Huge shout out to Louis Rossmans’s guide. wiki.futo.org
Taking the plunge into pfsense or opnsense is very much worth it if you are as done with home/consumer router BS as I am. I got committed after even my ubiquiti router began acting up even after being reset. I followed that guide and am now running pfsense and by far the happiest I have ever been with a “home router.”
I am by no means an expert at tech stuff, i have basic working knolwedge which is plenty if following a guide like this one. It’s intimidating at first but definitely doable!
I didn’t have a spare PC floating around and didn’t have time to build one out so I bought a used Intel n5105 based mini-pc with dual gig ethernet ports. Its less modular than I’d like, but it’s apparently easy to port a saved config over to a new machine. I was a little worried about performance before I got it, but its plenty fast. More than enough for my network with 30+ devices and it hosts OpenVPN for my phone when not home.
I recommend hardwiring as much as possible, or at least hardwiring to wireless APs and not using crappy WiFi repeaters. I picked up some used ubiquiti APs a while back that are still working well and are very reliable.
Separation of church and state has only ever been for the “wrong” religions and those that have left it behind altogether. Makes sense, the rich and powerful would prefer that people stay as stupid as possible, rally around a dictator, and worship an easily controlled victim mentality religion.