Best TCP Software

[pVC]

Users won't usually need any TCP/IP stack installed on the Amiga side when running it in WinUAE, just tick the bsdsocket emulation on from the WinUAE config.

For a real Amiga there are several options and the best may depend of your needs.

The most recent and probably the best all-arounder is Roadshow. It has the most modern features and supports for example DHCP and PPPoE, and it's fast. On the negative side there isn't any GUI, but it's still _really_ easy to setup, and GUI might even feel wasting resources with this

Then there are AmiTCP/IP based options. Original ones are hard to set up, but Genesis and EasyNet GUIs make it much better in that regard. Original 3.x is free, but later ones are commercial. Although you can get full version of Genesis with OS3.9. About as fast as Roadshow, but doesn't support DHCP or many modern features, but still a good option when static addresses is what you want. Genesis' GUI is pretty versatile, but I haven't seen EasyNet.. I think it's more simplier.

Miami(DX) has lot of features not found in other stacks, like NAT, PPPoE etc, but it's questionable if anyone needs those anymore in Amiga use. Miami is also the slowest stack of all, in many cases half of the speed of the other stacks. It's also impossible to get legally anymore. Quite easy to setup and versatile GUI too.

[pVC]

Everybody talking about speed, you know, Miami isn't that slow.  I'm sure if you run a speedtest it'll score lower than Roadshow and the others, but in terms of actual, "real-world" use, on my A2000 with X-Surf 100 and basic 100Mbps connection I can download just about any file on Aminet in a second.  And when browsing the web, Ibrowse takes longer to render the page than it does to download it.  So it's not like Miami's really "that slow", haha.  

In certain use it really is very slow compared to others and that fact can't be skipped when telling general information about the stacks. We don't know what kind of use readers will want to do.

When using web it might not be that noticeable, but if you want to transfer files for example with FTP in higher speeds, there really is the difference. Speeds can be twice as much on the other stacks than in Miami in real world use, and that really matters.

You can't generalize that everyone would just want to download few small files from the Aminet. Some might want to make whole backups of their Amiga through the net or move any other big files around. I've for example always moved mp3 files, ISO images, software archives, small movies, etc on the Amiga. It would have especially been a real bottle neck to use Miami when Amiga was my daily computer, and even still would.

For example here is couple real world speed tests between different stacks. A bit old, but shows how it was before Roadshow etc times, and still apply between the old stacks. FTP/HTTP test and smbfs test.

[pVC]

This reminds me of something I always use with MiamiDX:
Getting the actual date and time from the web and updating the system clock with it...

There once was a small tool available on Aminet for MiamiDX, that automatically retrieved the actual date and time from time servers on the web.
This only worked with MiamiDX - I have no idea if there is a comparable solution available for one of the other stacks.

I need this feature, as I removed the battery from my A4k mobo.
MiamiDX is started upon each boot (WB-Startup) and once it is online, the little tool from aminet makes it connect with a web based time server to get the actual date and time and then sets the systems date and time accordingly, if sytem date & time differ too much from that.

Up to now I never heard of comparable solutions for other stacks.

FACTS has been commonly used and suggested in every discussion in past (almost) 20 years It syncs with NTP.

I myself have just used the built-in time sync option in Genesis/Miami which syncs the clock with UDP Time protocol (ok to use to sync from other computers in LAN).

[pVC]

are there really that many people transferring whole movies to their Amiga?  

You're just picking one example from the several I gave. And I didn't say whole movies, they may be clips too. Some lower quality MPEG-1 videos run fine on highend Amigas too. I know you're picking up this one too, but I also ran FTP server on Amiga for years, and users did up/download movies too. But I know, nobody does it anymore, but just one another example of usage cases because you don't seem to have imagination enough

I would definitely be interested to learn the name of Amiga backup software that works over a network connection?  

Backup software doesn't need to do that, you may transfer the result of backup with any protocol you want (FTP is common). Many users don't have USB on their Amigas and they don't like to connect backup HDs etc, transferring the backup over net is a good solution to get is safe. You may also mount the source/destination Amiga drives and use any backup solution to copy the result directly to other machine.

[pVC]

Had I known that in the year 1999 then I might not have been quite so keen to start working on Roadshow  That splash window was so annoying...

And Genesis can be launched quietly without anything popping up too. I've been running it from user-startup.

[pVC]

And when I installed OS 3.9 the last time, I was asked if I also want to install Miami (demo version - on OS 3.9 CD, IIRC) as tcp/ip stack.

To be exact, demo version of Miami was on OS3.5 CD. OS3.9 had a full version of Genesis.