Category: Geeks r Us
If you are a BitTorrent user like I am, you might notice that your torrents are slower than they used to be... If so, most likely your ISP is throttling your BitTorrent traffic to "preserve" their bandwidth, which in turn prevents you from getting the stuff you want in a timely fashion. With some ISP's, just turning on the built-in encryption in your BitTorrent client is enough to restore full speed to your torrents... but with others (Comcast, for example), you have to take some extra steps to regain your full speed.
First, for those using uTorrent (the most popular BitTorrent client in the blind community), and who aren't using a ISP like Comcast, here's how to enable the encryption features in uTorrent to regain speed for your torrents:
1. Go to your Options menu, and select Preferences. Hit Enter.
2. Go to BitTorrent, and look for the entry about encryption, and select Forced. Tab once, and uncheck the box labeled Allow legacy BitTorrent connections.
3. Tab to Apply, hit enter, then tab to OK and hit enter.
4. You're done... Happy BitTorrenting.
For those like me (who use Comcast or another ISP with strict anti-BitTorrent bandwidth shaping) who the above method won't work because their ISP screws with the encrypted form of BitTorrent traffic, then the only true solution is to use a VPN (virtual private network), which will wrap all traffic in a layer of much more powerful encryption, thereby fooling your ISP into thinking that you're visiting a secure web page. You won't need the trick above, because the VPN offers the encryption to you, and BitTorrent is free to do it's thing and milk your bandwidth. ISP's usually give priority to VPN/HTTPS/SSL traffic (last two have to do with the web), and you get the benefits of speed and security. Interestingly, your ISP only can tell that you've connected to a remote computer (the VPN server/secure website host), but can't see what you're doing in the tunnel. You just told them who's boss.
I would like to recommend Torrent Freedom, which offers a BitTorrent optimized VPN connection for $17 US, and doesn't keep records of what you do... your billing is done through a third party, so no link tying your credit card/Paypal/other method of payment to your Torrent Freedom account. Visit http://www.torrentfreedom.com for more info.
-- Greg