Australians to block BitTorrent!?

**eragon100** · December 24th, 2008

Originally Posted by wolfen69

you are doing something wrong then. torrents have always been reliable and very fast for me and my friends. in your conclusion, who are you speaking for? i have news for you, bittorrent is an extremely popular way to download and share files. it's not going anywhere.

i've been using bittorrent now for about 9 years and have never had a problem using it. and in case you didn't know, it is the most reliable way of getting a file that will match the original as far as integrity. the way bittorrent works is that it's always checking the integrity of the bits coming in. far more reliable than a straight download that has no way of preventing bad data from being downloaded.

They are only popular because a lot of things can only be obtained in that way. They put a tremendous load on the network because there are 100's of connections instead of 1, and I think most people would use direct download if it would be possible. It's more reliable for the end user. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but I tough 'normal' internet protocols also checked for data los?

**markp1989** · December 24th, 2008

Originally Posted by magmon

Bittorrent is horridly slow for me if Im downloading a popular file because the seeds are so widely spread, I end up downloading from like 1 peer x.x

Direct download is preffered for me, but sometimes I cant find what I want.

you prob having the same problem as me, my ISP throttle torrent traffic . so i can only download during the night.

ps my isp is AOL UK , well now the car phone warehouse

**zmjjmz** · December 24th, 2008

My ISP (Comcast) used to block torrents, so I had to avoid them, but now that the FCC got on their *** about it I can torrent at full speed.
Torrents are really fast. I got a steady 781KB/s download rate using apt-p2p when upgrading my Breeze 3110 to Intrepid. Since I switched it to apt-p2p, installation of software and updates have been really insanely fast.

**handy** · December 24th, 2008

Have you people with torrent trouble tried using encrypted torrents?

Apparently the encryption was added to make it more difficult for ISP's that limit torrent traffic to detect torrents.

There is software available to ISP's that will allow them to detect encrypted torrents, though it is not in wide use, from what I have read.

**samjh** · December 25th, 2008

Originally Posted by handy

Have you people with torrent trouble tried using encrypted torrents?

Apparently the encryption was added to make it more difficult for ISP's that limit torrent traffic to detect torrents.

There is software available to ISP's that will allow them to detect encrypted torrents, though it is not in wide use, from what I have read.

I always use encrypted torrents, but they're still awfully slow. When I tried to download Ibex using torrents, it was doing about 10kB/s, on a connection that usually does 150kB/s using direct download links.

**handy** · December 25th, 2008

Originally Posted by samjh

I always use encrypted torrents, but they're still awfully slow. When I tried to download Ibex using torrents, it was doing about 10kB/s, on a connection that usually does 150kB/s using direct download links.

Bummer.

**eragon100** · December 25th, 2008

Originally Posted by samjh

I always use encrypted torrents, but they're still awfully slow. When I tried to download Ibex using torrents, it was doing about 10kB/s, on a connection that usually does 150kB/s using direct download links.

Same for me.

**etnlIcarus** · December 25th, 2008

They put a tremendous load on the network because there are 100's of connections instead of 1, and I think most people would use direct download if it would be possible.

The 'connections' are completely insignificant compared to the sheer amount of data being transferred. It seems you've been the victim of FUD or general misinformation. If p2p didn't exist, big media and ISPs who are too cheap to update their infrastructure would be complaining about the evils of http/ftp downloads on their networks.

As for this subject, the plans to inspect p2p packets is moronic on a number of levels but that's nothing new to Labor's filtering plans. Hopefully the ineptitude with which this whole project is being handled and it's utter futility will prevent it from passing in either house of parliament.