10 Ways To Speed Up Torrent Downloads
By Saikat Basu on Feb. 20th, 2009
speed up torrent download speedImagine being on the autobahn with the accelerator down and then you realize that you are driving a wrecked car. The plight is not so uncommon on the information superhighway too.
Torrent users would attest to the fact that half of our time is spent looking for ‘healthy’ torrents and the other half trying to download (and a bit of upload too) at the maximum speed. The former is mandatory; the latter thankfully is within the realm of tweaking.
If you are the one who thinks that your torrent download speeds could do with a boost then keep reading. Below, you’ll find a few tips on how to speed up torrent download speed.
1.Your ISP is where it starts
Check the maximum download and upload speeds allowed by your ISP. Most ISP’s have specific bandwidths for both uploads and downloads. Obviously your torrent download speed won’t cross the cap set by the ISP. Go over to this article on Speed.io for broadband speed test and this one by Tina on ways to increase your connection speed. There are many other bandwidth testers like DSLReports which is included in the speed test within uTorrent.
2. Choosing the right BitTorrent client
Use the better clients out there like uTorrent, Vuze or the BitTorrent client itself. Wikipedia lists about 51 of them supporting the BitTorrent protocol. The choice of client used should always be updated to the latest version. The screenshots here depict uTorrent. The settings should be similarly configurable for other clients too. Mac users shuld also check our Transmission vs. uTorrent post
3. Go for healthy seeds and peers
A peer is any computer participating in the download and upload of a torrent file. A seed (or seeder) is anyone who has one complete copy of the file being shared across the torrent network. A leech (or a leecher) is the person who does not have the complete file yet but has joined the network to download it. A leecher becomes a seeder when he downloads the entire file and then shares it across the network.
increase torrent downloading speed by choosing healthy seeds
For high torrent speeds, the best bet is in numbers. The greater the number of seeders, the healthier the torrent and the better the chance of higher speeds. The rule of thumb says to choose the torrent files with a high number of seeders and preferably lesser number of leechers i.e. a higher seed-leecher ratio.
4. Get through the firewall
Firewalls can block all incoming BitTorrent connections coming through. To ensure otherwise, a firewall should be manually configured to accept the connections and let it through the client. Windows XP has the Windows Firewall. Configure the firewall installed to accept the connections by checking the BitTorrent client on the allowed list i.e. Options – Preferences – Connection – check Add uTorrent to Windows Firewall. Also, check the Windows Firewall exception (if you keep it enabled) in your client too. Shutting down the firewall is not recommended as it leaves the computer open to attack.
Note: If the home computer is behind a router, it also should be configured through the feature called Port Range Forwarding to enable torrent traffic. The router documentation should have specific information on this.
5. Limit your upload rate
A peer to peer network is all about sharing alike, but an unlimited upload rate hits the download rate too. Using the speed tests, find out your maximum upload speed and then set your client’s upload rate (Global Upload Rate in uTorrent) to about 80% of your maximum upload speed. You can also try varying your upload speeds – keep it high initially and then gradually bring it down towards the middle of the download.
Note: Mind the speed units – it may be given in kilobits per second (kb/sec) or kilobytes per second (kB/sec). 1 kilobyte = 8 kilobit
6. Go to a different port
The default port for the BitTorrent protocol is any between port numbers 6881-6999. ISPs throttle traffic on these ports as BitTorrent sharing involves high bandwidth usage. It’s easy to configure a different port in your torrent client. Use some number above 10000 to get around ISPs and also avoid problems with other applications. By default, the uTorrent port is randomized each time it starts. Set a specific port by not enabling the Randomize Port setting.
7. Increase the number of Max Half Open TCP connections
This figure specifies how many connections a torrent client should attempt to establish simultaneously at any given time. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or newer, limits this to a default of 10 as a barrier against virus multiplication. But that’s a bummer for torrent speeds as torrents too need a large number of simultaneous connections.
A patch has been available for a while from LvlLord which modifies the TCPIP.sys file in Windows to allow a higher number of TCP connections.
increase the half open tcp connections
After running the patch, you have to set the number of connections in your torrent client. For example, in uTorrent go to Options – Preferences – Advanced – net.max_halfopen. Set any number from 50 to 100. But see that net.max_halfopen is set lower than the value set in TCPIP.SYS. Always check if it is still patched because Windows updates sometimes overwrite it.
8. Experiment with Protocol Encryption
Some ISPs love to act like Big Brothers and constrict bandwidth for P2P protocols. Protocol Encryption in most of the torrent clients helps to override this bandwidth shaping. Enable outgoing protocol encryption and put a checkmark on Allow Incoming Legacy Connections.
With protocol encryption, ISPs find it difficult if not impossible to detect that the traffic is coming from BitTorrent. Experiment with enabled, disabled and forced options because you could be getting better speeds with encryption disabled. Non-encryption makes a torrent connection compatible with someone who is not using encryption but as a minus it makes the torrent detectable to an ISP with a bandwidth restricting policy.
9. Bandwidth and connections
Your BitTorrent client’s settings options will let you enter figures for –
Global maximum number of connections gives the maximum number of connections that a BitTorrent client can make for any P2P exchange. Setting this too high does NOT mean higher speeds. Setting it too high would take up useless bandwidth and too low a figure would miss out on peers. For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 130.
Maximum number of connected peers per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent client can connect to for any P2P exchange. Experiment by setting this number close to the available peers for a particular torrent. For my 256kbps connection, I have a default setting of 70.
Number of upload slots per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent client will upload to for any P2P exchange. A low setting may affect downloads. For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 3.
uTorrent has a Speed Guide which handily calculates the figures for a particular connection.
10. Some common sense
Most BitTorrent clients allow us to view the individual files in a download. You can selectively disable the download of files you don’t think necessary.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Saas - Is it there?
SaaS, an acronym for Software as a Service, continues to evolve in the market today. Any project or program manager involved with software application implementation needs to be very familiar with SaaS. But any project manager on any project where there are systems involved with managing any aspect of the project will also benefit by being familiar with SaaS. In this post, I simply want to highlight a few high points that I have learned recently about the state of the SaaS evolution.
Software as a Service (SaaS) is becoming much more pervasive. However, it is doing so especially in certain markets, certain applications, and certain functionality. Specifically, Saas is especially taking off in the following:
1. the small to medium organization market where businesses can take advantage of the low upfront costs to get started, the low total cost of ownership, and the avoidance of building infrastructure internally,
2. the more popular applications include human resource management, customer relationship management (CRM), and a host of other smaller market applications, including project management, and
3. parts of applications are migrating to SaaS delivery — an example would a specialized application within a business that would then leverage Saas-delivered communication and collaboration capabilities.
What does this mean for all of us as project managers? It means that there is a whole set of evolving capabilities out there that we can take advantage of, and that we need to think strategically about how we might employ SaaS as part of our projects. There is much to get our arms around regarding SaaS. There are many issues when it comes to marketing software and the place that SaaS might have in a product line. This would be of especially high concern to a program manager involved with the delivery of a software product line. You can find a great deal of information on a terrific and insightful free podcast simply called Software as a Service (SaaS) that is part of the McKinsey "On High Tech" podcast series available on iTunes.
Software as a Service (SaaS) is becoming much more pervasive. However, it is doing so especially in certain markets, certain applications, and certain functionality. Specifically, Saas is especially taking off in the following:
1. the small to medium organization market where businesses can take advantage of the low upfront costs to get started, the low total cost of ownership, and the avoidance of building infrastructure internally,
2. the more popular applications include human resource management, customer relationship management (CRM), and a host of other smaller market applications, including project management, and
3. parts of applications are migrating to SaaS delivery — an example would a specialized application within a business that would then leverage Saas-delivered communication and collaboration capabilities.
What does this mean for all of us as project managers? It means that there is a whole set of evolving capabilities out there that we can take advantage of, and that we need to think strategically about how we might employ SaaS as part of our projects. There is much to get our arms around regarding SaaS. There are many issues when it comes to marketing software and the place that SaaS might have in a product line. This would be of especially high concern to a program manager involved with the delivery of a software product line. You can find a great deal of information on a terrific and insightful free podcast simply called Software as a Service (SaaS) that is part of the McKinsey "On High Tech" podcast series available on iTunes.
GOOGLE BARCODE
Google Celebrates the patent Barcode invention by displaying "Barcode Logo" at Google Search Home Page, Barcode Logo to remark Barcodes 57th Anniversary at Google (www.google.com) as on 07th Oct, 2009.
On decoding "Barcode Logo" image it say's GOOGLE.
Barcode Information Source Wikipedia
A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data. Originally, bar codes represented data in the widths (lines) and the spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1D (1 dimensional) barcodes or symbologies.
They also come in patterns of squares, dots, hexagons and other geometric patterns within images termed 2D (2 dimensional) matrix codes or symbologies. Although 2D systems use symbols other than bars, they are generally referred to as barcodes as well.
Check out Google Search Home Page Logo's on previous occasions and get info on when Google has honored & displayed logos at their Search Home Page.
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