Port forwarding...safe?

sunnysunnysunny

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Hi
I'm new to torrents, and I've read that port forwarding increases your speeds. At the moment, I'm getting 1kb/s which is dreadful.
What exactly does port forwarding do, and is it safe?
Thanks :thumbsup:
 
port forwarding is basicly opening up the ports the BT client is using in a router and forwarding them to the computer the BT client is installed on, as for safty I would just disable the port forwarding after use.

Curly
 
Port forwarding is perfectly safe. In fact it can be safer that not using port forwarding.

If I open up port 25678 and tell my router to send all incoming\outgoing traffic to and from my pc then there has to be an application on my PC that uses that port. In order to attack a PC you have to have an application that is sat on that PC listening to that port. In addition to that the application has to be vulnerable to attack - which in 99% of cases applications aren't.
 
Thanks guys. Also, just wondering, how many of you actually use port forwarding, and does it help with speeds?
 
All sorts of programs use port forwarding, even things like Windows Remote Desktop and Windows Messenger use it. Dont think of it as uncommon to forward ports as its a very common thing to do.
 
Using UPNP is much easier than open/closing ports manually.
 
I heard that UPnP is dangerous. Should it be kept off or is it safe to use? And if it, then how do you use it? Thanks :)
UPnP is dangerous? Where did you hear that? It only opens port when needed, and on the fly.

Where as if you open a port manually, it always stays open. If anything, it's more secure than opening a port manually. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But this is my believe/opinion.

To use it, simply enable the option in your router settings and torrent client settings. The rest will handle itself simple as mate ;)
 
UPnP is dangerous? Where did you hear that? It only opens port when needed, and on the fly.

Where as if you open a port manually, it always stays open. If anything, it's more secure than opening a port manually. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. But this is my believe/opinion.

To use it, simply enable the option in your router settings and torrent client settings. The rest will handle itself simple as mate ;)
I read it here: http://www.grc.com/unpnp/unpnp.htm
Also, just by Googling "Is UPnP safe" you get loads of interesting results.
So, I'm still not sure :confused:
 

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