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This is a work in progress.
A note of disclosure: I have recently joined the staff of NetManage as the team lead for their Internet Commerce engineering group. Having said that, I've made every attempt to make this an objective review.
Most Winsocks support LAN-based connectivity; some also provide SLIP support, others also add PPP support. Check your internet connection requirements before acquiring a Winsock package.
Most TCP vendors bundle Winsock with their TCP packages. However, not all Winsock DLLs are the same - they offer different capabilities, advantages and prices.
However, I have received numerous reports that FTP's Winsock is non-compliant and that a number of shareware apps suffer read-failures on FTP's Winsock, while working perfectly on other Winsocks. I have encountered the same problems with FTP's Winsock on my LAN.
Microsoft's VXD-based Winsocks are some of the fastest on the market; all of their Winsocks are very stable. However, none support ICMP Ping at this time (although their TCP stacks do).
Microsoft currently provides a few free clients: FTP and Telnet - however, they are pretty poor compared to the others in the marketplace. I expect this to change over time.
Chameleon comes in multiple versions: a LAN-less SLIP/PPP version, a full LAN/SLIP/PPP version and a ChameleonNFS version.
If you just want single-user modem access to the internet, the LAN-less version is the one you want (although Trumpet's Winsock is cheaper and provides better features for software developers). No TSR is used.
If you are a LAN user, their complete Winsock kit is the better way to go.
If you want to run your own LAN and connect to the internet, but don't have an NT 3.5/Netware/Unix server, or if you need NFS support, ChameleonNFS is what you want.
NFS is the standard internet protocol for sharing file systems between computers. Used mostly on unix, it is also useful for sharing files between Windows 3.1 PCs. NFS is also used in a number of unix-based applications.
Chameleon is bundled with a large suite of internet clients. In the past, these applications were pretty poor; the most recent releases have improved considerably in their scope, numbers and quality. Their servers are now some of the most stable in the market.
Downsides include: ChameleonNFS is a real pain to install and configure. Once installed, if you attempt to reinstall it in another directory, Chameleon leaves debris scattered in about 4 Windows .INI files, which you will have to manual edit to correct. No help files are supplied for setting up routing tables.
If you want to run servers on Windows 3.1 or WFW, I recommend NetManage.
LWP's Winsock is also one of the most robust Winsock I've found in terms of establishing TCP connections.
The downsides include: SLIP/PPP is TSR-based, requiring DOS memory; poor SLIP/PPP scripting; proper configuration can also be tricky; LWP's Winsock uses some non-standard error handling.
Using asynchronous calls on their Winsock results in launching a background application, which can unexpectedly gobble up memory. To be fair, though, most other Winsocks keep a background app running all the time.
If you are running your own LAN and want to route between a LAN card and a SLIP/PPP connection, LWP won't do it for you - you need a router - which generally means installing NT 3.5, NetWare or unix.
Trumpet Winsock seems to be the most popular shareware Winsock in use. It has the best debugging and trace support of all the Winsocks I've reviewed; you can trace comm events, SLIPP/PPP, Winsock, UDP, TCP, and more.
If all you need is SLIP or PPP, Trumpet Winsock has built-in SLIP/PPP (no TSRs or drivers required), with excellent script handling.
While not bundled with their Winsock, Trumpet also has one of the best shareware email/news readers I've used. It supports NNTP, SMTP and POP while providing a nice MDI presentation.
Downsides include: no LAN drivers (although freeware/shareware drivers are ftp-able from other sites) and zero support (they do have a news group).
This has changed. Microsoft has discovered the Net and has made a commitment to TCP. They have the resources to insure that their Winsock is competitive in terms of performance and features.
As a result, many Winsock vendors are now giving their Winsocks and TCP stacks away for free, and are focusing on Internet applications.
Unless you have a specific Winsock requirement (like routing on WFW), your vendor choice should be based on your application requirements. If your requirements are minimal, then Microsoft's Winsock, plus a few shareware clients, should be sufficient. If you need to run servers on WFW, I would recommend NetManage.
For what it is worth, this is what I use on my LAN:
LAN Connections