[rahuldottech]

OpenWrt is also free. Both as free software, and free of cost. When you're paying a manufacturer for a product, surely it's not too much to expect them to ship with functional software that also happens to be up-to-date and secure?

[jschwartzi]

You can get that, but not at consumer-grade router prices. I have a separate router that I put behind my stand-alone cable modem. I paid for that separate router about $200.00. And another $100 for the modem. A wifi access point cost me another $100.

So it's about $400.00 for a router that has updated firmware(pfSense). Or you can cheap out and spend only $100.00. This is what you get by doing that.