Ok, i have a problem. I have two pc's sharing one cable connection. Now idealy i would have them both connected with some magic device which will essentally work as though we were both connected directly into the modem. I installed a router but the hardware firewall was killing me. I was told that a Hub was the same thing as a router, minus the firewall, so i picked up a hub. Now my hub let us connect LAN but not over the internet. Is there somthing I'm doing wrong? Or is perhaps a switch the way to go? *note: we dont have a printer to share so no worries there. And keep in mind that i'm networkly retarded. So the more detail you can give the better. And please dont tell me to use a router only because it has a firewall. I REALLY dont need an extra firewall, though i do appreciate the concern.* Thanks a million.

Log into the router using your browser, and DISABLE the router's firewall. No biggie. Rich Gu

I have the router currently in DMZ. But I'm finding that their are a great many programs/games that wont run even in DMZ.

I was told that a Hub was the same thing as a router, minus the firewall... Whoever told you that doesn't know what he is talking about. Quoted from this FYI tutorial: Routers are designed specifically to join the home (LAN) to the Internet (WAN) for the purpose of Internet connection sharing. In contrast, neither hubs nor switches are capable of joining multiple networks or sharing an Internet connection. A home network with only hubs and switches must designate one computer as the gateway to the Internet, and that device must possess two network adapters for sharing, one for the home LAN and one for the Internet WAN. With a router, all home computers connect to the router equally, and it performs the equivalent gateway functions. i_XpUser

#1. Let's look at a typical install and see if we can't get it working. One way is to have the modern home cheapo router to connect to the modem. Now there may or may not be a way to set the modem to let the router act as the connection. That is, the modem should passthrough the logon traffic. The wan IP should be on the wan port of the router/firewall. (I am a BIG fan if firewalls) Start with all firewalling enabled. Now you can do a few ways to nat the program. Some programs might actually need DMZ but I would only set that on rare times. If the programs are UpnP then you can enable the UpnP setting on the router to allow the router to connect the correct ports. Most people can use a good portion or all of a firewall and SHOULD. DMZ should work. It is as if the firewall is not there. There might be some IP address issue. A router is a layer 3 device and a hub is a 1layer 2 device. You need to understand the difference. A layer two device (if not smart) is just a special cable. It doesn't care unless you overload. Overload starts somewhere near 35% of bandwidth. Switches and routers are about 70% bandwidth. If you try to exceed that you end up with what looks to be a network hardware problem. Some games might require a great deal of bandwidth. Along with the game there is always broadcast traffic to mix in.

Thank you gentlemen. Those were the exact answers i was looking for. And my "informant", he is very eager to help, though hes often not correct. You guys are always full of useful information, and i thank you for helping the less network-ly educated.

You're welcome. I didn't meant to belittle your friend. It's great having friends eager to help. BTW I found two excellent examples of what we have discussed in this thread. You can better visualize the concepts involved. (you may need to wait for the ad to go away or click on "Skip the ad" in the About website (it's clean :-)) Example 1 - Diagram & brief explanation of Ethernet Router Network Example 2 - Diagram & brief explanation of of Ethernet Hub/Switch Network HTH i_XpUser