I have days when I leave the computer on all day to download a particularly large torrent, the problem is that you may find by the time you arrive home, the file is still quite a distance of completing.

If you are a uTorrent user like myself, there are ways you can make sure you get better download speeds just by tweaking a few settings:

1. If you have a router, make sure that the uTorrent bittorrent port is forwarded (so your router knows to allow incoming connections for the files you download).

Copy and Paste the Current Port (I tend to change it to a number above 40,000) and note the manufacturer and model of your router and head over to PortForward.com, making effort to select uTorrent from the Applications list. Paste the Current Port into the page and it will prepare the steps for you.

2. Going into “Preferences” from the menu, will take you into a screen much like this one:

Here I untick Enable uPnP Port Mapping and set my global upload to about 14kb/s. This will allow you to share and keep the download as strong as it can be. One of the biggest reasons I use uTorrent is its Protocol Encryption, still on the same category make sure that Protocol Encryption is Enabled and be sure to click Allow incoming legacy connections. This will trick the traffic shaping methods your ISP has setup and allow you to download at your full capacity.

3. Set:
- Global Maximum Number of Connections to 125 (for Bittorrent, less is more!).
- Maximum number of connected peers per torrent to around 25.
- Number of upload slots per torrent to 3 or 4.

This will allow you to get a better quality of download.

4. Under Advanced change the Change the net.max_halfopen value to 100 by selecting the line, changing the value at the bottom to 100 and clicking Set.

If you have an up-to-date Windows machine, patch tcpip.sys with LvlLord’s Patcher to allow for more open connections in Windows.

DO NOT CHANGE THIS OPTION unless you have Windows XP SP2 and have patched tcpip.sys.

If you have forwarded the ports and set it up correctly, a icon will show at the bottom of the window showing did it!

Thats about it! Good luck!