reviews shortcuts
|
Compex NetPassage 15BA Cable/DSL Router with built-in 4-port 10/100 MBps switch and Parallel Broadband capability.
Quick Index:
Security: The first thing I had to check is the security of the firewall on this router. Everyone these days is very concerned with security; hackers are very aggressive and can cause serious damage to your infrastructure, the one thing you want to be sure of is that no one can get in (or out) of your network to cause trouble. This router does come with a built in hardware Firewall. Some routers have what's called a DMZ which allows you to place one computer out of the Firewall protection, such as if you are running a server. However this router does not have that feature, instead it's Port Forwarding capabilities are supposed to take care of all your needs as to what ports need to be forwarded. Lets see what the security is like with the default settings and nothing port forwarded. The first program I wanted to try is a program called LeakTest from GRC.com What this program does is attempt to connect to the GRC main server to see how good your firewall is at caching OUTBOUND signals from your computer. This is important to know because of the threat of SpyWare. SpyWare in a nutshell are programs running in the background that take information from your computer about the things you do and send it off to a server to collect information about you without your knowledge or consent. The LeakTest program tests to see whether your firewall is stopping outbound traffic from your PCs. If it DOES stop it then that means SpyWare is useless on your computers and you are protected with great privacy. If the LeakTest goes through that means outbound communication can occur and SpyWare, if you have any on your computer, can send it's information to it's servers.. As you can see, this router did NOT pass this test with its default configuration. Keep in mind that some programs use standard ports, and in order to have a functioning Internet connection you will have to open some ports :)
Next up is GRC's famous Shields UP! and Port Detector. As you can see from the Shields Test Port 139 is totally stealth and my Net BIOS is totally locked up tight, great news so far. Test Setup
Speed For my download testing what I did was disconnect my router and plug the cable modem straight into my computer so that there would be nothing in between and downloaded a huge 80MB file from a server that is on a major backbone that I always get the highest speeds from and they are always constant for me. At downloading without the Router I got a constant 440KB/sec which is the MAX download throughput my line is capped at. Then I setup the router and did the exact same test with only about a 5 minute period between the test and I still got a constant 440KB/sec my max download cap. Therefore I can conclude the Router did not slow down my download speed at ALL given all conditions are equal.
Post your review/comments
rate:
avg:
|