Sygate Personal Firewall Sygate for Internet Connection Sharing Kevin Reichard
Sygate for Internet Connection Sharing
Sygate began life as a product that enabled multiple computers to share a single Internet connection via a single modem line, and it is still successful on this basis. Although many Internet connection sharing tools are available in the proxy-server space, Sygate stands out because of how simple it is to set up and administer.
We downloaded an evaluation copy to service three computers on a small-office intranet, and we were up and running with an Internet connection in less than 15 minutes. Of course, most of the work in setting up an intranet is wiring the client computers, installing network cards, and configuring the operating systems, but the relative ease to set up Sygate was apparent.
We set up Sygate to work with both a dial-up phone line and a 24/7 Digital Subscriber Line connection (DSL), and both worked just fine. The installation procedures in both cases were painless: Once Sygate was told which connection was in use, installation procedures specific to the network type were instituted.
Sygate is set up on one networked PC (a dedicated server is not needed). When we installed it, we did not need to mess with the Windows Network Control Panel or TCP/IP parameters. In addition to the tested DSL and dial-up connections, Sygate supports cable modems, ISDN, and DirecPC connections, as well as Ethernet-based networks and home-based wireless networks.
By default, Sygate supports HTTP, HTTPS, NNTP, SMTP, POP3, telnet, FTP, and instant-messaging protocols. Users can add additional protocols, such as RealPlayer, by hand.
