Pros: It's been running for me for about 6 years with zero issues. The firewall and router work great. I haven't used the VPN.

Cons: I'm here looking fo Gigabit Routers because it is slowing down my 8 computer network with wifi hotspot from 8mbps down and 6 Mbps upload TO 7mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up.

Pros: Fairly easy to set up, eight wired ports let me ditch my switch, decent web interface

Cons: Reliability. Even before it completely flipped out, it would from time-to-time suddenly lose all connectivity requiring a reboot. In the beginning, it was a month or so between incidents, then later it became weekly or less. A "Reboot daily" option in the web interface should be a big hint here.

In the end, the unit began to exhibit insane latency issues. I'd see ping times rise from 60-80ms to 1900ms, within hours of rebooting the router. Forcing a reboot would resolve this, sometimes for a day or so, other times for mere minutes.

Other Thoughts: I picked this unit up about 18 months ago thinking I'd save some money on the electric bill by scrapping my OpenBSD firewall I'd build a few years back. It was perfect for a while and I was very happy with my choice. I never used the VPN features since you have to pay extra for it and I stopped traveling as much as I used to.

My OpenBSD firewall was rebooted four times in its four-year life, usually when I needed to move its power cord. I am now having to reboot this pile of junk 3-4 times a day. It's trash-heap bound.

Pros: Simple to setup, Durable, Large number of switchports, good throughput. VPN works good too.

Cons: Startup wizard is annoying, and requires you to do it before you can change anything. Not worth docking an egg though.

Other Thoughts: Comes with lifetime support since it's a metal box Netgear product. Netgear VPN client sucks, but box to box connections work fine. I recently deployed one to serve as the router at a boarding house with half a dozen different connections to the internet at any given time. The version 1 of this product is ancient and slow, but the latest (V3) is a nice little racehorse.

Pros: This is a reasonably priced VPN and firewall. It's easy to set up. The (separate) VPN software works great with this box. There are probably things that expensive firewall will do, that this one will not. I don't care. I had a $400 "bridge" brand firewall for a while, but I didn't use any of the extra features.

Cons: It would be nice to have VPN software available that works with Linux.

Pros: This device is the best one for the money. The speed is great and the setup easy to preform. I now have used 3 of these with no errors or issues. The product is worth every penny that it costs.

Cons: None, it just works great!

Other Thoughts: Read the instructions and you should not have any problems.

Pros: Plenty of functioning
cheap
metal casing
etc.

Cons: -keeps going out every so often! not cool netgear! definitely bad..
-doesnt support ipv6
-last firmware update i believe was a year ago?
-vpn functioning is a bit lacking.

Other Thoughts: alright, my main gripe is it every so often requires a reboot.. not cool. the bandwidth running through it isn't even 100kbps, so i know it aint running under stress. hopefully its just mine, but then again.. i dont remember mailing in a warranty card :(

Pros: Good low cost low bandwidth basic home VPN solution

Cons: Doesn't handle high volume, doesn't fail gracefuly and just locks up, won't remotely hit 12Mbps (more like 6)

Other Thoughts: This was a good product when it was released, with the lack of availability of higher speed broadband connections. Today, it will be the bottleneck with a typical cable connection. If pressed to hard expect the device to lock up completely and require a power cycle.

Pros: Dependable VPN solution. Supports 8 concurrent tunnels. Easily configurable. Priced right.

Cons: Could have a little better throughput performance. The AC adapter is VERY cheap but I've only had three out of 100 go bad in two years. There appears to be no upgrade path to IPv6 unless future firmware may support it. This will get critical in about 2 years or less. DO NOT try to enter over about 15 static routes because router locks up and requires a reset

Other Thoughts: I have 100 branch offices that connect to home office (using multiple FVS-338's) throught VPN's. Every once in a while one may need to be restarted to reconnect tunnel, but not very often. Using the VPN client that came with the 338's, laptop connect easily to the 318's. You must allow client to check for newer version during install to get Vista support. Good value for the price. Other than lack of IPv6 support, this is good investment for any SMB. The IPv6 issue may be a deal breaker however. Especially this late in the game.

Pros: Netgear...buy it! And if Newegg is selling it...all the more so. This FVS-318 is a replacement for an FVS-318 that defended my network as a firewall and acted as my network switch for 7 years from 2002 to yesterday when it finally failed after 365x24 service with no downtime during that period!

Cons: Unplugged the old one and plugged in the new one and 5 minutes later my network was back up. The darned original unit only lasted SEVEN YEARS! The new one took five minutes to bring up in place of the old unit. It took 21 hours for a replacement to get to me after ordering. I am a happy man today!
I should have ordered two with one for spare.

Other Thoughts: Ordered it at 4:30 PM yesterday (Thursday) and it arrived at 1:36 PM today (Friday). I asked that it be expedited to UPS Next Air Saver service and Newegg and UPS came through for me and kept my network form being down for the whole long Memorial Day Weekend.

Pros: Works as described and does exactly what it was designed for. This is the least you will pay to get a VPN connection between locations.

Cons: Slightly large, but I rather expected that since it has an 8 port switch in it.

Other Thoughts: I use 4 of these to connect business locations together. I restart them once per month and have has them running over 3 years now with zero down time. Speeds are perfectly fine and I have servers syncing over the VPN at night. If you use them between locations, there is no software to buy. The only time you need the software is if you want to have end users using the VPN endpoints. Having an FVS318 at each location is the only cost you incur. What more can you ask for?