Category Archives: Router

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  Using CleanBrowsing on the pcWRT router

  Posted on October 30, 2020 by pcwrt in Parental Control, Router.

  You can use either the CleanBrowsing free plan or a paid plan on the pcWRT router. If you are using the free plan, simply choose one of the three free content filters offered by CleanBrowsing from the DNS service dropdown list (on the Access Control page). You can create multiple Access Control profiles on the […]

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  How to enable DNS over HTTPS on the pcWRT router

  Posted on October 27, 2020 by pcwrt in How To, Router.

  DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is an important security addition to the DNS. It encrypts your DNS queries, preventing third parties (e.g., your ISP) from seeing and collecting data about what web sites you are visiting. The encryption also protects your DNS queries from being hijacked by hackers. As of v2.2.1, we’ve added support for DNS […]

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  How to block the TikTok app on the router?

  Posted on August 26, 2020 by pcwrt in How To, Router.

  Blocking the TikTok app on the router with a DNS block list has been evasive for some people. There were multiple block lists available and the list of domains seemed to be changing over time. A recent reddit post reported that none of the available block lists worked. There were even rumors that TikTok was […]

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• VPN services compatible with the pcWRT router

  Posted on July 28, 2020 by pcwrt in Router, VPN.

  Out of the box, the pcWRT router supports three VPN protocols: OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard. If a VPN service offers methods to manually configure connections for one of these protocols, there’s a good chance it is supported by the pcWRT router. The table below lists the results of our compatibility tests with VPN service providers […]

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  How to setup NordVPN IKEv2 on the pcWRT router

  Posted on June 15, 2020 by pcwrt in How To, Router, VPN.

  Download root CA certificate for NordVPN IKEv2 connections Update 12/07/2021: It is no longer necessary to download the NordVPN IKEv2 certificate (skip to the next section). Download the NordVPN IKEv2 Certificate from here: https://downloads.nordcdn.com/certificates/root.der Add a NordVPN IKEv2 connection Log on the pcWRT console, open the “strongSwan (IPsec)” page under Apps. Under the Client tab, […]

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  How to setup NordVPN OpenVPN on the pcWRT router

  Posted on June 15, 2020 by pcwrt in How To, Router, VPN.

  Download OpenVPN configuration files Go to https://nordvpn.com/, click on “Servers”, then click “Recommended Server”. Click on Show available protocols, then click the Download config link. Add a NordVPN OpenVPN connection Log on the pcWRT console, open the OpenVPN page under Apps. Under the Client tab, check the network you want to enable NordVPN OpenVPN for, […]

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  How to setup ProtonVPN OpenVPN on the pcWRT router

  Posted on June 6, 2020 by pcwrt in How To, Router, VPN.

  Download ProtonVPN OpenVPN configuration files Log in to protonvpn.com, click Downloads, select Router and protocol, then download the .ovpn configuration file. Add a ProtonVPN OpenVPN connection Log on the pcWRT console, open the OpenVPN page under Apps. Under the Client tab, check the network you want to enable ProtonVPN VPN for, then click the Add […]

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  How to setup ProtonVPN IKEv2 on the pcWRT router

  Posted on June 4, 2020 by pcwrt in How To, Router, VPN.

  Download root CA certificate for ProtonVPN IKEv2 connections Download the ProtonVPN IKEv2 Certificate from here: http://protonvpn.com/download/ProtonVPN_ike_root.der Add a ProtonVPN IKEv2 connection Log on the pcWRT console, open the “strongSwan (IPsec)” page under Apps. Under the Client tab, check the network you want to enable ProtonVPN for, then click the Add button under “Auth Configs” to […]

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  Ad blocking on your home network (and in apps)

  Posted on May 2, 2020 by pcwrt in How To, Router, Security.

  Problems with ad blocking browser extensions Browser extensions are the most popular tools for ad blocking. However, they have a few drawbacks. Browser extensions bring higher security risks. In fact, a few popular ad blocker extensions were found to be malicious and were removed from the Chrome Web Store recently. They only work inside the […]

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  Performance comparisons of three VPN protocols on a budget router

  Posted on February 3, 2020 by pcwrt in Router, Technology.

  One of the drawbacks of running VPN on a router is performance. It is especially profound when you run OpenVPN a budget router like the pcWRT TORONTO-N. In hopes of getting more reasonable VPN performance out of commodity router hardware, we added support for strongSwan (IPsec) and WireGuard®* to the pcWRT firmware. In this post […]

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