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Mobile hotspot with VPN: is GL.iNet the only game in town and is it trustworthy? (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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So I'm on the market for a 4G or 5G mobile hotspot with a build-in VPN client I can carry around in my backpack and connect my cellphone to. I've looked far and wide, and really the only manufacturer that seems to make what I want is GL.iNet.

The two battery-powered models they offer that interest me are the Mudi v2 and the Puli: they only do 4G and I wish they did 5G too, but I can live with that. Other than that, they really tick all the boxes for me.

From what I could read, the GL.iNet company also seems very open and very responsive. That's a plus too.

But I have one giant problem that prevents me from whipping out the credit card: GL.iNet is a Chinese company, and those products are sensitive applications. I know I can flash OpenWRT separately on those devices to ensure they're not doing stuff behind my back, but I don't really want to do that because I'd lose the GL.iNet plugins and custom UI. Not to mention, I have no free time for that. I'm looking for a ready-made solution if possible with this one.

Anybody knows if GL.iNet can be trusted?

Also, has anybody ordered from Europe using their EU store? They say they ship direct from Europe but they give no details.

And finally, what do you think of those two mobile VPN routers if you own one. Do they work well? I read somewhere that they can be buggy with certain VPN providers. Do they work in Europe? I assume they do since they sell EU plugs but maybe there are caveats.

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[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

There are others that aren’t Chinese but nothing anywhere near the price bracket you’ll get from GL.Inet. I wouldn’t trust them either, I’d just take the hit and lose the app. Since it’s OpenWRT I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s an alternative to the apps. Flashing standard OpenWRT to them is really easy, you just download it from the site and flash through the firmware upgrade option, no dramas. Many VPNs will have instructions on how to set up their service on OpenWRT.

[–] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There are others that aren’t Chinese but nothing anywhere near the price bracket you’ll get from GL.Inet

Can you give me some pointers to non-Chinese equivalents of those GL.iNet routers? I'm quite ready to suck up the extra cost.

[–] twinnie@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago

About to head off to work but I think Netgear make one, but it’s like 6-7x more expensive. And it’s probably made in China anyway.

[–] ShortN0te@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

The cheap models can not be flashed with openwrt since they use some proprietary drivers or something.

The complete Opal series is not supporte iirc.

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

Not all glinet routers can be flashed to vanilla openwrt as my friend found out

[–] ReversalHatchery 1 points 2 weeks ago

I don't have any recommendations, but if you download the table of hardware spreadsheet, you can use libreoffice to filter devices by column. like there's a column with the device type, but be careful (and open in a sense) because the classification is not always right. you may also want to reorder the columns, because the default ordering is not that convenient

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Anything that can run vanilla openwrt will do just fine.

[–] Lemmchen@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But then you need a separate LTE/5G stick.

[–] interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

There are some that have builtin LTE modems

I don't know viable, available or pricey these are but I found the following in the table of hardware and there are still about as many of them left I didn't copy.

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_extended_all

COMFAST	CF-E7
Edge-corE	OAP-100
GL.iNet	GL-AP1300
MikroTik	RBwAPGR-5HacD2HnD&amp;R11e-LTE (wAP ac LTE)
MikroTik	RBwAPR-2nD (wAP R)
Sony	AI Home Gateway (NCP-HG100)
ZBT	WE1026-5G
ZBT	WE1026-H
Arcadyan / Astoria	Easybox 904 LTE
BOLT	Arion
BOLT	BL100
Cell C	RTL30VW
https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_extended_all