I’m updating this column to include what lessons can be learned from reading negative reviews about products that most buyers rave about.

Normally before buying a product on Amazon or Best Buy I check out the reviews. I’m looking for more than four stars and lots of comments.

Frankly, I don’t always look at the one star reviews. I should have with the Netgear Nighthawk 7000 router before buying what I had thought was a far superior product than the less expensive Spectrum router that I leased.

Since I switched to Spectrum a year ago I’ve had numerous problems with internet service, requiring me to frequently reboot their router and modem.

Every couple of weeks my internet or wifi shut down. I thought a highly recommended Nighthawk router would improve my internet service and provide better security.

I don’t know whether my security has improved, but I can tell you the performance has not and recently became worse.

I purchased the Nighthawk router for $160 at Best Buy in February and paid the Geek Squad $99 to install it (obviously I’m not a tech genius). As far as I can tell Jerad Fox from the Geek Squad did a good job.

Since buying my Netgear router my internet service failed as often as once a week and during the last five days I had to reboot it four out of five, one day three times. UPDATE – now once a day, every day.

Going back to the reviews, on Best Buy (where I purchased it) of the 12,516 reviews, 9,310 gave it five stars, but more than 900 gave it three stars or less and 422 gave it one star.

On Amazon, there were more than 20,000 reviews, 72 percent with five stars. Seventeen percent gave it three stars or less, with 9 percent giving it a one star rating.

Reading the one star reviews on Amazon and Best Buy, I saw that I was not the only one with similar problems, some coming from customers who claimed to have extensive experience in electronic gadgets.

“Been in IT for almost 20 years and purchasing this router is the worst mistake I’ve made with technology in a very long time,” one verified buyer wrote recently. He said he had the device for four months.

“You’re probably looking at this model because it is one of the cheaper AC routers that’s on the market and has the netgear and nighthawk name to it. I implore you to read further.”

“This router is also known as the r7000. Search the web for “r7000 Wi-Fi disconnect.” As other reviewers have said this router has constant connectivity drops. While the signal is very strong you will occasionally lose your Wi-Fi connection for up to a minute several times a day. Support has acknowledged that it is a known issue and will guide you through an unproductive series of steps.”

“The good part is that it has a cool name…..”night hawk”. Aside from that I would skip this model there are some that are just a few dollars more comparatively speaking that are much better. If my review stops one additional person for making the same mistake I did this was a success.”

Getting that help, which the consumer was not satisfied with, has a limit. Netgear’s warranty policy – which the company warns buyers about – is that it will provide free technical support for 90 days, even though their products carry a one-year hardware warranty.

After the 90 days you have to pay $49 for a three month extended warranty. Or you can call the company, where you might have to listen to hours of music to arrange to send back your router for repair or exchange. Of course while you don’t have a router, you will not have any internet service.

So your choices after 90 days are: frequently reboot your router, pay for an extended warranty, send your router back to the company and be without internet service, or call your internet provider for their router, which you can try to set up yourself or pay the company to set it up for you.

I’ve given up and have had Spectrum install their router. Unfortunately, the router was defective.

It took Spectrum eight hours to figure that out. During that time I worked on setting up all my devices to the new router. Many of them did not recognize its new name. Spectrum tech support folks kept telling me the issue was with my devices – like my WiFi printer.

A second router later – everything is working – for now.