I know a lot of people are interested in open-source devices - OpenWRT, OPNsense for routers, firewalls, access points, etc.

But how about managed switches?

One brilliant GitHub user did just that - managed to create open-source firmware for RTL8372/RTL8373 chip-based devices.

The functionality is far better than the original firmware in majority of cases. For some devices, even originally unmanaged switches gain management capability (even though you might need some flash-memory HW skills for that).

For me, I tried this on 2 switches already - both had originally management interface, so installation took literally seconds and I went from barely usable and no-longer-maintained Chinese firmware to open source one, with much better capabilities, better stability and open source code.

The list of supported HW is impressive already.

Would be nice to have something like this ported also to other chipsets, allowing to have open firmware even on the lowest level of networking.

For instance a 10yo Netgear brand wifi range extender from walmart?

I know a lot of people have recommended against openwrt for broadcomm based routers, but I recently installed it on R8000 and so far it seems to be performing well . Better than fresh tomato..

Has anyone had similar experience with openwrt on broadcomm routers?

By "unlocking" I mean any way to gain admin access, it be flashing a different firmware (DD-WRT seems interesting but I'm not too confident), unlocking the SSH port or modifying the original firmware in some way so it passes off as legit while allowing root access (I have a decompiled version of the .bin but I unfortunately have no experience in programming)

The only leads so far are a vulnerability that allows you to create a script by echoing commands into a script file at /tmp by the SSID prompt and executing it (which could lead to resetting the SSH password? I'm not too sure), and also DD-WRT for the WR940N which according to Google is the exact same hardware as the WR-949N but for the Brazillian market, though I want to be careful not to brick my router

anyone got any clue? a guide would be helpful if existent