Archer AX23 (AX1800)

Depends on your usage, but I use an AX10 for Wireless VR with good results, and iperf3 gave me like 800mbps 2 meters from the router (5Ghz) It will of course also depend on what wifi card you have on your computer, phone, etc. The rest are better routers, but I'd argue for most people it won't make a difference. I have a few AX53/AX3000 on clients and they handle more devices better, but for a house, an AX10/AX23 ir more than enough. Another option would be to future-proof and go the wifi7 route (a 6ghz model, with tri-band) but that's another price entirely and you need 6Ghz or wifi7 support on your computer/phone, etc

10 years ago, you had this feature, but you had maaaaybe one or two updates and then that feature became obsolote two years after the purchase. In this particular case, if you want ongoing security protection or filtering, you need a constant updating, it's not something that you just enable and it works, so it makes sense if you want that up to date protection, to pay for it. A different thing would be for them to charge you for using Wi-Fi, or using manual routes, or using port forwarding. But if they want to charge you for something that it's basically antivirus for your router, it makes no sense for it to be free.