What is the difference between winproxy and a router? What is the function of each?

What is the difference between winproxy and a router? What is the function of each?

What is the difference between winproxy and a router? What is the function of each?

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A router will let you share Internet connections by routing individual packets through a separate piece of hardware. With winproxy, you share an Internet connection through a PC so all traffic goes through the PC instead of just over the network. For instance, with winproxy, you could share one PC's Internet connection with several other PC's in the same network. You still need a router to get to the internet. It may be your cable modem that provides that function. But with winproxy, the other PCs would use the first PC's Internet connection. You would not need a switch in this case, you could be sharing on a peer to peer network.

This was first published in September 2004