ASUSwrt-Merlin is an alternative, customized version of the ASUSwrt firmware. Developed by Eric Sauvageau, its primary goals are to enhance the existing firmware without bringing any radical changes, and to fix some of the known issues and limitations, while maintaining the same level of performance as the original firmware. This means ASUSwrt-Merlin retains full support for NAT acceleration (sometimes referred to as “hardware acceleration”), enhanced NTFS performance (through the proprietary drivers used by ASUS from either Paragon or Tuxera), and the ASUS exclusive features such as AiCloud or the Trend Micro-powered AiProtection. New feature addition is very low on the list of priorities for this project.