Why is my Linksys router periodically blocking access to certain sites?

I occasionally have a problem accessing some major sites (like Google.com) because when I get to the page, it will throw up a warning saying I dont want to go to this site or "Invalid URL" and when I "proceed anyways" I get a 404 or other similar type error and I simply cannot visit that page.

Took me a while to figure out what the culprit was but when it started to happen with my Ipad in my apartment, I realized it must be my router.

I am using an old Linksys wrt160n.

Any ideas on what setting might be causing the above problems(s)?

 

Aye, there's a TON of owners of this model that have this issue, and afaik it was never fixed. If you have the v3 version, I'd just go ahead and install the Tomato firmware:

Linksys WRT160N v3 Tomato install guide | LinksysInfo.org

If you have v1 or v2, try DD-WRT. They're custom firmwares that are MILES better than the stock one.

 

I honestly had no idea.

How can I tell which version I have?

Also, is there anything I should know before installing a new firmware version? I dont believe I have ever done it before.

 

Scratch my last question.

On the unit itself, there is no "v" anywhere, which makes me think that its version 1.

However, when I open up settings, it says v3 i the upper right hand corner.
Does that make any sense to you?

 

It does make sense indeed- that's where it states hardware version so v3 it is.

What doesn't make sense is that v3 of all hw versions would have such an issue. That used to be caused by NAT table overflow or to put it simply router running out of free RAM. But why would a router with 32MB RAM rave such an issue? Anyway - sangemaru is right and that is the way to go for you (although DD-WRT is also available for v3 so you can choose DD-WRT or Tomato).

 

Is one preferred over the other?

Will just installing the new firmware solve my problems or are there other settings that I will have to tinker with?

 

Firmware should do the trick.

If I were you I'd go with Tomato first. If you don't like it, try DD-WRT. DD-WRT is heavier on resources and it's not like you have RAM to spare.

BTW Linksys is pretty easy on users in this regard - if your firmware version starts with 1, you have a v1 router, if it's starts with 2 it's a v2 and so on, so it's hard to confuse HW versions.

 

Where can I find this firmware (the link on the original post doesnt seem to be working).

Alos, where exactly is the "firmware upgrade page" in Linksys's settings?

 

do you have parental control turned on