Now days more and more people are using some form of broadband communications for the Internet. The arrangement comes in many forms from ISDN all the way to T class connections for residential use. Locally we have a choice of Cable Modems, ADSL, and of course ISDN lines have been around for quite awhile. If you have the money even a T-1 can be installed into your pad. In using these faster connections the consumer is paying a premium for there speedy access. On most of these services you pay by the IP. So if you have more than one computer and would like to enjoy the speed of your fast connection you will be billed for each computer you put on the service. There is a way around this “extra charge.” I call it an extra charge because even if you pay to put more than one computer on the service your connection doesn’t get any faster. You are just paying more to access the Internet with a different IP. There are a few ways around this, but first there are certain requirements you must first meet. There must be a network! It is easer than ever to connect computers together, all you need is a hub a few network cards and some cable.

The first way around is to only have one computer online at a time. The way this works is with only one computer online, the service thinks you only have one computer hooked up. I don’t consider practical. What is the point if you are only going to have one computer online at a time? The next suggestion is run some sort of proxy server. This could be one of the machines you use or a dedicated server. This way is a little more complicated but is has some great advantages, in my opinion one of the best advantages is almost any proxy you use will set up some sort of firewall.

If you plan to run a proxy the first choice is to decide on what Operating System to use. I have a few friends that are using a Linux server to do their proxying. The advantages of this are it is very stable, very low maintenance and is fairly secure. It will also run on most computers you can find at yard sales for fewer than thirty dollars! On the downside to the Linux proxy it is more complicated to setup, and certain programs have trouble working through the firewall.

If you go the Windows route there are a plethora of choices. I must admit I am partial to the windows proxy for two reasons; first you can use the proxy just like any normal computer. Second all the Windows based proxy systems have some sort of logging. This is useful if you want to know who looks at what on the Internet. The windows based proxy systems I have tested include in order from my favorite to the one I would never use again. Comsocks, stupid name, but works the best as well as it is the hardest to set up. I wouldn’t attempt this without reading the online manual first I am serious! One more thing I like about it is it doesn’t require any software to install on the client computers, just the server. As far as windows systems go this one is the most stable by far. I haven’t gotten disconnected the entire time I have been using Comsocks. This stability, of course, is the result of a pain in the ass install.

The Winproxy package is not quite as stable as the Comsocks but it should be adequate for most users. The install was much easer but the program was kind of clunky. I noticed a slight performance problem with this software, possibly due to my settings. It was slight but it was enough to make me switch to something else. This one could be improved, but comes in at second place mostly due to its ease of install and intuitional controls.

And in a distant last place comes Wingate. I don’t have a nice thing to say about this one, except a monkey could install it. The install was nicely automated. This was great except the install screwed everything up on the server as well as the client computers. The server was the only computer that could stay online for more than five minuets, and the client computers hopelessly dropping off after just a few seconds. After manually changing the settings we were able to stay online long enough to load a page or two then it would lose connection. I suggest staying away from this one at all cost.

I do regret I can’t add any personal experiences about Windows 98se’s ability to do connection sharing. I know Microsoft added it to se, but I just got my copy of the cab files and haven’t had time to install it on any of my personal systems. I am looking forward to seeing if it will work as well as what I am using now. I am not sure it is possible it is improve the setup I am using now, but being me, I will have to try. I hope it is just as good if not better because I would hate to reinstall Comsocks again.