Independent tests have shown that NAT32 outperforms
Win98SE ICS by at least a factor of two when used with Cable Modems,
ADSL connections and Ethernet Connections.
One reason for this is that 98SE ICS installs two
additional protocols for each available Adapter, and even Microsoft
itself recommends against this (in its Resource Kit Documentation) because
it adversely affects performance.
NAT32 requires only a single, small (32Kbyte) Device
Driver (NDIS3PKT) in order to access any Network Adapter.
Transparency
NAT32 leaves the Internet behaviour of the machine
on which it runs completely unchanged.
This means that all Internet Applications
on the NAT32 machine run exactly as before. There are no exceptions.
Win98SE ICS applies Network Address translation to
all
traffic
generated on the machine with the Internet Connection.
This means that only NAT-compatible applications
can run on the Win98SE ICS machine.
To run NAT-incompatible applications (like most games),
you must turn off ICS, which then leaves your other machines with
no
Internet connectivity at all.
DUN Server Support
NAT32 is still the only NAT package which
fully supports the Windows RAS and DUN Servers.
NAT32 lets you connect an entire LAN (and
even multiple subnets) to the Internet via the DUN or RAS Server.
Flexibilty
NAT32 can share Cable Modems, ADSL Connections and
similar even if only a single Ethernet Adapter is available.
NAT32 works with one-way Cable Modems.
NAT32 does not restrict you in your choice of private
LAN IP addresses or the number of subnets which can share an Internet connection.
NAT32 is completely configurable from a powerful
command shell, whereas ICS requires you to modify the Windows Registry
in order to configure it for special purposes.
NAT32 allows easy "opening up" of specific Ports
on specific private machines which are running FTP or WEB servers which
you may want to make accessible from the Internet.
NAT32 contains a Telnet Server, an HTTP Server and
an Ident Server. This lets you interact with and configure NAT32 from remote
locations.
NAT32 also supports SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 compatible
applications. ICS contains no support for any SOCKS version.
Expandability
NAT32 allows multiple machines on multiple physical
subnets to share a connection, whereas WIN98SE ICS allows only those machines
on a single Subnet (Adapter) to use the ICS feature.
NAT32 can be customised by adding your own shell
commands which you can write in either Tcl or C.
NAT32 lets you write your own WEB Servers or other
special-purpose TCP applications in Tcl.
Support
NAT32 registration buys you fast, detailed Email support. Try it by clicking
here.