Is this a trusted tool
 

Can I trust this download? Experiencing internet problem and speed issue on and off.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Assets/Gu...2022.13-XL.jpg

Is this a good tool to speed up my internet? Thanks

there are a few small technical tweaks you could do on your network connection, but its likely an issue with your wifi (neighbor sharing same channel etc) or congestion at ISP

i would never download a tool to do it. scam/unwanted tool

Agreed. What kinds of issues are you experiencing? Is it just certain websites or all of them? Run a couple of speed tests (www.speedtest.net) and see if you get about what you pay for.

Try plugging in and disabling wifi, and see if that helps. If so, change the wifi channel on your router for both frequency bands.

• The 2.4GHz network should be on channel 1, 6, or 11 with a 20MHz channel width.
• The 5.8GHz network can be on any channel with a 40MHz or 80MHz channel width.

See if any of that helps.

Stay away from tools like this. They are crapware and don't really help anything and can just cause even worse problems.

There may be problems that are within your control to fix, such as checking to see what channels your wifi networks are using and moving to less crowded ones if you have nearby neighbors who are using the same channels. However there are also many problems that may be 100% outside your control to fix, including:
- If only certain websites are being slow, those systems may be overloaded. For example, if you're trying to log on to a system hosted by your employer that all your other coworkers are trying to access too.
- If all websites are slow, but only at certain times of day, your node may be overloaded with your ISP. Even though you may have a connection rated "up to" a certain speed, it's really a shared pipe with all your neighbors. With everybody working from home and kids streaming media, etc., that shared pipe may be full in which case everybody's speeds start to get dragged down.

Thank you all for your suggestions.

I am always skeptical of any downloads, you guys confirmed it. Thanks.

I had experienced this problem on and off for sometime, and way before the current "Shelter in Place".
I had unplugged (or reset the router), problem seemed to go away, but returned days or hours later. I have tried to switch channels as well. Result was ok until the next occurrence.
The connections to the network affected are the devices such as phones and ipad, laptop etc. My desktop is hard wired so it always works albeit with varying speeds. Calling the service provider (Xfinity) has been a total waste of time.

ANyway, thank you again.

if your router isn't a good router, likely this daily reset is the best way to go

Is your modem provided by Xfinity? If so it may be old and not up to current speed specs.

I bought the latest version and saw a 30% speed improvement and no more rental fees.

How can you tell if the modem is old version?
What model is your that boosts speed by 30%? I am not aware that Xifinity allows you to provide your own modem (much prefer).
Thank you.

As an IT guy I would be amazed if this was anything but a malware installer.

Xfinity does allow you to buy a modem and has a list of compatible ones on its website. I signed up in September for the first time and bought a modem at Best Buy. A year of renting a modem is enough to buy one.

Thanks for this info.
Care to mention which model from Best Buy. I am incline to buy one.

The Arris Surfboards have been fantastic.

The SB6141 is good for up to just shy of 350 megabits/sec and the SB6190 is good for about 600... while Comcast is starting to tell people they’re outdated because they are DOCSIS 3.0, the reality is they’re cheap and fast enough for most current cable packages. But if you either have a faster package now or you want something more future-proof, the SB8200 is DOCSIS 3.1 and goes all the way out to 10 gigabits/sec.

Both of the above are cable modems only. If your current unit also serves as a wireless router, or you have Xfinity voice service, you’d need additional or different hardware.

Check other places besides Best Buy. Office Depot and Amazon are often cheaper.

Netgear Nighthawk AC1900, all-in-one modem/router.

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Here is my 2 cents to OP:

1. I could be wrong about this - Usually, what you described generally associate with an aging router. In my experience, normal wear and tear will deteriorate the quality of WiFi connection. The only solution is to replace the router.

While I agree with others that you should own your equipment to save the money, because you are on a rental, you should contact Comcast for a new one before you can buy and install the new equipment. Just tell them that your router is not working properly.

2. All speeds published by any ISPs are "up to". Basically, an ISP will guarantee its speed, at the minimum, the top speed of the next lower level. For example, if your plan is Comcast's 100Mbps. Then the minimum you can get will be 25Mbps. If you can get anything beyond that, then Comcast consider you have no issue in term of speed.

3. It is almost not worthy to tweak around the OS for a higher speed. What impacts your speed the most is where you connect. For example, if you have a poor quality with Netflix, the chance is Netflix's connections are at peak instead of your connection. Instead, doing anything around your OS can cause more problems that it seems.

Got mine at Costco. $169, I think.

I've stopped wasting time with retail consumer grade routers. It's almost like they're designed to fail after ~two years. I'm a heavy internet/VPN user. They all overheat/lock up occasionally (requiring a reboot) if you put a load on them or a high number of concurrent connections. And don't get me started on the crappy firmware they have and they rarely update. If you do go consumer grade, don't spend more than $100 or so.

It's not too much more expensive to step up to a prosumer type product like the Ubiquity AC PRO access points. Slightly more difficult to setup, but well worth the effort.

Yesterday I moved my 5ghz network to another channel and speed increased by about 8x.

Don't know why you have so much trouble with routers. I'm currently using Netgear WNDR3700, WNDR4500 and R9000 routers that have all been functioning flawlessly since new. I also have a Linksys EA8500 that has been trouble free. The R9000 is the workhorse, providing our primary internet gateway and hosting multiple dozens of devices and 3 HD/4K streams most evenings.

Thanks for info for the cable modems. My unit also serves as a wireless router. I used to have their voice service, but no longer.

Thank you. I will keep it in mind.

Thank you for your input.
I have contacted Xfinity re the equipment twice. Both times they kept saying that I should reset router and restart. They did not think there was a problem with the hardware. It is quite frustrating to talk to them, wait time was long and the nonsense that they gave me!

I agree that it is not worthy to tweak the OS. Beside, that is way beyond me anyway!

Thank you very much. :tu:

That means you are not a heavy user yet.

FWIW - routers do not usually last as long as computers. With a few exceptions, routers are one of the electronic appliances in a home that people do not power down. In addition, routers' exterior are plastic without any active heat reduction measures. So unlike a computer, a router is destined to fail. It is only a matter of when.

They are taught to say this, as it costs. You should do this:

1. If no router, tell the rep either issue a credit on the account. Also, escalate if available.

2. Bring your router for an exchange at a physical Comcast store (if they are still open).

For a novice, there's nothing wrong with your setup...except with that many different devices, you're likely causing a ton of unnecessary noise. Instead of having 4 APs, you could probably just use two prosumer APs and get a better experience.

I have trouble with retail routers, for the reasons I mentioned. More specifically: Poor design, cheap under powered components, buggy firmware with little functionality, and slow updates to fix CVEs. We have 4 people in our house including two teenagers. Streaming/gaming is near constant. I work from home (even pre-CV19). We use a ton of data, over 50GB/day on average. We run multiple VPN connections, both in and out. We have a Gigabit fiber ISP connection, multiple APs with overlaid SSIDs and separate VLANs. Netgear and Linksys junk doesn't stand a chance in our house. Right now, I can pull 500Mbps up and down via wifi (with over 50 other devices connected to 2 APs) to my local speedtest server. Good luck with that on retail devices.

The only retail router/APs I would touch are those that will take a good opensource firmware, like dd-wrt, pfsense, etc. However, that doesn't fix the under powering issues, they still eventually burn up.

Define "heavy user."

If your usage is so atypical (24/7 site mirroring/bittorrent/4K streaming, etc) then your purchasing advice is pretty much useless for the vast majority of home users.

I work from home, am often connected to multiple VPNs concurrently, have essentially two active households where the primary entertainment is streamed content to 4K-capable devices using services that deliver much of their content in 4K.

Oh, and btw, the R9000 does have active cooling, but is still categorized a "consumer" router.

I have a large property that could well be described as a "compound," with multiple dwellings and outbuildings. They're bridged using MoCA 2 adapters over an existing cable infrastructure; this has provided rock-solid service since we moved here 3 years ago. The WNDR3700 and 4500 are running dd-wrt. Until very recently, buggy ath10k drivers for the R9000 prevented me from taking advantage of dd-wrt on that device. Fortunately, Netgear has, as of late, been fairly responsive in addressing CVEs. I do plan to move to dd-wrt once the latest betas prove their stability. The EA8500 (which was gifted to me by Linksys as part of a promotion) serves as the guest network for the main house. It's currently running the latest Linksys release, but since it's behind the firewall and rarely used, switching to dd-wrt hasn't been a priority. All are configured with careful consideration of channel selection, and bandwidth/latency across all routers is excellent.

My usage isn't too far off from yours; we're averaging 30-40GB per day. The R9000 is directly supporting 50+ devices and all of the internet traffic; it's not even breaking a sweat.

That's good to know. Maybe they've turned a corner. I used to be a big netgear fan, but they lost me 5-10 years ago. Maybe notsomuch that they lost me, just that Ubiquiti came along at a not much higher price point. A few years ago I tried to dd-wrt a Costco version of the R7000 (I think it was like the R7100), and it failed miserably. Ended up putting the default firmware on and returning it. That was the last retailish router I've used for the home network. For some of the seminars I put on I use dd-wrt on an old ASUS RT-68U (I think that's the model) and it works fantastic (for just a local network to collaborate and get files from a server) and that device is about a decade old. I've burned one of those up (before I used dd-wrt) but I have two others that have been pretty good.

One of these days I'll have a "compound". :D

One of the nice things about having APs aware of each other is that they can automatically manage their channels and also make sure not to step on each other.

You will know if you are one.

I won't say this is heavy. You are connected. But this does not mean the router is constantly transferring data.

Good to know. I will keep that in mind.

What router are you using?

I'm a fan of the Asus routers for consumer use. In particular their models which support AIMesh. This allows you to take two or more of their routers and create a mesh network out of them. Of note, you can use different model #s , so if you choose to upgrade your router down the road, you can take your old router and make it a mesh node. They've been solid, don't seem to mind high (90F) ambient temperatures, and I can't think of a time when I've had to reboot one. Plenty of aftermarket firmware choices available for it. Skynet's a nice add-on. The AC68U is pretty much a standard.

For anything beyond normal household use, PFSense + Ubiquiti (UBNT) all the way! I haven't found anything it can't handle. Even ~4,000+ users being fed from 3x WANs on some ratty old desktop PC with a stack of NICs didn't phase it. Used enterprise servers and networking gear can be had for a fraction of its original price, and it's very reliable, even if its 20 years old.

I run pfSense on one of my old BSD boxes. It was a bit painful to setup, years ago but I absolutely love it now. Nowadays you can buy small "routers" (really a PC) that have the SW installed. If I had done the whole network at the same time, I would likely just get one of the Ubiquity gateways (routers) so it integrates better with the Unifi software that I use to manage all my switches and APs.

I use a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X SFP. Cheap, does POE that works with their APs, never had a problem with it. I use the EdgeRouters instead of the Unifi gateways (which are managed via controller) because the ERs are more configurable.

I've always been curious about the distinction between those two devices. Does the ER work with the Unifi server software? That's one of my favorite parts of the Ubiquti family is that I can view and manage the status of all my switches and routers on an ipad/iphone app. I'll likely switch over at some point.

No, the ER line doesn't work with the Unifi management software. Each Unifi router has an equivalent ER that is identical hardware but the only difference is whether it's managed via Unifi or standalone. Complicating things, Ubiquiti now has a free service called UNMS that lets you manage EdgeRouters, AirMax bridges, and other non-Unifi stuff via a website and mobile app. But it's separate from/parallel to the Unifi controller.

In general, Unifi only exposes a small part of the functionality available in the equivalent EdgeRouter box. There are hacks that you can do to access non-baseline features in Unifi equipment. They involve uploading custom JSON files to the device to configure those features, and I think you have to do something to get your tweaks to persist after a reboot or reprovision.

There's a public Unifi demo available at demo.ui.com.