Mikrotik Routerboard RB2011

Our old Linksys router started acting up with randomly dropping connections and just plain. I did some research because I knew there had to be something more stable than this one. It was always pretty unstable. Most of the ones we’ve used have not been that great since the early Linksys one.

I came across a forum post about Mikrotik, so I looked into it. Seemed not to be all that user-friendly, but I love learning new things. It had a quick setup, which made it easy to get going out of the box, and once it was up and running, we never had any dropped connections, unlike in the past. It covered the whole house well, not to mention the front porch, where we were starting to spend more time when it got nicer out.

Over time, I learned more about networking, fiddled with the settings and whatnot in WinBox, and was pleased with it. It always worked and has been 100% reliable in the year or so we’ve used it. The only times it didn’t work were when I fucked something up. Keep in mind, I learn by doing and experimenting. The RB2011 isn’t for you if you want something that does everything for you quickly, but WinBox and WebFig are pretty straightforward to use. Just not dumbed down like consumer-grade stuff. Winbox runs just fine in Wine, so that’s a plus. Sure, Winbox is a bit more complex than I’m used to, but it’s clean and easy enough to find the information you need.

This is an excellent network device. The only time there’s ever no connection is when it’s rebooting or if the power goes out.

Updates - did I mention it receives regular software updates? That’s a rarity with anything these days. Companies care that you buy it, then no longer care to keep the product secure and functional. Unlike most other electronic devices, I haven’t noticed any degradation in performance with the software updates either