We purchased the The 4 Best VPN-Enabling Devices so our expert reviewer could thoroughly test and assess it. Keep reading for our full products reviews.
You can connect all of your devices to one network using the best VPN-Enabling Devices. The term VPN refers to a virtual private network. VPNs encrypt your data to provide multiple security protections to their users. Blocking people connected to your Wi-Fi from seeing what you’re doing and allowing you to change your location anywhere in the world to visit location-specific sites are two examples of these safeguards.
VPNs can be extremely beneficial to businesses, and having a VPN-enabled device ensures that everyone is connected to the same IP address. A business-grade router VPN is capable of connecting employees and clients to the network, as well as providing five dedicated channels for mobile phones. This tool can be used by anyone, not just businesses. Take a look at our roundup of the best secure routers for a more general overview of router options. Any type of user will be protected and connected by the best VPN-Enabling Devices.
The Zyxel Zywall 110 VPN Firewall (Check latest price on Amazon) is designed as a business-grade device with multi-core CPUs to provide outstanding VPN and firewall performance. The Zywall, with a throughput of up to 1Gbps without the VPN enabled and up to 300Mbps when the VPN is active, more than meets the demands of today’s workforce. Buyers who are concerned about security will appreciate the VPN firewall, which supports Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) VPN for mobile devices such as Android, Windows Phone, and the iPhone, with up to 100 VPN tunnels via IPsec and 25 over SSL.
The VPN is simple to set up thanks to the included client software, which does all of the heavy lifting for you and gets you up and running (securely, of course) in three easy steps. Finally, the ZyXEL strives to keep monitoring and administration costs low while allowing customers and employees to safely and securely access internal company servers, e-mail, and data from anywhere on the planet.
Processor: Multi-core | Security: 1000 IPSec, Sha-2 encyrption | Standard/Speed: 800Mbps| Wired Ports: 9
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Best Wi-Fi Router: Linksys WRT3200ACM Tri-Stream Gigabit Wi-Fi Router
The WRT3200ACM (Check latest price on Amazon) is an action-packed winner with blazing-fast Wi-Fi speeds, MU-MIMO technology for ensuring every device gets the appropriate amount of bandwidth, and Tri-Stream 160 technology. The WRT3200ACM can keep up with heavy use and is well-equipped to handle threats, with Wi-Fi speeds up to 3.2Gbps. The use of open-source firmware allows for the secure setup of a VPN client, with no DNS or WebRTC leaks. The built-in firewall acts as a kill switch, detecting and shutting down any network intrusions quickly.
The WRT3200ACM uses split-tunneling to allow devices on a network that doesn’t require VPN protection to access both the VPN-enabled and non-enabled networks at the same time without sacrificing bandwidth or performance. The WRT3200ACM, which comes with an enterprise-grade dual-core processor, is ideal for small offices and homes where security is a must.
Processor: Dual-core | Security: Open source firmware | Standard/Speed: Dual-band 600Mbps and 2600Mbps | Wired Ports: 5
Netgear’s BR500 (Check latest price on Amazon) is about as straightforward as it gets for small businesses looking to set up a VPN between two or more locations. Netgear is known for making user-friendly home routers, and they’ve taken that knowledge and turned it into a “Instant VPN” solution for businesses that can get your VPN up and running in minutes.
Netgear’s Insight Cloud Portal, which is used to quickly establish VPN connections between routers and clients, is the BR500’s secret sauce. Rather than having to configure sometimes-complex VPN settings on both ends, each BR500 communicates with Netgear’s cloud servers to exchange all of the information needed to create a VPN between two sites, or from a computer using the Insight VPN Client, which remote workers can easily download and set up from the Cloud Portal with just a few clicks.
The Cloud Portal also manages all of the BR500’s other configuration features, and for a small fee, you can get proactive performance monitoring and advanced controls. It’s a great and simple solution for anyone who doesn’t have much networking experience, but more advanced professionals may be disappointed by the inability to tweak more advanced settings or use it with OpenVPN clients, as with any simplified solution.
Processor: N/A | Security: IPSec, VLAN | Standard/Speed: 924Mbps| Wired Ports: 4
The TP-Link TL-R600VPN (Check latest price on Amazon) is an excellent choice for those looking for a low-cost business-class VPN router. At this price, it doesn’t come with a lot of bells and whistles, but it does cover all the essentials and provides good VPN performance and throughput, as well as multiple WAN ports for redundant internet connections.
This small device includes a stateful packet inspection firewall that protects your network from DDoS attacks, as well as application-level gateways, port forwarding, and filtering. It can also support up to 20 IPSec tunnels, 16 PPTP tunnels, and 16 L2TP tunnels, though straight IPSec protocols are only supported for site-to-site VPN configurations; clients must use PPTP or L2TP instead.
On a non-VPN connection, the TL-R600VPN can theoretically deliver up to 120 Mbps, while throughput drops to around 20 Mbps when traveling over an IPSec tunnel. These are reasonable numbers for a router in this price range that should be more than adequate for small businesses.
Processor: Single | Security: 20 IPSec, 16 LT2TP, 16PTTP, DoS defense, IP/MAC/Domain name filtering | Standard/Speed: Gigabit | Wired Ports: 5
The Final Word
The Zyxel Zywall 110 VPN Firewall is our favorite VPN-Enabling Devices. While this gateway is clearly geared toward enterprise applications, it does support a wide range of VPN protocols and has incredible throughput. The Linksys WRT3200 ACM is a good Wi-Fi router option because of its MU-MIMO technology and solid 5GHz throughput.
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