Port Forwarding

SlowLearner · #1 September 4th, 2007, 03:18 AM

I'm aware that port forwarding more or less takes communication from the internet and forwards it to a certain computer on a network... but recently a house mate of mine approached me saying that we should enable port forwarding on our router so that he and the other guys that receive a wireless signal from it can get a "faster connection".

I've been looking into it, and theoretically, it seems like it could speed up their connection... but I'm thinking once I actually implement it, they wont really notice a difference at all.

Does anyone have any experience with port forwarding?

oracle128 · #2 September 4th, 2007, 08:53 AM

Port Forwarding can speed up P2P downloads, because of the unique way they rely on a direct connection infrastructure between two PCs. But you won't be able to do it for multiple PCs on the network if they use conflicting ports. And the performance increase is limited solely to P2P downloads. You won't speed up any internet connection (wired or wireless is irrelevant) by forwarding ports. Not only that, but it will also compromise the security of those machines you forward to.

SlowLearner · #3 September 4th, 2007, 08:59 AM

Ah... so basically just P2P downloads.

Thanks a lot for the swift reply