As I understand, even when HomeShield and parental control are not enabled, TP-Link WiFi devices are still making outbound calls to Avira and homecare-cloud at TP-Link. The latest information above was about seven months old, so I am wondering if TP-Link ever “fixed” the issue via a firmware update?
Interestingly, this post from 8/2022, where someone from TP wrote “we are sure that the router won’t send DNS queries to Avira if you are not enabling or using any HomeShied features (HomeShied is disabled completely).” (post #4)
Why is TP-Link acting shady about this? Why don’t they state in what situations data or queries get sent to where? Why do we have to put WireShark in front of a router to understand what it’s doing??
Knowing what (little) we know now about Salt/Volt Typhoon these threads are funny.
Spoiler alert, from the future: There is no way to turn this off because that would make it *slightly* less convenient for the Chinese government to backdoor into your network.
Even if you did, don’t worry, they’ll still be able to, but it will require at least two more mouse movements.
The article describes TP’s plan for upcoming products but does not address my questions about exiting products and any firmware changes that affect their “phone home” behavior. The article also makes no mention of what the new products might do in this respect. Unless I missed it, I do not see how this article answers my questions.
I did Google prior to posting but found no updates on the information I seek. For example, the video I linked was for a AXE5300. I see no reports that they changed providers nor stopped the outbound connections even when one did not subscribe.
The changeover already happened over the summer; Avira is completely gone from HomeShield for all currently supported Deco and Archer routers. Wireshark shows no packets going to Avira in last 11 months even with older Deco XE200.
PS. Another way to see Avira problem resolved is no more articles about it.
So they retrofitted existing products via firmware to use Norton? I previously looked at the firmware update log for the 5300 and don’t recall seeing Norton.
If the answer to my question in this post is yes, the most important question whether the routers still connect to Norton even when the services are disabled.
The firmware says HomeShield was updated; Norton is just one component of it, and no nothing goes to Norton when the security components are disabled.
Might you have a link from TP that states the above for an existing product, e.g., AXE5300 – that HS was updated with Norton and nothing goes to Norton when the security components are disabled?
