Some users of new Wi-Fi routers from Cisco's Linksys division complained this week that the company automatically updated the routers' firmware and pushed them toward a cloud-based administration service they didn't want.
Users posting on the Cisco Home Community forum and the U.K.-based site PC Gamer said they had turned on their Linksys EA3500 and EA4500 routers earlier this week and found they were running a new firmware version. The new firmware presented a login screen for the Cisco Connect Cloud instead of the LAN-based router management interface that had come up previously, they said.
Some voiced concerns about the security of cloud-based LAN administration and didn't want to set up accounts on Cisco Connect Cloud. They were able to bring up a local, non-cloud management interface after disconnecting the router from the Internet, but that interface lacked most of the features they had been used to with the previous firmware, the posts said.
