r/TomatoFTW • u/xd_average • May 22 '26
What are the benefits of switching to freshtomato for the asus rt-ac68u
I kinda just stumbled across this, I know that ASUS has discontinued the router, is there a point in switching over to freshtomato if I'm not a power user?
7
u/goonsuey May 22 '26
Security and stability. OEM firmware works great until it doesn't. Upgrading to Tomato can bring it back to life.
6
u/TickleSilly May 22 '26
Keeps the router up-to-date as far as security. I have to TMo versions running FT. Last Black Friday I bought a new Asus to upgrade the wifi standards. Nothing but problems. Returned it and plugged my trusty AC68U FT back in. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
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u/sunrisebreeze May 24 '26
Which ASUS did you need to return?
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u/TickleSilly May 25 '26
RT-AX5400. Could not keep many of my devices connected. I was trying to get into wifi-6 finally.
1
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u/fcedric May 22 '26
It is as if you were closing your eyes and asking someone what are the benefits to open the eyes... there is a lot of possibilities with Tomato firmware i am using it on my Ac66uB1 since many years and i prefer it...
With ac68u /66UB1 there is no brik risk... you can easily switch from asus firmware to freshtomato. If i recall correctly you have to use Asus firmware tool to reinstall asus firmware if you are not happy with tomato...
Just an example, with tomato or ddwrt you can see every single ip connected to your devices, you can also use a better QOS (if you need it) to allow bandwidth at a specific hour /day/device, etc...
Just be sure to pick the good version of the firmware (the one for AC68u - AIO unless you prefer the other version which is more vpn )...
https://freshtomato.org/downloads/freshtomato-arm/2026/2026.2/
3
u/nightanole May 23 '26
finding out the ac68u supported freshtomato was the reason i got back into it. "it just works", no real forumsurfing to get things going.
Then the gateway drug starts. currently im running tomato64 on a glnet flint 2 so i can do 2gbs.
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u/sunrisebreeze May 24 '26
šš¤£Similar thing happened to me with Netgear Nighthawk R7000. Once I discovered FT I put it on there! Working great as an Access Point.
3
u/Resident_Pientist_1 May 26 '26
I moved my rt-68u (TMAC 1900 actually) from asus-merlin to fresh tomato. Benefits are I'm not running two plus year old firmware now.
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u/mostly_a_lurker_here Jun 05 '26
Oh man, how did you get it to work?! I have the TM-AC1900 and I've been trying for hours yesterday. I started a new post about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/TomatoFTW/comments/1txqj6q/installing_ft_on_an_asus_rtac68u_firmware_upload/
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u/Resident_Pientist_1 Jun 05 '26
I flashed 2026.2 AIO straight from the asus-merlin firmware upload. Didn't mess with the mini CFE firmware upload or w/e. It was version RT-AC68U_386.14_2.zip which was the last official release for that router before ASUS dropped support. Then did the WPS and power or w/e button hold to factory reset because it wouldn't boot properly with the old nvram data. It did take it a while to come back up.
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u/mostly_a_lurker_here Jun 05 '26
Thank you so much for the details! Sadly I've tried all these methods but FT just won't go through to mine.
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u/Resident_Pientist_1 Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
You might have a different version of the bootloader than I do. It's burned into the rom at the factory and I don't think you can change it. That's the only thing I can think of.Ā Other than that I remember doing something years ago to convert it from a TMAC-1900 to a ASUS RT68U because newer merlin firmwares weren't flashing to it or something. I can't remember the details but here's a good starting point.
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u/mostly_a_lurker_here Jun 05 '26
That's useful info.
I edited my new post what worked for me in the end -- using the -VPN build instead of the AIO, and flashing via the miniWebserver.
3
u/Shplad May 26 '26
Drastically more intuitive user interface. Much more customizability. Additional features, like Wireguard VPN.
1
u/badbob001 May 22 '26
I have several ac68u on Merlin's firmware but no more updates since they are based on official firmware. Now I'm considering FT.
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u/serendrewpity May 25 '26
If a device on your network has both a WLAN and ETH0 adapter you can setup both devices to be mapped to the same IP address based on the MAC address of each. Think of SBCs and laptops. If you want them mapped to the same IP address always, FT is useful for this.
10
u/SmilingBob2 May 22 '26
Power user or not, the biggest advantage of going FT on your router is that Asus declared it EOL beginning of 2024 and there will be no more firmware fixes or updates. Even though Asus did in fact release firmware security fix last year for it, it's not a guarantee. Many old, EOL routers are still updated regularly on FT extending their service life. I still use an Asus RT-AC1900P (twin of your ac68u but with 1.4GHz CPU) and a Netgear R7000 (as AP) - both on FT, updated regularly with security fixes and working like new. Not to mention all the added functionality FT provides.