Global connections and Firewall questions

[silverwolf0]

I have two questions. First, my D-Link DSL modem/router combo died and I replaced it with a plain Motorola DSL modem that has no networking capabilities and I don't think it has any fancy built-in firewall in it. I am directly connected to the modem, and like my first DSL modem, a Speedstream, which I had to use windows to dial in to (the new one is automatic), the connection speed isn't any faster than having a router as a middleman to connect to a modem, but webpages load more instantaneously, silmilar to the speed jump when you turn on the parallel piping for Firefox, which makes me happy. Should I be worried that I don't have a hardware firewall anymore and only have the windows xp firewall for protection? I have an old Buffalo router with DD-WRT that I can use, although it is a bit finicky, if having a router in the middle would be a better idea.

Second, I usually limit my global maximum connections to 170 or so in utorrent because all the routers I've used would crap out on me if I set it any higher. Since the DSL modem is directly connected to my computer, should I increase this number to possibly improve performance or allow for more torrents to run simultaneously since I'm not bottlenecked by the amount of memory on a router? Or do I have this completely wrong?

[Switeck]

2nd link in my signature.

Max connections is limited effectively by how many you can UPLOAD to.

I recommend setting global connections no higher than DOUBLE your upload speed.

Per torrent max connections can be as high as that, but obviously that'd mean 1 torrent could "use up" all the connections.

If you're not uploading to peers or uploading very slowly, they will ignore you and not upload back...end result will be you're connected to a lot of peers that only want to download from you. That's vaguely how BitTorrent's Tit-For-Tat (This for that, something-for-something) system works.

Occasionally, a peer or seed will upload to you via their optimistic unchoke upload slot...but they only have ONE such slot per torrent. Since they may be connected to 100+ peer/seed connections themselves, this can be quite rare for any given peer/seed to give you anything. Download speeds from that only get WORSE as people increase max connections further.