SMC SMC7004VBR Barricade Cable/DSL Router with 4-Port 10/100Mbps Switch

Before I bought this particular router I gave a fair consideration to equivalent products from other manufacturers. My objectives were as follows: a 4-port router with flexible parental controls and reliable firewall at a reasonable price. SMC7004VBR turned out to be a clear winner. Setup can be done in manual (advanced) or assisted (wizard) mode, via a browser interface. I used the advanced option but also verified the wizard afterwards, for completeness of this review. Worth noting is that the router reboots almost every time you click the "apply" button. This results in a temporary loss of communication (~30 sec) between the router and the computer, which may look a little disturbing. Additional note: if you decide to change the router's LAN address, it will reboot with the new IP so the browser needs to follow. All settings are fairly standard except for one: SMC decided to set firewall to OFF by default. So remember to go to the firewall settings and turn it ON manually (and...Read more

I bought this router in August 2004 and I felt really protected for one year. I got this feeling because of the evidence from the router's log (the logging feature is great; not all routers have it). The log showed lots of rejection of unsollicited connections. This logged information me to verify on my own what many articles have stated over the last 2 years: that remaining connected to the Internet exposes your machines to very frequent break-in attempts every single hour. Because of the router (with SPI feature turned on), the software firewall in my computer did not have to face those incoming challenges. Hence my computer's CPU cycles (and good functioning) remained protected from outside interference. This is extremely important, because the more the CPU is sollicited, the more unstable the machine can become.

It's important to go through the advanced manual mode of installation of this SMC router in order to set the security features where they should be. For...Read more

I have an older SMC router which was really great, and had great support, for several years. Then it "became inactive" and now they will do nothing for me. So, the "limited lifetime warranty" is for the lifetime of the product, which was less than 3 years in my case.

Here is the qoute from the web site:
The Limited Lifetime warranty covers a product during the Life of that Product, which is defined as the period of time during which the product is an 'Active' SMC product. A product is considered to be `Active' while it is listed on the current SMC price list. As new technologies emerge, older technologies become obsolete and SMC will, at its discretion, replace an older product in its product line with one that incorporates these newer technologies. At that point, the obsolete product is discontinued and is no longer an 'Active' SMC product.