Linksys R.I.P. (At least IMO)

RhoXS

Member
Aug 14, 2010
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I just read where Cisco sold Linksys to Belkin. My instincts tell me this will be the end of Linksys branded products being a reasonably quality entity. I also think the large Linksys product line will be reduced to only a few high volume devices. In other words, I do not think the Linksys brand name will continue to be a major player in the consumer networking market competing with Netgear, D-Link, etc. Although I have not exclusively purchased Linksys products over the years I have purchased a lot of their equipment and it has and does serve me well. I find it sad to see the Linksys name fall into what I perceive is the sleezy side of the marketing arena where their full product line will probably be decimated and it will now be marketed to those that really have no real clue with respect to what they are buying.

I perceive Belkin as a company that has issues with ethics as has been demonstrated by some of their infamous behavior over the years (Routers redirecting URLs to a Belkin add, paying for good reviews, etc.). I also perceive Belkin's business model supports marketing products only of a minimal quality and functionality sufficient to support the relatively uninformed buyer.

I am sure others might disagree with me and I have nothing but opinions formed by reading various articles and reviews over the years. Nevertheless, it just feels like an obituary for Linksys is in order.
 
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Danimal1209

Senior member
Nov 9, 2011
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As long as it carries the linksys name, people will buy it.

But, I believe the linksys quality has gone down in recent years.
 

rsutoratosu

Platinum Member
Feb 18, 2011
2,716
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my new e4200 under cisco is awesome... 0 problems, more reliable than my wrt54g.. and i own tons of those, had 3-4 wrt54g and wap54g deploy all around..
 

MontyAC

Diamond Member
Feb 28, 2004
4,112
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I have a refurbished E4200 v2 and it is running great. Per inSSIDer, it's running at full speed, 450 Mbps on each channel.
 

JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
29,513
407
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None of the Brand Names that market Entry Level Network devices is Good or Bad.

Each one has few decent models and a lot of crappy ones.

The very famous/popular Linksys WRT54GL, as is it is a crappy device. It just happned to be (in its time) an excellent b/g device when flashed with 3rd party firmware.

The E4200v1 is a very good device as is (probably the only as is Good Model Linksys ever made).

In other words AFAIC there is No real reason to get sad if Linksys is No more.



:cool:
 

ImDonly1

Platinum Member
Dec 17, 2004
2,357
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76
I feel Asus or Buffalo will take over if Linksys fades away. Asus is putting out some quality routers (RT-N66) although they are pricey.

Buffalo makes some nice affordable routers than run open source firmware.

All brands have their best and worst products though. Normally D-Link isn't associated with quality but some of their routers like the dir-655 and their gaming routers (although overpriced) are pretty reliable. Same with Netgear, their WNDR3700 is pretty popular and reviewed well.


The WRT54G and its variants were super popular though especially because of their support for dd-wrt, tomato, etc. I feel it is what got open source firmware so popular. I don't remember other router manufacturers doing open source firmware until Linksys did it?
 
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JackMDS

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 25, 1999
29,513
407
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At the time there might be few other Wireless routers that could use the 3rd party firmware. The guy that started it (I forgot his name but it was an American guy that lived in Sweden) started with the WRT54G.

In the first few years of the 3rd party firmware Linksys actually tried to fight against it.

Only later on they relize that it is Acualy good for them and starting with v4 they offered a special DD-WRT version.



:cool: