Port Forwarding help

[Behind Blue Eyes]

Im trying to forwards ports to download faster and i got no idea what im doing i was wondering if anyone could help me out plz?

[Bryce W]

Well, port forwarding is used to either "punch holes" though a firewall to give a certain program or game access to the computers behind the firewall so they can connect. Sometimes port forwarding is also used on computers which are behind a 'router'.

Each program/game uses a special port number to send and receive information over the internet. For example, MSN Messenger uses port 1863 and if you wanted to block MSN Messenger you could go into your firewall/routers configuration and specify you want to block port 1863. If you want to allow MSN Messenger information though then you could port forward (punching special holes in your firewall/router to let certain information though).

In your situation, you first need to know what port the program you are using sends information on.

Bittorrent uses: TCP 6881 - 6999
eMule, eDonkey, Overnet uses: TCP 4662 & UDP 4672
Shareaza uses: UDP & UDP 6346.
etc..

To figure out what ports your downloading program runs on, search google for something like "port forward KaZaA" or "KaZaA ports".

Then you need to go into your Firewalls or Routers web configuration and find the firewall/port forwarding page and enter these ports. Its typically different for each brand/manufacturer.

Here are some common manufacturers guides:

Billion (under FAQs)
D-Link
Dynalink
Netcomm
Netgear


Let us know how you go or if you need any further help..