Broadband sharing through a hub

can someone tell me if i can share my broadband connection threw a hub and if so is it less secure ? im wanting to connect three computers.

A thread for you to read. It also has a good link to another thread that explains a little more.
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...ght=hub+router
If you're looking to securely connect the computers get a router.
Here's a tutorial on building a home network and an index list of tutorials on AO if you wanna browse through it.
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=228148
http://www.neg.be/index/

You can, but you will have to get more than one ip from your ISP (which will most likely cost more money) or put another box in front of the hub that does NAT (a Linux box using IP masquerading, a Windows box using ICS or a broadband router).

i say screw the hub just go out and use a router

I would have to agree with silent-mage, you can get one for around $30 off NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...roperty&DEPA=0

With the basic cost difference between a router and a hub, it would be a good idea to get a router. Yes it can be done, sharing your broadband with nothing but a hub, but as Irongeek pointed out, your ISP will be aware of (and therefore most likely charge you for) the additional machines, and more importantly, so will the rest of the internet. Yes it is far less secure (IMHO). Point of fact, if you connect them this way, you will be relying totally on your systems OS for security. Not impossible to secure, but tough at best.

Here is a quick and simple page to explain it.
http://www.homenethelp.com/web/howto...ternet-hub.asp

if you don't mind paying the extra price as MrCoffee pointed out, then a hub would work. As a college student myself, I find the best way to use a router with traffic/bandwidth shapping for the entire house so then we can't bitch @ each other about "you are hogging all the bandwidth" etc....Security is another issue.....Router might be more secure then your average computer. keyword MIGHT which depends on releases by the manufacturer, etc.......or just knowledge of how to lock down a computer.

So when you use a router do you have to call you isp or is that just whith the hub ?

With a router it should be transparent and just look like a computer hooked to the cable modem network, but sometime problems happen. I know Insight (my cable company) has no problems with users using routers, but in one case recently I had to call them up and have them register it manually because their software for registering was ****ing up.

although you'd be far better off from a security standpoint with a router you can still use a hub to connect multiple computer to the internet. set up ICS (internet connection sharing) on one computer then point the others to it as a gateway. older systems (9.x) require a ICS client. i assume where talking windows because nothing else was mentioned and windows contains everything required to do this and all the info you need can be found in the help files. the only computer requiring an internet IP address will be the one you use as a gateway so theres no need to call your isp.