file sharing programs and windows firewall

[piper]

Ive been having problems with utorrent lately. Also i still dont completely understand the seeder/leecher thing. My problem is (and its only started recently) is that when i choose a download the popup doesnt give me the option to download it only gives the option's- find, save, cancel, and when i save it i cant find the file on the computer and find doesnt do anything except bring up a windows error message. One of my buddies says its a browser problem, and i have no idea how to fix it. Any ideas?

For torrent sites, because they are technically free although you can give donations, your way of giving back to the community is too seed the torrent you just finished downloading. Think of seeding as uploading and leeching which is downloading. You get a ratio next to your user name and if the ratio falls to a certain level you get a warning. The ratio co-ordinates with your u/l d/l. If you download more than you upload, or leech more then seed, your ratio is not going to be good and could actually cause you to get banned from certain torrent sites.

On a side note, I believe ISP's in Canada have capped our uploading speeds so we cannot upload nearly as fast as ISP's in the states. Pretty weak.

Using Utorrent is great, azureus is complicated. Make sure you read the different threads posted about each client and go in and tweak what they say to tweak.

If you have an anit-virus on your computer, ie: norton, turn off windows firewall and use the firewall with whatever program you have. That way you have centralized all of your app's/programs and don't need to allow them to connect to your network through windows fw AND anti-virus fw.

Like said earlier, if using a router, you will have to "forward" your port so Utorrent can access it. You will still be able to upload though if you don't do this step.

I don't trust open source torrent sites, too much can happen with those sites. Spyware, malware, virus's, hacking.. too much too list.

I like to donate to the sites I go to and still regularly buy movies, music etc.