I've had one of these routers running for a couple of years now and they are super. Firewall is v-e-r-y good and if you stealth one port it's invisible to the internet stealth tests. I used mine with 6 computers and a print server with sharing throughout. Every computer could access the net independently of any other, could read and write to and from any other computer/drive I had shared, (and I had shared them all), and all could print to the printer without having to go through a server or other computer. So it gave me complete connectivity for everything, everywhere. (BTW, I also had a wireless router set up as a Wireless Access Point and plugged it into one of the ports. Two wireless computers could do everything the same through that one connection, albeit slower being wireless and sharing a port. Connected the WAN port from the wireless router to port 7 on this router.) All in all it's a super performer and met every expectation and requirement I had for it.
First off, the unit I purchased is v2 not v3. Price is right for a backup unit. Speed is slower than the previous routing devices I have used. And the port forwarding and QoS options are more limited. But if you just need a 8 port router for web use, it's a OK unit at a cheap price. Purchase a newer router if you need performance for VoIP or xbox gaming. This unit is not it!
Used to run a small mortgage company and used this router to connect entire sysytem through a cat5 board. My cable internet went directly into the router and the ethernet cables from the router into the cat5 board. I ran a printer, fax, 3 computers, and 3 voip phones with the router. worked great.
Had this router for about 6 weeks now and it's working fine. The only cons to this router is that it's a little dificult to setup. The setup disk that comes with it is useless! It took a couple of hours to get it up and running but since then has been perfect. I would recommend it to anyone that needs a router with more than 4 ports. (this one has 8)
I have use this type of router for several year and have had great results. It was eazy to install and work great. Install disk made it a snap. The firmware was a snap to upgrade.
The router worked well - for a few weeks. Then it decided to stop working (more specifically, none of the 8 ports would recognize that anything was plugged in). It let me make my usual VPN connections though (Nortel Contivity, which the D-Link I had before didn't work with), the port stealthing and HW firewalling was good, and the performance was decent. This router also has QoS, which is great if you're using a VOIP phone. Setup was also pretty straightforward. Too bad it didn't keep working longer (I also had a 4-port BEFSR41, brand new, before this, which was unreliable enough to return to the store.) I have to give Linksys a low rating, despite the fact that the router worked well - it just didn't keep working! And I've read other reviews elsewhere (eg, on Amazon) much to the same effect. Some people seem to have good luck with them though. This specific item was definitely modified before sale (the power supply was replaced), but it seemed fairly clear that the router was slowly going on the blink until it stopped working properly altogether.