You hear about 'port forwarding' as a way to improve your download and game speeds, but what exactly is port forwarding?
If the computer signal can find its way into your computer a few milliseconds quicker, it will add up to be dramatic speed increases for your game or your downloading.
65,536 paths to choose from: that pencil-thin network cable (or wireless network adapter) at the back of your computer contains 65,536 microscopic pathways inside it. Your network cable is the same as a major highway, except your network cable has 65,536 lanes, and there is a tollbooth on each lane. We call each lane a 'port'.
Your Internet signal is comprised of millions of tiny little cars that travel on these 65,536 lanes. We call these little cars "transfer packets". Computer transfer packets can travel very quickly (up to thousands of kilometers per second), but they do observe a stop-and-go set of rules, where they are required to stop at each major network intersection as if it were a border crossing between countries. At each intersection, the packet must do three things:
- Find an open port,
- Pass the identification test that will allow it through that port, and if not,
- Move to the next port and try again, until it is allowed to pass through the toll.
In some cases, packets sent by hackers will be caught and held at the intersection, where they will then be dissolved into random electrons. When this happens, it is called "packet filtering" or "packet sniping".
>>How to Set My Port Forwards for UTorrent OR Bit Torrent:
This guide will help you turn this pesky yellow triangle into a nice green circle in uTorrent through port forwarding. Making that icon green will get you better download speeds, and thus, more happiness…
You will see in this guide that explaining how to do this for uTorrent basically explains how to do it for any bit torrent client. On to the tutorial…
Opening ports for a bit torrent client has nothing to do with the bit torrent client (well, except for the port number….that’s kind of important). Opening ports is all about working with your router’s settings. I will be using a ZXDSL 831CII router for this tutorial. Most routers’ have very similar settings and options, so it shouldn’t matter if you don’t have a ZXDSL router.
Step 1: Find out what port your program uses.
I use BitTorrent, but you may use a different UTorrent client. In just about every UTorrent clients’ options, there is a place to change the port it uses. For BitTorrent, you just go to Options->Preferences, and the connection options pop right up. As you can see below, the port is 49743. Make sure you write down this port. You’ll need it later.
You will have the different port or may be the same, so don’t worry about the port
Step 2: Find out your network IP address.
Click on your start menu, and select run Or Press Win+R to Open the Run box. Once the run box is up, type “cmd” in the box.
Now, a dos-like box will open up. Type in ipconfig and press enter.
Next, you will get a result like this.
Write down the IP address as you’ll need this later.
Step 3: Log into your router settings page.
This can be done by entering 192.168.1.1 into the address bar of your browser. After you have done this, you should be promoted to log into the router settings page. The default username is “admin” and the default password is also “admin”.
Step 4: Click on Advanced Tab
Depending on your router, you may come across different menus here. In any case, you want to make sure click on add a port and the forward option, but in my case I have to go through these steps
Step 5: Advanced > NAT
Step 6: NAT > Select PVC7 from Combo Box
Step 7: Now Click on virtual Server
Step 8: Forward your port from Step 1.
Now, you should be given a few different fields to fill in about the port you are forwarding. First, you want to give the index (Give any number given there) and then the port name. I usually just name it the same as the program it is associated with, so in this case it would be Bit Torrent. Second, you want the port to be open for both TCP and UDP. Next, you put in the port from Step 1. It may ask for a range (Start port number, end port number), but you can just put the same number for both the starting and ending ports. Finally, you put in your server IP address as found in Step 2, and REBOOT your Router...
Congratulations! Now, you should be able to download and share much faster!