Putting the proxy on the router has an obvious appeal: every device covered, nothing to configure individually. The costs are equally real, and whether it is worth it depends on your situation.
Three ways to do it
| Approach | What it involves | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| Third-party firmware | Flash your existing router with plugin-capable firmware | High, with a risk of bricking |
| Dedicated router box | A small PC running a router OS | Medium, needs extra hardware |
| Secondary gateway | Add a device as a gateway without replacing the main router | Medium, fiddly but low-risk |
The secondary gateway is the sensible middle path: leave the main router alone, add a device (a Raspberry Pi, a small PC, even an always-on computer) as a proxy gateway, and point only the devices that need it at that gateway. Lowest risk and trivially reversible.
The real trade-offs
Performance is the underestimated problem
Consumer router CPUs are weak, and proxying means encryption — a genuine computational load:
- Budget routers typically manage tens of megabits per second of encrypted throughput. Saturating a gigabit line is out of the question.
- High-end consumer routers might reach one to two hundred megabits — fine for 4K, limiting for large downloads.
- x86 router boxes handle gigabit comfortably, at the cost of power draw and money.
Reliability
- A configuration error takes the whole house offline — and you may be configuring it remotely, in which case you have also locked yourself out.
- A crash affects every device, including smart-home hardware that never needed a proxy.
- Debugging is harder — the fault could be in routing rules, DNS, the proxy service or the firmware itself.
- Upgrades carry risk — firmware updates can wipe configuration or break plugin compatibility.
When it genuinely pays off
| Situation | Worth it? |
|---|---|
| You have TVs, consoles or other devices that cannot run a client | ✅ Yes — the main reason to do this |
| Many devices, individual setup is tedious | ✅ Yes |
| You already run a router box or NAS with spare capacity | ✅ Yes |
| One computer and one phone | ❌ No — per-device is simpler |
| Fast connection you need to saturate | ⚠️ Verify the hardware can keep up first |
| You cannot tolerate whole-house outages | ❌ Use a secondary gateway, leave the main router alone |
Lighter alternatives
- Use an always-on computer as a LAN proxy. Enable LAN connections and point other devices at it manually. Zero cost, instantly reversible.
- Configure only the devices that need it. TVs and consoles usually have proxy fields in their network settings.
- Secondary gateway with selective use. Only the devices you point at it are affected; everything else is untouched.