ICS Web-browsing Problem: the Work-Around

Description of problem, and related considerations

    Browsing a list of sites returned by Google, I found that about half of them would not load. And most of the "bad" sites would just hang waiting for the reply from the Web-server. Then when I could not load the Website for my ISP (Bell Sympatico), I knew something was wrong on my end of things. What turned out to be happening, was the Windows XP computer directly connected to the Internet had no problems loading most the above sites. But any computer connected to the Internet via XP Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), would constantly just hang while waiting for the reply from a Web-server, for a large number of specific sites.

    My trouble-shooting of this problem started with removing ICS, un-installing the networking card drivers, and fully shutting down the computer. Then powering back up, and re-installing everything (in Windows XP). Finally, after about a month of trying every other possibility I could think of, I concluded this was an actual problem with the functionality of Windows XP ICS.

    So instead, I went looking for another way of doing things, and came up with an elegant solution for Internet Explorer. A solution that is based on the following considerations: The current versions of (Windows) IE, provides pretty good proxy (or no proxy) detection. The AnalogX Proxy program uses port 6588 for both HTTP and HTTPS. (HTTP, or normal Webpages, usually load by using port 80. And HTTPS, or secure Webpages, usually load by using port 443.) The AnalogX proxy also provides reasonably complete socks support. (Socks is a special type of Internet proxy, that many newer programs are able to use.) And finally, an HTTPS proxy seems to be needed; but any HTTP proxy will cause some sites that did work to stop loading correctly.

Implementing the Work-Around

• The AnalogX Proxy program was installed on the Internet Windows XP computer, then configured as follows:
  • In the "Proxy Binding" field, set the program to listen only to the IP address for the network card connected to the local network. (Usually IP address 192.168.0.1)
  • Set this to act as only an HTTP/HTTPS, FTP and Socks proxy. ("HTTP", "FTP" and "Socks" are on, all others are off.)

• On each computer using ICS, set-up the Internet Options for Internet Explorer as follows:
  • Go to the "Connections" tab, and the "LAN Settings" button.
  • Select (check) the "Automatically detect settings" box, the "Use proxy server" box, and the "Bypass proxy server for local addresses" box.
  • Select the proxy "Advanced" button to manually configure some proxy settings.
  • Leave the line for "HTTP:" blank. (No HTTP proxy used.) Or if some other program-- like a banner blocker-- has configured something in this line, then leave it as it is.
  • For the "Secure:" line (HTTPS) set the "Proxy address to use" to the IP address the AnalogX proxy is listening on. (Again, usually 192.168.0.1) Then set the "Port" to 6588
  • For the "FTP:" line enter the IP address the AnalogX proxy is listening on, and a Port number of 21
  • For the "Socks:" line, again enter the IP address the AnalogX proxy is listening on, and this time a Port number of 1080
  • Finally, select OK for each of the open windows.

    To use this set-up, the AnalogX proxy must first be started (run), on the Windows XP system, which is directly connected to the Internet. (Possibly by having a copy of the AnalogX proxy icon placed in the Startup folder.) Then for any computer connected to this Windows XP system, when Internet Explorer is started, it will automatically detect and use the AnalogX proxy to load Webpages. Otherwise, it will continue to directly use just the Windows XP ICS for Usenet news, email, etc..

    A laptop and docking station is one situation which shows how robust this solution really is. That when the laptop is in the docking station, it connects to the Internet via the local network, using ICS and the AnalogX proxy as above. But when the laptop is mobile, and connects directly to the Internet via a dial-up modem, the settings for that dialup networking connection are used. Thus while using dialup access with IE, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc., everything still works as it had before the above work-around was implemented.