Well ... the DIR-825 has been in use as an access point behind an ISP-mandated fiber modem/router combo that didn't support bridge mode, so I didn't have much of a say in the matter, and given that it thus had no direct exposure to the internet I thought the risk was acceptable. That old modem was probably a festering heap of malware at this point, but that's the ISP's problem, not mine - never had any issues on any of the connected devices (for the record, the only thing even remotely like an IOT device in my house is a Spotify Connect-equipped kitchen radio). It's of course entirely possible the old router has been infected with something, and if so, I guess I've now done my part in reducing the capabilities of some botnet/spam operation/whatever. As for the new router, if you have a suggestion for a relatively affordable (this was 1000SEK) WiFi 6-capable router, preferably with >1500Mbps theoretical peak speeds, that is guaranteed to receive security upgrades for the foreseeable future, then I'm all ears. I sincerely doubt such a router exists, though.
Fair enough. My ISP provides crap routers (cable modem/router combo things) that I don't trust any more than D-Link, so I have had them put their router into bridge mode and I use my own Netgear router with Voxel's firmware on it.
It's not really the ISPs problem, as what at least happened in Sweden a couple of years ago, was that a lot of people had their ISP provided hardware hacked and then used for DDoS attacks and what not. On top of that, they can inject software that sniffs your data or even spreads malware on your network.
I guess I'm a bit paranoid after having worked at a router manufacturer and realised just how bad most of these companies are when it comes to protecting their customers.
The company I worked for actually cared, up to a point and had monthly updates for their products. They were easy to update though, as all the routers had a touch screen.
Sadly I don't have any good suggestions, as the models that support "easy to use" third party firmware's aren't going to fit that budget if you want 802.11ax.
Asus has this, but it's a step down from what you have based on theoretical performance at least (both are 2x2, but the TP-Link can do 160MHz channels) and it seems to be 1500kr.
I would say the Asus has better hardware, as if I'm not completely wrong, Lantiq/Intel is using MIPS (which have some advantages for routing data over ARM), but it's an old dual core at 880MHz (plus some network offloading co-processors), so similar to many cheap MediaTek based routers. The Asus has a quad core Cortex-A7 SoC from Broadcom, that might support the extended 802.11ax frequencies some day.
www.asus.com
It's supported by Merlin though, so you'd get regular updates for it.
https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/about
Stuck an RT-AC68 at my stepmum's place earlier this year, as she's clueless when it comes to tech and there was some changes where she lives to how the internet was supplied. Cheaper than renting hardware from the ISP, which now seems to be a thing in Sweden.
One option would be to look at DD-WRT or OpenWRT, but they're a pita to use and sometimes you end up losing performance on the Wi-Fi end. They also don't tend to support a lot of new models.
I do run a couple of TP-Link devices as range extenders, but unfortunately I got the wrong "revisions" so I haven't had any updates on those since I bought them, even though the latest revision of both models seemingly got an update this year, the first in two years for both devices.
It really bugs me that router manufacturers get away with being so lax when it comes to software updates on their devices, especially when it comes to security issues, which happens to common code that all of these devices run.
