Oh some people swear by these kinds of devices. And I have thought of the idea a few times. However, as you get to utilise your broadband connection more, you will realise (if you have fast internet access somewhere else as well, like work) that your abilities to be REMOTELY CONNECTED TO are just as useful as your ability to download big files relatively quickly, play games faster, etc.
For instance, how would you like to be able to remotely connect to your home computer from your work, check the progress of your downloads, start up other downloads, etc???
Wouldn't that kick ***?
Well, you will have a lot less of a pain if you use a server to share your connection, not a router. You have a machine capable of thousands more functions sitting at the edge of your LAN.
It can be a web server. It can be an FTP server. It can host internet games. Its possible to configure your router to get some of these things working, sure. But its not as versitle.
HOWEVER... your router will doubtlessly have pretty tight security, more or less for a consumer level device for the home like that. It will have firewalling capabilities in the form of some kind of dynamic port opening and closing, access control lists even, that sort of thing.
If you DON'T have a cable router type device, remember to keep your server up to date with security fixes and patches from the windowsupdate.microsoft.com site!
You can read about a lot of the security fixes available for windows from
our front page.
You should also think about some kind of software firewall program, at least like zone alarm.
I have spoken a lot about the desire to make your broadband connection more versitile with a server, but remember that more services means more security problems.
For the security minded person who doesn't feel they are too technical, and who doesn't mind loosing some very interesting broadband abilities, the router is the way to go. Its easy to set up and has a lot of security features and so forth which make it a good product for the home.
