’t go very well for other companies involved.
On the other hand Gamers Nexus has also gone out of their way to point out companies that have done the right thing when issues came up, to make sure those companies are getting kudos for NOT fucking over consumers. Because sadly that’s all we really want.
If the FTC gets enough complaints to warrant the manpower to investigate ASUS warranty fraud, there is no doubt in my mind that they’re gonna be fucked based on what we’ve seen so far.
Watching the GN video was insane because I had that exact same experience with ASUS 10 years ago. Back when they made the Nexus 7. I had to RMA 3 of those dam things and each time I had to go through that song and dance with the RMA forms. I think when the 4th one failed I just gave up, recycled it, and moved on from this company as a whole.
Looks like nothing’s changed, which means this way of treating their customers is endemic at this point. They’re a lost cause.
My experience was similar, but I gave up after my first RMA because I saw everyone else going through the same thing. The N7 started as such a delight and ended up as one of worst product experiences.
That’s brutal that they get away with that crap. I will never buy anything ASUS branded again. They are on my embargo list now, right under Sony, which I haven’t purchased a single thing from them for about 18 years since they screwed me out of repairs on my phone. Only way IMO.
Yes.
How many 14 year olds can afford a lawyer?
All you need is one lawyer in this case to handle the class action lawsuit that would follow. There is power in numbers.
A class action lawsuit with a related FTC warranty fraud investigation is a pretty tough thing to fight.
No need, they can just lie :)
Okay ASUS is out. Recommendations?
There’s a few routes (pun intended) you could go.
DIY with opnsense on an old PC will give you the most flexibility and will allow you to build your router to your exact needs.
Ubiquiti is also another choice albeit a contentious one. Their hardware is pretty good which also doesn’t require a recurring charge to use (unfortunately rare when you get into the enterprise grade gear). The software side is where people have such mixed feelings as for consumers and prosumers it’s pretty good but when you start getting into enterprise level configurations you’ll find their software pretty lacking. For example if you need a L3 switch for inter VLAN routing you’ll want to go with a different vendor as ubiquiti’s L3 is practically broken.
And Ubiquiti’s support is non-existent. Don’t get me wrong, I like their hardware, and their software works just fine for my needs, especially at their price point. But if you have issues, you’re searching forums or are SOL.
Ruckus gear is pretty good too, though I don’t have much hands-on experience with it. And it’s expensive. Like really expensive.
I’ve actually never had any problems with their support the two times I had to RMA some dead products but maybe I’ve been lucky.
They’ll RMA just fine, but I was speaking more to software support.
You can also get a Celeron-based (for example with a N100) fanless mini-pc meant for use as DIY routers like these and install something like pfSense on it.
Personally my really old router still does what I need so I’m leaving it be, though I’ve replaced my media box and my NAS with a similar device running Lubuntu but can’t really make it also be the router since it only has 1 ethernet port.
Synology seems ok to me.
Man, idk. I installed WRT Merlin in hopes this doesn’t make it there. OpenWRT is really hard to get onto routers. Even the ones that support it (which tend to be pretty dated) have a ton of hurdles or restrictions as manufacturers really don’t want to lose the telemetry.
Asus makes great hardware unfortunately. Some of the fastest and most performant routers out there. Moreover, they don’t rely on subscriptions to gate some of the features like pretty much every one else.
I tried TP Link and Netgear (if their “legendary” Nighthawk) and the Asus just blew them away on every level. Especially stability and reliability.
deleted by creator
Something with OpenWRT. Turris Omnia is pretty good.
If I bought one of their routers and this came up, I would simply be returning it and giving the person at the counter a printout as to why. Sorry, but this router is not “suitable for purpose”. Look up that phrase and “merchantability”.
Agree. Straight back for refund. In Australia we can legally choose the manufacturer, or the retailer. I’d go straight to Asus, to give them the message directly.
For the downvoters, in the US:
https://www.findlaw.com/consumer/consumer-transactions/what-is-the-warranty-of-merchantability.html
The implied warranty of merchantability guarantees that a product sold to you will work for its intended purposes. In other words, it means you can expect a toaster to toast your bread. If it doesn’t, you have legal protection against losing money on a product that doesn’t work.
If you bought the router expecting it to work as advertised, you may make a claim if it doesn’t. They would have to spell out ahead of time what the limitations and requirements are in order to avoid trouble.
You have no claim. The update does not disable the router and even if you opt out, the router itself still functions, except with a few additional features missing. Telemetry and data collection does not void a warranty. There is no claim here.
Protecting your network from internet-bound threats is one of the most important jobs of a router, and that involves receiving security updates. Once your router no longer receives security updates, you should stop using it.
That depends on how the product is marketed. If the product has any of those disabled features on the box and doesn’t outright say you need to send them telemetry data to use it, then you could argue that you bought it for that feature and can’t use it.
For instance, maybe I want to use the VPN feature, so I bought a router that supports that. And now I’m locked out of that feature unless I agree to a miles long privacy policy and sharing my telemetry data.
Plus, the lack of security updates is, at best, extremely concerning. The firewall’s primary function is to act as a first line of defense against attacks coming in via WAN. They have locked those security updates behind the telemetry sharing, and therefore it can’t even be used as a proper firewall.
That would be for the legal system to decide. If you purchased it for a specific advertised feature, and that feature was disabled unless unspoken terms were agreed to, you would have a case.
I would rather not have less options in this world and force companies not to be dicks. I guess to each their own. My router is also 2y old so no returns available.
Fantastic. Time to deliver opnsense and/or pfsense to the masses. Or better, recycle a router with openwrt or similar
I mean if you’re using their servers for all of that cloud management can you really expect them not to take a look? You can buy a router and install open source firmware that doesn’t scrub your data or keep giving money to giant corporations that put profits over customers.
I guess I’m not updating my routers anymore then. Sucks though. It seemed to be the only Asus product that wasn’t garbage.
That sucks too because you miss out security fixes. I would rather run a secure and up to date firmware that leaks data to ASUS than one with known security exploits. If those were my only options.
I’d rather update it as well. But the routers are behind my ISP router and aren’t externally accessible. The attack surface is smaller in that regard. I’m not happy with the thought of an unpatched router. Maybe I can hold out long enough for merlin to support my routers.
I dont think the latest few updates I did mentioned any security updates. Only bugfixes.
I’ll tackle the problem when it presents itself I guess.
Should I need a new motherboard, which vendor would you guys recommend that’s not crap (as a company)? Gigabyte? GamersNexus had a few very negative reports on MSI as well.
IMO, ASRock.
Considering that they’re probably the only mobo manufacturer that officially supports using consumer AM4 CPUs on a server (see ASRock Rack), and always supported ECC ram on all AM4 motherboards - and that I haven’t had anything negative happen with any of their products so far (at work) - I personally would choose ASRock next.
Haven’t had the chance to try them for AM5 yet, sadly.
I had an ASRock X570 Taichi once. It had a great feature set, but unfortunately every few cold boots the BIOS would completely forget all settings and reset everything to default. This may have been related to my memory’s XMP profile, but the same memory ran just fine with XMP and the exact same CPU on a much older ASUS X370 Crosshair VI Hero. So I eventually switched to the ASUS ROG Strix B550-E, which was/is a very good board I would say. So naturally, I went with the ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E when I switched to AM5, and while the board is generally stable, the Intel NIC has issues the way ASUS configured it (see my reply to the other commenter).
Yeah gigabyte is solid. I was quite happy with the Aorus line up. I have never bought MSI because I’ve always felt them to be cheap and dodgy. So not surprised NG was having issues with them.
I hate gigabyte with a passion. The 980Ti Gaming G1 has explosion issues (literally) including mine and some other people. They didn’t step up. Then there’s the PSU debacle. There was an r/fuckgigabyte for a reason. I think just AsRock is left?
The GIGABYTE B650E AORUS Master looks quite interesting with its 4 PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe slots. I eventually settled for the ASUS ROG Strix B650E-E though when I got my Ryzen 7000 CPU at the beginning of last year, but if I got to choose again it wouldn’t be an ASUS board.
The mainboard I have is mostly fine (great even, in terms of general stability), but ASUS fucked up their version of the firmware or power management of the Intel 2.5 GbE adapter so it can just completely die after a few hours under Linux, and sometimes get the connection speed wrong under Windows. A workaround under Linux is to disable PCIe power management entirely in the Linux kernel parameters (
pcie_aspm.policy=performance pcie_port_pm=off), but that’s hardly ideal. I don’t see myself spending hundreds of dollars on a new mainboard just because of this issue though. ASUS fails to even acknowledge the issue.
