Firmware upgrade for (old) Netgear router

[#1]

When I got my fibre connection in 2011 Plusnet provided me with a Netgear WNR1000v3 router. Its WiFi may seem underpowered by today's standards (it's N150 standard) but it's worked flawlessly simce I got it, and I really like the interface.

Today I logged into it for the first time in a while and was surprised to see a notification that a firmware upgrade was available. This upgraded my firmware from v1.0.2.68_60.0 93 to v1.0.2.72_60.0.96. (I assume this is a European variant - the previous version was.) The changes are just a few security fixes - I haven't yet looked in detail at the release notes - but I'm impressed that Netgear is pushing out an upgrade for a router that was released at least 6 years ago. Well done.

[#2]

Yes I agree, 6 years is a long time in technology and I wouldn't have thought it would still be supported.

I can only assume Netgear have a large enough user base of that model, which justified them to keep supporting it.

[#3]

Probably too much to hope that they'll now release another update to fix the KRACK problem that went public today (16th). I think a couple of Netgear routers have been given a fix (with apparently mixed results in terms of 'broken' access points), but I doubt whether such an old router will be a priority.

[Edit, 17th Oct] The date on the release notes document for v1.0.2.72 is 30th August 2017, so either this update was released incredibly quickly after Netgear was told about KRACK or it has nothing to do with it. The release notes just say, "Fixed security issues", which might be deliberately opaque. There's no mention of the WNR1000 in yesterday's Netgear announcement of affected and fixed products, but the security advisory does say that routers are affected only when in bridge mode, and most routers aren't.

https://kb.netgear.com/000049498/Security-Advisory-for-WPA-2-Vulnerabilities-PSV-2017-2826-PSV-2017-...