{"id":4992,"date":"2026-10-27T07:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T07:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lighteningweightloss.com\/diy\/?p=4992"},"modified":"2026-10-27T07:02:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T07:02:00","slug":"your-router-spies-on-you-its-time-to-build-your-own-diy-router-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighteningweightloss.com\/diy\/?p=4992","title":{"rendered":"Your Router Spies On You. It&#8217;s Time to Build Your Own | DIY Router Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sJidlu3pPb4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>SPONSOR: Contribute to FULU Foundation&#8217;s Consumer Rights Wiki https:\/\/geni.us\/lAWAZ or join their Zulip server to take action! https:\/\/geni.us\/jeEBB Find their bounties here: https:\/\/geni.us\/Iyzy2n<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s time to apply all the DIY PC spirit and desire for knowledge toward device ownership, decentralizing, and taking control back from companies. This guide is our first attempt at building DIY routers. We tried several big names, like OPNsense, OpenWrt, DD-WRT, pfSense, IPFire, RouterOS, and Tomato in our efforts to detach from ISPs and big brands that have proven untrustworthy with their routers, especially as privacy policies have expanded to claw deeper into your packet history than even necessary to provide internet functionality. This is part of our new series of self-ownership of devices like routers, NASes, VPNs, self-hosted media, and more. This is part of our Data Dragnet fundraising campaign! Thank you to our viewers for making this possible! https:\/\/store.gamersnexus.net\/data-dragnet<\/p>\n<p>WE NEED YOUR HELP TO FUND THIS SERIES. The best way to support our work is through our store: https:\/\/store.gamersnexus.net\/<br \/>\nCheck out Wendell here! https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/Level1Techs<\/p>\n<p>Like our content? Please consider becoming our Patron to support us: http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/gamersnexus<\/p>\n<p>This is part of a growing movement of self-hosting, homelab, and DIY content that&#8217;s brewing from the scraps of DIY PCs. Not only does a DIY router give you more control, including over your privacy, it&#8217;s also just fun to learn.<\/p>\n<p>TIMESTAMPS<\/p>\n<p>00:00 &#8211; Own Everything And Be Happy<br \/>\n02:06 &#8211; It&#8217;s Just Fun<br \/>\n04:37 &#8211; The FCC&#8217;s Short-Sighted Router Ban<br \/>\n06:33 &#8211; Building a DIY Router<br \/>\n09:06 &#8211; ISPs Mandating Hardware<br \/>\n12:31 &#8211; Disclaimer and Disclosures<br \/>\n13:45 &#8211; DIY ROUTER: GETTING STARTED<br \/>\n16:53 &#8211; pfSense&#8217;s Crazy History<br \/>\n20:21 &#8211; pfSense Setup: How-To Guide<br \/>\n29:02 &#8211; OPNsense&#8217;s History<br \/>\n31:44 &#8211; OPNsense Setup: How-To Guide<br \/>\n35:35 &#8211; OpenWrt&#8217;s History<br \/>\n36:38 &#8211; OpenWrt Setup: How-To Guide<br \/>\n38:55 &#8211; IPFire Setup: How-To Guide<br \/>\n43:22 &#8211; ISPs Are Evil, ft. AT&amp;T<br \/>\n45:24 &#8211; Replacing ISP ONTs and Routers<br \/>\n49:23 &#8211; RouterOS Overview<br \/>\n50:16 &#8211; DD-WRT Overview<br \/>\n50:51 &#8211; Tomato Overview<br \/>\n51:26 &#8211; Conclusion<\/p>\n<p>** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! **<\/p>\n<p>Links to Amazon and Newegg are typically monetized on our channel (affiliate links) and may return a commission of sales to us from the retailer. This is unrelated to the product manufacturer. Any advertisements or sponsorships are disclosed within the video (&#8220;this video is brought to you by&#8221;) and above the fold in the description. We do not ever produce paid content or &#8220;sponsored content&#8221; (meaning that the content is our idea and is not funded externally aside from whatever ad placement is in the beginning) and we do not ever charge manufacturers for coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Follow us in these locations for more gaming and hardware updates:<\/p>\n<p>t: http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/gamersnexus<br \/>\nf: http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gamersnexus<br \/>\nw: http:\/\/www.gamersnexus.net\/<\/p>\n<p>Our policies, processes, and ethics statements relating to review samples, advertising, travel, errors, and more are transparently and publicly available on this page: https:\/\/gamers.nexus\/ethics-statements<\/p>\n<p>Steve Burke: Host, Additional Writing, Research<br \/>\nPatrick Lathan: Writing, Testing, Research<br \/>\nVitalii Makhnovets: Camera, Editing<br \/>\nTim Phetdara: Editing, Camera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SPONSOR: Contribute to FULU Foundation&#8217;s Consumer Rights Wiki https:\/\/geni.us\/lAWAZ or join their Zulip server to take action! https:\/\/geni.us\/jeEBB Find their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v17.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lighteningweightloss.com\/diy\/?p=4992\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Your Router Spies On You. 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