Hello Experts. I'll take a brief moment to introduce myself (so you can tune your answers accordingly). Over 20 years ago I spent three years as a network admin. Built a small ISP for a school district (which later grew up to be part of the district). I knew enough telecom jargon to communicate clearly with the phone company and act as a tech support and mediator between them and school principals. I once could explain differences between T1s and OC3s and ISDN, Frame Relay, and DSL. I configured and managed Ascend and Cisco modems & routers (and combination units). I switched jobs not long after and have been doing software engineering ever since. It was early days on the Internet, don't think we could even buy a firewall.
Fast forward to last May. FBI asked everyone to reboot their routers. Ever since I have been occasionally looking for updates to the firmware for the TP-LINK Archer D7 (AC1750) I purchased in fall 2017. The TP-LINK website for US firmware on indicates it hasn't been updated since 2015: https://www.tp-link.com/us/download/Archer-D7.html#Firmware
Elsewhere in DSLReports, I read suggestions of ordering simple modems configured in bridge mode and using a dedicated router (e.g. via OpenWRT or pfSense). Both of the orders for components have gone wrong and I've now missed the window of holiday time for hacking.
I'd appreciate your help thinking through options.
1) Leave it alone. What I have is working. I could let go of my paranoia. Maybe it is part of a bot net but seems mostly to stay out of my way.
2) Give up on a replacement modem... put the Archer D7 into bridge mode (incl. disabling the wifi) and invest time in a dedicated router.
3) Definitely kill the old unit with fire. Get a new ADSL modem and invest the time in a dedicated router.
4) Something you would suggest that I haven't mentioned.
I currently prefer option 2 or 3. I worry that even in bridge mode, if the Archer D7 is attached to the Internet, it will probably remain a bot net participant in cyber crime. I also worry that any similarly cheap used ADSL modem will be effectively the same thing. It's really hard to use google to find a list of ADSL modems sorted by their firmware release date.
For either 2 or 3, do you have specific recommendations (e.g. links to specific model and year of devices on amazon or similar)?
Thanks for any time you can spare (even the time already spent reading)
-Eric
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