Open uTorrent and Follow Below Steps to Increase uTorrent Download Speed: 1. Open uTorrent, by double-clicking on desktop icon or double-click on uTorrent icon on Task Bar. For many people, the distributed peer-to-peer download power of torrents isn't all it's made out to be. If you're feeling drowned in fake files, choking from ISP speed throttling, and sick of being told you're unconnectable – this guide is for you. Maximizing BitTorrent Speeds with uTorrent (Guide / Tutorial) Version 1.18 (Updated July 2014) This article explains how to get up and running with utorrent Bit Torrent efficiently. It shows how to battle ISP's throttling bittorrent speed, optimize download speed and other ways to speed up utorrent and increase utorrent download speed.
Imagine being on the autobahn with the accelerator down and then you realize that you are driving a wrecked car. The plight is not so uncommon on the information superhighway too.
Torrent users would attest to the fact that half of our time is spent looking for ‘healthy' torrents and the other half trying to download (and a bit of upload too) at the maximum speed. The former is mandatory; the latter thankfully is within the realm of tweaking.
If you are the one who thinks that your torrent download speeds could do with a boost then keep reading. Below, you'll find a few tips on how to speed up torrent download speed. And if you're new to Torrenting, don't forget to check out the official MUO Torrent guide.
Note: MakeUseOf doesn't condone the illegal use of torrents. Using torrents for illegal purposes is done entirely at your own risk. We assume no responsibility for any legal issues you may encounter.
Your ISP is where it starts
Check the maximum download and upload speeds allowed by your ISP. Most ISP's have specific bandwidths for both uploads and downloads. Obviously your torrent download speed won't cross the cap set by the ISP. Go over to Speed.io for broadband speed test and this article by Tina on ways to increase your connection speedIncrease the Speed of Your Internet ConnectionIncrease the Speed of Your Internet ConnectionRead More. There are many other bandwidth testers like DSLReports which is included in the speed test within uTorrent.
Choosing the right BitTorrent client
Use the better clients out there like uTorrent, Vuze or the BitTorrent client itself. Wikipedia lists about 51 of them supporting the BitTorrent protocol. The choice of client used should always be updated to the latest version. The screenshots here depict uTorrent. The settings should be similarly configurable for other clients too. Mac users shuld also check our Transmission vs. uTorrentTransmission vs uTorrent [Mac Only]Transmission vs uTorrent [Mac Only]Read More post
Go for healthy seeds and peers
A peer is any computer participating in the download and upload of a torrent file. A seed (or seeder) is anyone who has one complete copy of the file being shared across the torrent network. A leech (or a leecher) is the person who does not have the complete file yet but has joined the network to download it. A leecher becomes a seeder when he downloads the entire file and then shares it across the network.
For high torrent speeds, the best bet is in numbers. The greater the number of seeders, the healthier the torrent and the better the chance of higher speeds. The rule of thumb says to choose the torrent files with a high number of seeders and preferably lesser number of leechers i.e. a higher seed-leecher ratio.
Get through the firewall
Firewalls can block all incoming BitTorrent connections coming through. To ensure otherwise, a firewall should be manually configured to accept the connections and let it through the client. Windows XP has the Windows Firewall. Configure the firewall installed to accept the connections by checking the BitTorrent client on the allowed list i.e. Options – Preferences – Connection – check Add uTorrent to Windows Firewall. Also, check the Windows Firewall exception (if you keep it enabled) in your client too. Shutting down the firewall is not recommended as it leaves the computer open to attack.
Note: If the home computer is behind a router, it also should be configured through the feature called Port Range Forwarding to enable torrent traffic. The router documentation should have specific information on this.
Limit your upload rate
A peer to peer network is all about sharing alike, but an unlimited upload rate hits the download rate too. Using the speed tests, find out your maximum upload speed and then set your client's upload rate (Global Upload Rate in uTorrent) to about 80% of your maximum upload speed. You can also try varying your upload speeds – keep it high initially and then gradually bring it down towards the middle of the download.
Note: Mind the speed units – it may be given in kilobits per second (kb/sec) or kilobytes per second (kB/sec). 1 kilobyte = 8 kilobit
Go to a different port
How To Increase Utorrent Download Speed In Windows 10
The default port for the BitTorrent protocol is any between port numbers 6881-6999. ISPs throttle traffic on these ports as BitTorrent sharing involves high bandwidth usage. It's easy to configure a different port in your torrent client. Use some number above 10000 to get around ISPs and also avoid problems with other applications. By default, the uTorrent port is randomized each time it starts. Set a specific port by not enabling the Randomize Port setting.
Increase the number of Max Half Open TCP connections
This figure specifies how many connections a torrent client should attempt to establish simultaneously at any given time. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or newer, limits this to a default of 10 as a barrier against virus multiplication. But that's a bummer for torrent speeds as torrents too need a large number of simultaneous connections.
A patch has been available for a while from LvlLord which modifies the TCPIP.sys file in Windows to allow a higher number of TCP connections.
After running the patch, you have to set the number of connections in your torrent client. For example, in uTorrent go to Options – Preferences – Advanced – net.max_halfopen. Set any number from 50 to 100. But see that net.max_halfopen is set lower than the value set in TCPIP.SYS. Always check if it is still patched because Windows updates sometimes overwrite it.
Experiment with Protocol Encryption
Some ISPs love to act like Big Brothers and constrict bandwidth for P2P protocols. Protocol Encryption in most of the torrent clients helps to override this bandwidth shaping. Enable outgoing protocol encryption and put a checkmark on Allow Incoming Legacy Connections.
With protocol encryption, ISPs find it difficult if not impossible to detect that the traffic is coming from BitTorrent. Experiment with enabled, disabled and forced options because you could be getting better speeds with encryption disabled. Non-encryption makes a torrent connection compatible with someone who is not using encryption but as a minus it makes the torrent detectable to an ISP with a bandwidth restricting policy.
Bandwidth and connections
Your BitTorrent client's settings options will let you enter figures for ''
Global maximum number of connections gives the maximum number of connections that a BitTorrent client can make for any P2P exchange. Setting this too high does NOT mean higher speeds. Setting it too high would take up useless bandwidth and too low a figure would miss out on peers. For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 130.
Maximum number of connected peers per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent client can connect to for any P2P exchange. Experiment by setting this number close to the available peers for a particular torrent. For my 256kbps connection, I have a default setting of 70.
Number of upload slots per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent client will upload to for any P2P exchange. A low setting may affect downloads. For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 3.
uTorrent has a Speed Guide which handily calculates the figures for a particular connection.
Some common sense
Most BitTorrent clients allow us to view the individual files in a download. You can selectively disable the download of files you don't think necessary.
Familiarize yourself with the customization settings of your particular client available in the Help files or at the website FAQs.
Some useful resources:
BitTorrent User Guide
uTorrent FAQ
Vuze FAQ
Optimizing the speed of torrent downloads is a lot of trial & error and a bit of patience. If your Torrent connection isn't working at all, you may want to look into some ways you can bypass Torrent connection blocking5 Ways to Unblock Torrent Connections When a Torrent Isn't Working5 Ways to Unblock Torrent Connections When a Torrent Isn't WorkingHere are some effective ways you can bypass torrent connection blocking by ISPs to unblock and download legitimate torrents.Read More. And if you're on the lookout for torrent sources, try these free torrent sitesTop 10 Free Torrent Alternatives to The Pirate BayTop 10 Free Torrent Alternatives to The Pirate BayThe Pirate Bay is a shadow of its former self. Head to these sites for some of the best Pirate Bay alternatives for free torrents.Read More.
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Is there a limit to this? What I mean is if I have a 15 mbp/s internet connection, then I am currently getting a 1.2-1.6 mbp/s downloading speed, does it get any higher? When I test my internet speed test in speedtest.com, I get around 11.7 mbp/s, it means if I divide it by 8, my maximum downloading speed will be around 1.5 mbp/s. I did the steps you've written above and I can't see any difference in speed.
helped me get from 0.5 mb/s to 2.5mb/s
thanks a lot
lol decreased my speed from 60 kB to 10KB
Thanks for your time but to be honest i got nothing out of it, I'm still no better off cheers
o
is the upload speed should maximum...???
to complete the download fasterWTF!!!This didn't increase my download speed but instead decreased it from 95 kbps to 1 kbps
Thanks for the tips...it was well written and it really helped me to increase my torrent speed...
thanks a lot for the tips. I really don't like the second half of the tips. so plz make them user friendly.
damn works!
Better way is to use trackers to increase torrent speed .. just add them to the existing torrents .. here is how to
[Broken Link Removed]
enjoy ..
Terrible guide..
i had 1.5 mb/s download speed but suddenly dropt to 1.0 kb/s, and is not increasing. :(
great guy ..thnxs so much
Its really good,thaks
Thanks man, great guide. Enabling outgoing encyption instantly brought me from less than 120kb/s to a constantly 280!
Awesome guide ! After changing some options which you stated my DL jumped from 15kbs to 190kbs ! ! My 3gig DL isnt gonna take 2 weeks anymore. <3
I prefer Sharezilla.
Hay nice post keep it up man :)
for torrent downloading Visit: torrentdownloads.net
nice post. i'll try this too =)
i am a little new to torrents but i am running utorrent and bit torrent i use the same torrent download on both programs and split the files for both. this seems to help the files out.
Interesting tips.
For movies, I'd recommend using VideoLan to watch the a partially downloaded file, so you can check what is really coming down to you hard disk.
I remember this one time when an allegedly piece of software turned out to be a XXX movie. (Which I erased immediately, of course).
Not really a speed-up tip itself, but can save your time and bandwith for other downloads.
By the way... What is it with all this CSI fever about which text is hiding in the blurred image?
DM
Thanks...I follow the tip you mentioned...though I preferably do not download split and rar-ed files.
y'all should try Deluge. it's an underappreciated but kickass torrent client. fast, lightweight core functionality with extensibility via optional plugins. its claim to fame is being notably resistant to Comcast's torrent throttling.
number three shows some blurred out text. It's not blurred out good enough. The movie is Seven Pounds and the one with the highest seeds reads 'Seven Pounds[2008]DvDrip-aXXo'
Not that it's a surprise that the highest seeds of a dvdrip belong to aXXo. Point is blur a little more guys
Biggest help for torrent downloading behind a router, open the port you're using in step #6 on your router. This can mean the difference between 60 and 600KBps easily.
The item number 7, Increase the number of Max Half Open TCP connections, is only for windows XP.
For vista see the following:
aadhu.com/2008/01/09/increase-vista-tcpip-max-connections/
mydigitallife.info/2008/12/31/tcp-z-free-download-half-open-tcpip-memory-patcher-for-x86-and-x64-windows-7-vista-and-xp/
Good work! But does anyone have tips about how to tweak Vuze under Leopard?
I found Vuze to be much faster than any other client i use on Mac, but i don't know why.
It's funny, you have a section at the end called 'some common sense' but haven't used any when making your guide. Specifically point 7.
But that’s a bummer for torrent speeds as torrents too need a large number of simultaneous connections.
is the bas assumption
It does, yes, but 8 connections being established at any one time is PLENTY. At best, you'll gain by this 5-8 seconds over the ENTIRE torrent, all in the first 60 seconds. On the other hand, the amount of people that need help with their system, because they've applied this 'patch' (needlessly) and its screwed up their TCP stack, means theres often quite a few every day that come to the µTorrent IRC channel, looking for help.This 'patch' doesn't help, and isn't needed, unless your connection is over 50Mbit upload, where it MIGHT be needed.
Go ahead giving bad advice though, because what does it matter to you? Its people like me, and the utorrent support staff that end up cleaning up your mess.
Something to note, though most modern torrent clients allow 'selective downloading' of files (I.E. pick what you want only) - this hurts the torrent life as a whole....for example, if everyone is just loading up the latest 'Boy Band torrent, and selecting to download only 'That Hit Song They Heard on MTV'.....
Use the new utorrent 1.9 beta.. with UTP... Very Fast!..
Protocol encryption won't help. The nature of the traffic itself identifies the protocol. It's a bit like having a stealth fighter with a radar signal the size of a seagull, but how many seagulls travel at over mach one?
rtorrent
Teehee DSL Reports.. it hasn't been called that for years! It's BroadbandReports.com now, and has been for a good 3-4 years :P
If you are using Utorrent set your upload speed to 6kbps, setting it to 5 will limit your download speed but 6kbps won't.
I hope you turn the UL speed back to 'unlimited' or whatever after the download is finished otherwise it's not a very nice tip ;)
For point #1, you might make use of the recently made public M-Lab tools. You can test your ISP for speed and protocol limiting.
404techsupport.com/2009/01/29/m-lab-isps-finally-with-metrics
Another great post by the team. Thanks guys! :D
I used Tip #9 and it inmediately boosted my download speed from 26kbps to 32kbps.
Thanks!
is this a joke? A patch from LvlLord is a freaking virus.
awesomeThat's what is called a false positive according to the site and many forums too.This is what the site itself says -
Some AntiVir Software vendors added the patcher into their virus-definitions. The patcher is often detected as 'Tool/EvID'. But as a first info:
The patcher ist NO VIRUS.
Some virus and trojanwriter uses the same technique to increase the limit. After that its easier for them to spread to other computers in the internet. This runs without knowledge of the user. So he is not informed about what's going on.
With the patcher here, every user can decide on his own if he wants to change the file and if yes how high the limit should be. Also the user will be warned if he chooses to high limits, as already infected machines will spread existent viruses and trojans easier to the net. So everybody can choose on its own and is not forced to. The patcher itself does not contain malware.
The virus-notification therefore should be seen as an information that this program contains the functionality to increase the limit. If that program is not known or has not been installed you can delete it.
The torrents in your screenshot are for Seven Pounds with Will Smith. Next time try solid blocks of color to obscure text.
is this james bond? how did you decipher such a complex code
no one cares
Thanks for posting those tips. I have been looking for such tip from quite some time. It would be helpful if post similar article on viewing Youtube videos faster also.
That's an idea. Thanks Vansy...will work on that.
This is a great guide, should help out the newbies definitely!
If you say the word 'torrent' to many computer users, the immediate association is 'pirating'. And it's true that torrenting has gotten a very bad reputation in the public mind, with the assumption being that downloading any torrent is illegal. While there are a lot of pirate sites out there using torrenting to illegally distribute content, torrenting as a technology is a perfectly legitimate way to share large files online, and there are many torrents out there that are totally legal to use. People shared large files using the BitTorrent protocol for years, long before software piracy became the big thing it is today. A lot of large software distributions (like Linux OS packages) use torrents to get the software to end users.
It is therefore important to realize that using BitTorrent or uTorrent (or any other torrenting client) is not illegal in and of itself. Using them will not, in and of itself, get you thrown in jail, banned by your ISP, or copyright trolled. However, if you use the protocol to share copyrighted media (and if you have bad luck or are careless), those things might happen. With that out of the way, let's get to the good stuff. In this article I will give you a brief tutorial on how to make uTorrent faster. The examples I give all use uTorrent, but if you use a different client, most of these procedures will still work, you'll just have to find the equivalent settings in your client.
Speeding up torrent downloads with uTorrent
Quick Links
- Speeding up torrent downloads with uTorrent
- Streamline queueing
uTorrent is a torrenting client that works on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. uTorrent is free, though there are premium versions available for Windows that add some bells and whistles; the free versions are perfectly adequate for anyone who just wants to share some files. uTorrent isn't the only torrent tracker out there but it is one of the most popular. It has been around for years and is the torrent client of choice for millions of people across the world. However, it isn't well-optimized 'out of the box', and there are some things you can to do make it faster.
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Utorrent Settings To Maximize Download Speed
Let it through your firewall
The first thing you should do when installing uTorrent is to click yes when it asks you if you want to ‘Add an exception for uTorrent in Windows Firewall'. If you hit no or don't use Windows Firewall, you still need to let uTorrent through.
If using Windows Firewall:
- Open uTorrent and select Preferences.
- Navigate to Connections and check the box next to ‘Add Windows Firewall exception'.
- Open your firewall software and allow uTorrent traffic to pass freely through.
Do not be tempted to turn off your firewall when torrenting, as this opens your computer up to malware and all sorts of threats. If you use a router with firewall, you will need to configure this too.
Add more or faster seeders and peers
Torrenting works by distributing a file across dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of seeders and peers. Seeders are computers that have the complete file available for upload. Peers are computers that are still in the process of downloading the file. When a new peer joins the system and is looking for a file, the torrenting software breaks the file into many tiny chunks. The software then looks for peers that have already obtained the chunks that the new peer still needs, and if they have it, the other peers upload it to the new peer. If none of the peers have the chunk, then the system goes and gets it from one of the seeds (which have all the chunks).
This system keeps the seeds from being overwhelmed by requests, and once the peers collectively have all of the chunks of the file, then new peers joining can get the file very quickly because it is available from many different sources instead of just a few seeds. For this reason, the more seeds and the more peers a torrent already has, the quicker any new members of the network will be able to download the file. When a peer finishes downloading the entire file, it becomes another seed and can further enhance the download speed.
Torrent websites don't actually keep the original file themselves. Instead, they have trackers, a file that describes all the chunks of the original file. The tracker also keeps track of how many seeds and peers are working with the specified file (which always starts with one seed, the original file owner). So when you go to a torrent website, it will show you how many seeds and how many peers are already working with the file. It's almost always a good idea to select the torrent with the highest number of seeders and peers to get that file faster. Higher numbers also are a good general indicator that a particular torrent has high-quality content – people are voting with their feet.)
Allocate the correct bandwidth
While it might seem counterintuitive, allocating too much bandwidth to torrents can slow them down. You need to get the ratio right if you are to get the most throughput.
- Open uTorrent and select Options.
- Navigate to Preferences and Connection.
- Check the box next to ‘Apply rate limit to transport overhead'.
- Change Maximum Number of Global Connections to 2329.
- Change Maximum Number of Peers Connected to 257.
- Change Number of Upload Slots Per torrent to 14.
- Change Maximum upload rate to 14.
Change the port
Port allocation for uTorrent defaults to somewhere between 6881 and 6999. Most people know this, and most ISPs know it too. Accordingly, many ISPs throttle these ports so that torrenting traffic won't burden their network. If your ISP throttles these ports, it makes sense to change them. The recommendation is to change the port to something over 10000 to avoid both throttling and conflicts within your computer.
- Open uTorrent and select Options.
- Navigate to Preferences and Connection.
- Change the port to a number between 10000 and 12000.
Torrent websites don't actually keep the original file themselves. Instead, they have trackers, a file that describes all the chunks of the original file. The tracker also keeps track of how many seeds and peers are working with the specified file (which always starts with one seed, the original file owner). So when you go to a torrent website, it will show you how many seeds and how many peers are already working with the file. It's almost always a good idea to select the torrent with the highest number of seeders and peers to get that file faster. Higher numbers also are a good general indicator that a particular torrent has high-quality content – people are voting with their feet.)
Allocate the correct bandwidth
While it might seem counterintuitive, allocating too much bandwidth to torrents can slow them down. You need to get the ratio right if you are to get the most throughput.
- Open uTorrent and select Options.
- Navigate to Preferences and Connection.
- Check the box next to ‘Apply rate limit to transport overhead'.
- Change Maximum Number of Global Connections to 2329.
- Change Maximum Number of Peers Connected to 257.
- Change Number of Upload Slots Per torrent to 14.
- Change Maximum upload rate to 14.
Change the port
Port allocation for uTorrent defaults to somewhere between 6881 and 6999. Most people know this, and most ISPs know it too. Accordingly, many ISPs throttle these ports so that torrenting traffic won't burden their network. If your ISP throttles these ports, it makes sense to change them. The recommendation is to change the port to something over 10000 to avoid both throttling and conflicts within your computer.
- Open uTorrent and select Options.
- Navigate to Preferences and Connection.
- Change the port to a number between 10000 and 12000.
Streamline queueing
Queueing sets up several torrents to download one after the other. Setting this up correctly enables you to maximize throughput. It's a small but very effective tweak. While your computer or phone is waiting for packets from one torrent, it can send out requests for packets from another.
- Open uTorrent and select Options.
- Navigate to Preferences and Queueing.
- Set Maximum Number of Active Torrents to 10.
- Set Maximum Number of Active Downloads to 10.
- Set Seeding Global Minimum Ratio to 0.
Prioritize a torrent
My final tips for speeding up uTorrent is to prioritize the download you want first. This gives that file first choice of bandwidth and resources so will download faster if the seeds and peers are capable of it.
- Right click a torrent within the main uTorrent window.
- Select Bandwidth Allocation and then High.
- Right click the other torrents you have in progress.
- Select Bandwidth Allocation and then Low.
If you don't switch the others to low, nothing will happen as uTorrent will already be using all the resources allocated to it.
Add more trackers
Remember we talked about the tracker, the file that keeps track of who is seeding and who is downloading the underlying file? Well, you aren't limited to just one tracker. You can tell uTorrent to check a whole list of trackers to find more seeds and peers. There are constant updates to the various lists of public trackers; that link is current as of March 2019. To use the list, copy the text of the list into your cut and paste buffer. Right-click the torrent name in uTorrent and select Properties. In the 'trackers' section, paste the list and in a little while you'll start seeing your seed and peer count go up, along with your download speed.
Those are just a few ways you can make uTorrent faster. As long as there are enough quality seeds and peers and you have everything set up correctly, your torrents should now come flying down. Any bottlenecks or slow downloads will be at the other end, not yours!
Do you have any techniques for speeding up torrent downloads? Share them with us in the comments below!
We've got more resources for torrenting fans.
Here's our guide to the whole torrenting process.
Want to torrent to your iPhone? See our tutorial on using torrents on iOS. If Android's your game, then we've got a guide for downloading torrents to Android as well.
You need a torrent search engine to find the files you want – check out our guide to the best torrent search sites.
You can even download torrents directly to Google Drive!
If uTorrent doesn't meet your needs, see our guide to the best torrent clients out there.
