Trying to setup a new and better network in the house. Ditching my ISP router because its just a mess and I want better security.
I keep being suggested Unifi as a setup. Its pricey but I am told its well worth the cost.
My main concern is the privacy side.
How reputable is Ubiquity when it comes to handling data? Any ideas?
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Ubiquiti is reputable and has the infrastructure to manage sensitive data from many companies. The software phones home and is cloud based for logging in and back ups etc, however its network information and settings rather than personal information. This does include data about your devices, sites visited, apps used etc. However, as a b2b rather than a consumer facing company mainly, they are not really into data mining, yet. I’ve used them for my business. It’s a bit pricy for my home needs, but I’m due an upgrade soon and will be looking at their equipment. It works well together, is both powerful and mainly intuitive.
Any internet connecting hardware theoretically has access to all your data passing through it. So, I’d either go ubiquiti or open source. My understanding is that the open source options are playing catch up as most modern routers don’t release open drivers for their components. So, although the software is theoretically equal, practically it isn’t, but that may change with openwrt releasing a new router soon. If you need stuff now, I’d get ubiquiti.
Openwrt made a router and the wrt2 is supposed to be made later this year i think.
I’m not sure what all data they get if you self-host their controller. I’m pretty sure you don’t have to make a unifi cloud account at setup, you can make a local one. You can turn off the collection of diagnostic data at setup. Now that’s not to say they don’t send it anyway,
they send it anyways; or atleast they used to circa 2020.
i did packet captures while evaluating their hardware back then for work and they always phone home no matter what you do.
Unifi is great ive and pretty reputable you can do local account etc but if you want a cheaper option and the potential for more privacy id reccomend using openwrt on one of the supported devices you can find info about it here https://openwrt.org/
Openwrt is my main option. I am looking at it a lot.
But if I’m not at home there’s noone else that can service the router. That’s my main issue
What kind of servicing do you expect it needs that can’t wait until you’re home, that wouldn’t be fixed by the old “turn it off and on again”?
a few years ago (actually, probably 5+, how the time flies) they made some kind of data collection mandatory, but at first totally hidden, afaik not even a changelog entry. then people found out and went angry, so unifi made an opt-out setting for it
I don’t know what happened after that, but to me they have shown it clearly that they are driven by US mentality (not because of current politics, but generally)
They’re reputable. Don’t give anyone any data you aren’t comfortable being leaked. Eventually it all comes out.
The only complaint people have is that the devices are expensive and phone home which they should. You’re buying a piece of internet facing technology, you should want it to check in and make sure it’s up to date etc.
Seriously, make sure you turn on automatic updates and change default passwords.
They’re reputable, but focus in cloud based management solutions, so your data will 100% be taken/used if you choose to use those services.
