Readers Speak Out on ICS and Cookie Cutters

I’ve gotten a lot of mail on both the articles I wrote dealing with cookies and installing the Internet Connection Sharing feature of Win98 SE. Since the TNPC readership is such a great resource I want to share some of the recommendations and comments I received.

First, it seems that there’s a difference of opinion about whether you can get ICS to work with a cable modem setup. Bill W. sent me mail letting me know he got ICS working with his cable modem without a hitch as did Dale O. TNPCer Ken S. offers this explanation, “…for DSL and cable modems, you need two network cards in the ICS server; one to connect to your local area network and the other to pipe traffic from the network to the DSL router or the cable modem.”

Ken came up with this great resource if you’re looking for ICS information or are trying to share a connection:
http://www.timhiggins.com/ppd/sharing.htm

In TNPC #2.15 I mentioned Wingate ($39.95) as a non-Microsoft alternative to ICS. TNPCer Robin J. and Brent K. much prefer a product called Sygate ($49).
http://www.powernethk.com/~gobeyond/sygate/
While Mike S. recommends VSOCKS Lite (freeware) as another proxy server alternative. Find VSOCKS at:
http://www.pscs.co.uk/software/vsockslight.html
(Note: I’ve not tried any of these myself.)

Last issue we featured AtGuard as recommended software for coping with cookies. AtGuard not only blocks cookies on a complete or selective basis, it will block annoying banner ads as you surf the Web and it is browser independent, working with IE, Navigator, and Opera. I’d be lost without it.