torrents

[kemist]

does anyone download stuff using torrent clients???
i seem to find everything i want via torrents but i experience very slow download rates ( i have tstt dsl)
i've seen they said something about 'forwarding ports' would probably increase the download speeds, but i have no clue what that is and i'm not sure about the security risks in doing so :? .

any advise or comments would be greatly appreciated.

[BW]

does anyone download stuff using torrent clients???
i seem to find everything i want via torrents but i experience very slow download rates ( i have tstt dsl)
i've seen they said something about 'forwarding ports' would probably increase the download speeds, but i have no clue what that is and i'm not sure about the security risks in doing so :? .

any advise or comments would be greatly appreciated.

I guess I could help you. For one, define what "very slow download rates" mean. TSTT DSL only goes up to 32KB/s, and you should really have no problem maxing that out. If it's under that, then you have a problem.

Okay, I'll start from the basics.

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1. Torrents have two major statistics: number of seeds and number of leechers/peers.

A "seed" is someone who is only uploading the file. The more seeds, the better!
A "peer" is someone who is simultaneously uploading and downloading the file.

The higher the seed:peer ratio, the better. If the torrent only has a few of either (like under 10), or a very low seed:peer ratio, then it will download very slowly (if at all). That said, you should never really have a problem maxing out TSTT's 256k service.
---

2. The settings you have are critical in giving you good speed.

By default, most torrent clients are set to "automatic" for both upload and download. CHANGE THAT IMMEDIATELY!!

Otherwise you could end up in a situation where your torrents will "choke" your whole connection. Bittorrent uses alot of overhead, and unless you set hard caps, it can quite easily use up your whole connection for overhead. Your connection might be being maxed out, but only a fraction of that will be going towards actually downloading the file.

The solution is to set caps on the bandwidth available, and then limit the number of connections your bittorrent client will make. You can find those in the preferences/settings/options menu of your client.

The main thing is to cap your maximum upload speed. TSTT's DSL service only has 64kilobits upload, or 8KB/s maximum. I've found in real-world usage that you rarely will get even above 6KB/s average. However, you need to set-aside some of that overhead and the like. The general rule is to set aside 1/3 of your upload speed towards that. For the purposes of TSTT DSL...

I would suggest you set your maximum upload speed to 5KB/s. Nothing higher. Do not leave out this step!!

The other thing is adjust your maximum download speed. You could get away with leaving it as "automatic", but I prefer to cap it at around 25KB/s. That leaves enough room for overhead and doing things like web-surfing. Go ahead, play with that number and see what works best for you.

And further you will want to adjust the maximum number of connections your client will make for per torrent. Try to keep that number low when you are on a slow connection. I would say about 50 at most will give good results.
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The final thing that can improve torrent speeds is port forwarding.

Port forwarding will allow you to reach more peers/seeds, and thereby allow you to get a higher speed. I've personally seen that just opening the port will bring speeds from around 50KB/s all the way up to over 700KB/s. There is conceivably a risk whenever you open a port, but I've never heard of anyone getting exploited from opening a port for bittorrent. That's really a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, to do this you have to make sure

1. Any firewall software you have on your PC is set to allow the port through
2. Your modem is set to forward the port to your computer
3. Your bittorrent client is set to accept the connection through that particular port (note, some torrent clients now assign RANDOM ports before starting)
4. Any other stuff on your network (a wireless router, for instance) will also let the port through.

You have to go in an check/adjust every one of those. That means jumping through 3 or 4 different interfaces and it isn't always that obvious how to do it. Still, just read your manual and there shouldn't be a problem.

BUT... I need to mention there is another way of doing that: Universal Plug and Play (UPNP).
This is a feature built in to any recent hardware and software which will do all that work for you! Again, check your manual or use google.
----

I'm not sure which bittorrent client you are using, but I personally use Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/). If you need any help with that one in particular, I'd be more than willing to assist.

[kemist]

tyvm breads
i now have a better understanding of it than i did a couple months ago.
I got tstt adsl 256k/64k.
I am using Utorrent client. I chose that because they claimed to use less resources than bittorrent .
I think my main problem is the # of seeds. For the stuff i download ( mainly TV series)
i usually only see 1 - 3 seeds max.

I will have to tweak some of my settings as prescribed by you, but i,ve always had my upload rate for each file set at 1kb/s.

I usually have 20 active torrents, 10 downloads and 10 uploads.

With the issue of port forwarding i've seen a program that does it automatically, but its not free. My tstt router is a Paradyne one, and last i checked, the program does not support paradyne. I am just a bit nervous with adjusting the settings on my paradyne box for now, but eventually (sooner then later) i would like to try port forwarding.

Anyhow, thanks again for the info.

[cm103]

Yeah Bread, that was a nice lil writeup there. I made sure and bookmarked it.

If Utorrent giving you beans then try the abc client. I've tried a lot of clients since Bittorrent came out but abc always worked best for me.

[Sumana]

they haven't been working for me at allll

[discipuli]

You have to call TSTT and ask them to lower firewall on your DSL account for any P2P to work properly.

Drop your windows firewall , antivirus firewall etc. or set the firewalls to allow the torrent program full access..

Keep trying different programs as well , i use Azureus myself , but utorrent is good .

[Sumana]

My firewalls been drpped since i got dsl a few years back
Azureus isn't working for some of u..gotta switch to utorrent

[cm103]

You have to call TSTT and ask them to lower firewall on your DSL account for any P2P to work properly.

Drop your windows firewall , antivirus firewall etc. or set the firewalls to allow the torrent program full access..

Keep trying different programs as well , i use Azureus myself , but utorrent is good .

I'm an IT security admin for a company with well over 5,000 employees and we run analysis on internet traffic regularly to assess the threats coming from the outside to our network. I can say that dropping your firewalls entirely is a definite no-no at this point, especially with some of the newer malware still running wild out there.

If you're really bored and into security check out this site:

http://isc.sans.org/

Its one of the first sites I check every morning at work. Give you an idea of whats on the rise and how it exploits machines.

[Ali]

I'm not sure which bittorrent client you are using, but I personally use Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/). If you need any help with that one in particular, I'd be more than willing to assist.


I use BitComet.......is Azureus any better?.................what's the difference?

[halo]

I use utorrent. And yes it does depend on the number of seeds the torrent file has. My internet connection is "2Mbps". I set my upload rate to a max of 3KBps. On a good night I can get as much as 50-60kbps down on a file.

[Riptide]

does anyone download stuff using torrent clients???
i seem to find everything i want via torrents but i experience very slow download rates ( i have tstt dsl)
i've seen they said something about 'forwarding ports' would probably increase the download speeds, but i have no clue what that is and i'm not sure about the security risks in doing so :? .

any advise or comments would be greatly appreciated.


I have been using µTorrent since it has first been released and I never had any cause to use any other Bittorent client. In my personal experience I had never had any download problems using DSL or even on dial-up. In fact, I'm pretty much downloading torrents 24/7 (and I'm talking about some huge files 500MB plus).

My neighbour told me about the same problem you described. After some troubleshooting I suspected that the Internet Connections and/or Network Configurations on his system were probably configured wrongly or not at all. Windows default settings are actually not optimized for efficient download speeds and data transfers.

The solution: I used a combination of two software programs that fixed (or at least optimized) the problem areas (and even others we had not found yet...!) - TuneUp Utilities 2007 and Advanced WindowsCare - both of which can be downloaded, oddly enough, using µTorrent...!

If you should try these programs, hope all turns out well...!!! :D

[Zazoo]

I cannot connect to the internet using Azureus, it just keeps showing 0 users. I also got this message when I did a NAT/Firewall test that the port is probably closed. Can anyone help?

[trinianouk]

You have to call TSTT and ask them to lower firewall on your DSL account for any P2P to work properly.

Drop your windows firewall , antivirus firewall etc. or set the firewalls to allow the torrent program full access..

Keep trying different programs as well , i use Azureus myself , but utorrent is good .

I'm an IT security admin for a company with well over 5,000 employees and we run analysis on internet traffic regularly to assess the threats coming from the outside to our network. I can say that dropping your firewalls entirely is a definite no-no at this point, especially with some of the newer malware still running wild out there.

If you're really bored and into security check out this site:

http://isc.sans.org/

Its one of the first sites I check every morning at work. Give you an idea of whats on the rise and how it exploits machines.


To get best results under TSTT let them drop their firewall and you install a personal firewall on your PC to protect you from threats...Mcafee, Norton, Black Ice just to name a few.

[spike]

I use uTorrent, its really light weight on your system and is very easy to use. dropping your firewall in by no means a good idea at all.