what is the best performance and stability wireless router on the
market today? (uk market preferably, but can buy from US)

Hello:

Are you looking for a wireless router for home use or business use? 
The answer could vary greatly depending on the intended purpose.

its got to have good range, security, ability to handle heavy network
loads, streaming media, playing games, large file transfer and a good
interface with configurable options

I would get the Apple Airport.
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/72504/wo/cf4qCdtWJXst2l2DTVcdcZweW9f/1.SLID?mco=D0D3169D&nplm=M8799LL%2FA

http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?childpagename=US%2FLayout&packedargs=c%3DL_Product_C2%26cid%3D1116265541785&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper

personally the best choice at the moment is a Linksys WRT54G - gives
you wired and wireless and good range of options and security. I'm
also a fan of the (harder to find) Billion products.
Both of these also do ADSL / ADSL2 compliant modems with the required feature-set

Hi,

Now a days many wireless router are available but its not just buying
the router but its important to have good back support as well..don't
go netgear the support is trash... try to go fo D-Link, Link Sys or
SMC... these are good.

cheers

thanks for you help everyone

what do you think of this the d-link dgl-4300

http://www.dlink.co.uk/?go=jN7uAYLx/oIJaWVUDLYZU93ygJVYKOhST9vhLPG3yV3oVIp8hKltbNlwaaRp7D4sAmu5j3cf/YEMAM7n3qvpK0oTtund

The Linksys WRT54GS V3 or V4 router is probably your best bet.  The
Linksys WRT54G V3 or V4 is the second best.  The reason are these
Linksys routers run Linux.  This means the source code for the router
is freely available.  This has resulted in a lot of firmware downloads
for this router which enhance its abilities.  One of the most popular
firmware releases is Sveasoft (http://www.sveasoft.com), with a $20
per year subscription for firmware updates.  The free version is
HyperWRT (http://www.hyperwrt.org/) which has a lot less features
compared to Sveasoft.  The biggest benefit of the custom firmware is
the ability to push this router's wireless power (signal strength)
many, many times above the factory settings.

Note:  The newer V5 routers do not come with the same hardware and or
Linux OS.  Avoid these at all cost.

Linksys is the best