Old user with some questions.

[Lightingbird]

Let me say this...

I have utterly no problem with download speeds. I have a 20mb download connection and I'm always downloading on average 99kb - 500kb a second. Now I'm behind a linksys router but I have it set up correctly and a port range forwarded. My settings are encrypted, I use peer 2 guardian, and a good firewall. So my questions are basic, mainly for information, and just to see I am maximizing my downloads.

SEEDS

-Even with my usual good download speeds, I'll notice some odd numbers my seeds. At this moment for example, I have 3(112). Now I'm currently downloading at 150kb to 220kb/s. Just wondering if this is normal or anything I can do to enhance this.

PEERS

-Pretty much the same thing as above. I currently have 76(1723) in peers on the same download.

OPTIONS

-I've never really used "update your tracker" or "clear peers list". Will either of those help? If so how often should I use it? Ha In the last month, I just noticed that i can increase the bandwith allocation per download. Not sure that really helped.

Err... ha thats it!

[Ultima]

It's completely normal to not connect to every seed/peer, and in fact, it would be a waste of connections/bandwidth to connect to more.

Don't bother manually updating the tracker or clearing your peer list. Bandwidth allocation affects uploads only.

(This is mostly explained in the µTorrent user manual, really)

[Switeck]

Dunno why you run Peer Guardian:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=55706

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=55752

[Lightingbird]

Sorry I see utterly no reason why anyone would not use something that give some sort of protection from viewing eyes. Like winning the lotto, can't win if you don't play. Also, might be better if you tell a person why you think its best they not use that app than give those links with blocks of text where I'm reading the arguments trying to see your point.

[Switeck]

Simple, uTorrent has ipfilter.dat which blocks ips and ip ranges the same as Peer Guardian.

Because Peer Guardian must act ON connections uTorrent has, makes, or attempts to makes...as opposed to uTorrent choosing to NOT make connections based on ipfilter.dat, it would stand to reason that Peer Guardian is definitely not the better choice if all you wish to do is filter ips uTorrent sends or receives.

Secondly, Peer Guardian has no effect on network printers being "busted" for copyright infringement.

Blocking possible or even probable copyright monitors ip ranges doesn't help if they "harvest" ips from the tracker/s you connect to, since they never have to attempt a connection to you to do so.

Thirdly, even in the event a copyright monitor is actually accomplishing "due diligence" by trying to connect to you and then verifying you are indeed sharing a copyright work they are monitoring...there is evidence they use regular consumer dynamic ip ranges from big-name ISPs, use bogon ranges that they temporarily assign to their testing network/s, AND can masquerade as bogus/arbitrary ips as well. (the last...due to the use of raw sockets.)

Even a VPN is not completely safe without a software or hardware firewall with special settings to prevent uTorrent from using the regular connection in the event the VPN goes offline.