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I have multiple network adapters on my Windows XP system. Is there a way I can establish which adapter Firefox and Internet Explorer are using? Can I force them to use a specific adapter?

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Out of curiosity, why are there multiple network adapters on your system? It's uncommon just to have more than one NIC on a system let alone have multiple NICs that are in use. Is this a "work PC" attached to different internal LANs? – irrational John Jul 6 '10 at 19:37
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I can't speak for the original poster, but I use one NIC for the directly-exposed-to-the-internet network, and another NIC for my internal NATted network where my NAS and wireless trafic live. – Zed Jul 6 '10 at 20:45
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@irrational John: Add a VPN to this and a virtualization software like virtualbox/vmware and you'll get at least 4 network adapters listed, that's not really uncommon imho :) – Shadok Dec 7 '11 at 16:48
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3 Answers

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Your browser isn't choosing which interface your traffic goes through, the network settings in the OS are responsible for that. In this case it would probably depend on what the default gateway was set as. By default all the traffic would go through that unless there was an exception.

If this were linux the answer would simply be 'iptables' but in windows it's a tad more murky. I wish I could answer better, I'm sure someone else will have a better answer, but this should at least get you started.

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I don't believe there is any logical necessity for a "default gateway" setting to also specify which interface to use. The default just needs to identify which router to use as a "last resort" when IP can't figure out where else to send a packet. – irrational John Jul 6 '10 at 19:42
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The default gateway setting is an IP. An IP which is in the range of one of the interfaces as specified by their subnet masks and IP. So yes, you only specify the DG and not the actual interface (Unless you're using linux). – Daisetsu Jul 6 '10 at 20:32
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up vote 1 down vote

I believe that in XP you can chose the priority list like so: coltrol panel>network connections>advanced(in the top toolbar) V Advanced settings... and you can move the connections up and down ect.... dunno if this REALLY changes the USED connection or not... EDIT:::tried-and-working-on-my-connections-with-different-IP's......:)

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It doesn't. As Daisetsu mentioned, "Your browser isn't choosing which interface your traffic goes through, the network settings in the OS are responsible for that." – BloodPhilia Jul 7 '10 at 18:35
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I know that the browser doesn't choose... but this has worked to get the OS to change it for me.. I had 2 separate connections running (with different external IP addresses) and I switched them.. and checked the IP in the browser and it worked!... at least for me it did :) – Luke3butler Jul 7 '10 at 18:37
Then put that in your answer... At the moment it seems like this will tell the asker that the browser CAN... – BloodPhilia Jul 7 '10 at 18:40
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up vote 0 down vote

You cannot set the browser's default interface, but you can change Window's default interface. See this article from http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/27994/how-to-change-the-priority-of-wiredwireless-network-cards-in-windows/

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