AG241 - ADSL2 Gateway with 4-Port Switch product reviews

First off, even though this is an older model router, it still deserves some kudo points for style and practicality. This design will happily stand vertically on either side, as well as flat on it's rubber-based stilt-feet, which hook into a notched top-plate so that you can stack these little babies neatly and safely without the wobbles setting in. To add a cherry, their frontplate has a nice little spot in the top-right corner where you can plant a little label... neat. Great for those multi-line geeks trying to build their own little micro-ISP in the spare bedroom.

As with most Linksys products, installation is a breeze, with colour-coded panels and cables making it a snap, even without the highly detailed brochure. Configuration is about as tricky as your standard ADSL modem, with a few little things here and there worth noting, such as a strong suggestion to deactivate Universal Plug-n-Play (UPnP) in the administration tools tab if you run Win2k/XP... just to protect your system from some of the nastier bugs roaming around out there.

Once you have entered all your login info, and have loaded a website direct from the net (May I be so bold as to suggest trying -this one-) then you're ready to dig in and fine tune. There are a number of options...
For the beginners:
    •  Leave it alone, it works, don't mess with it.
For the advanced users:     •  Port Forwarding - 3 flavours
    •  Selective Filtering such as the ability to individually filter out proxy servers, cookies, Java and ActiveX components, though be careful as this can degrade many perfectly safe sites.
    •  Parental Filtering which allows you to create a blacklist of blocked site by nominating keywords or full/partial domain names, though a smart sprog can beat it if they are 'net savvy. (Nothing beats parental observation and earned trust.)
    •  Scheduled Access to allow set hours of access or denial for downline machines on the LAN.
    •  Service Blocking to allow/deny individual applications access to the outside connection.
    •  Logging and Emailing which will allow you to spam the heck out of yourself with hundreds of alerts anytime some scriptkiddie on the greater web pings your machine. (Get the idea this isn't a hit feature?!)
    •  QoS which stands for Quality of Service, allowing you to prioritise your access, eg. Give Skype or Warcraft plenty of bandwidth and allow it to steal from Limewire or something of equally low-importance.

Speed... well, that's pretty hard to nail down, as a lot of that is controlled by the network, rather than the modem... but it sure beats dial-up! Being ADSL2-compliant means you're set for the big speeds as they roll out across our small, but beautiful, nation. We managed some pretty smile-making speeds during some of our tests, but as soon as peak-traffic hours rolled around we slid back to a crawl... still, even that was about 5 times faster than dial-up at it's best!

Overall... many great things going for it, even though it is now a rapidly outdating unit. This is actually a good thing, because it means you'll probably be able to grab one at a bargain price in the big sales around mid-year and in the lead-up to Christmas. For under $200, it's a pretty well-stocked cookiejar of byte-sized packets of goodness. Even though it's hardly 'discrete', it'll still look fairly good on the desk. Do your backups overnight during Christmas, and you won't even need a tree!