So I'm on my college network Options

[Claptonman]

And a certain kind of download that rhymes with... borrent aren't downloading as fast or at all compared to my home connection. Would they have some kind of system that blocks these from downloading? Thanks.

[nealmac]

I doubt it. As far as I'm aware it's pretty difficult to set up a block on torrent downloading, except for blocking access to the individual torrent sites. and I gather that's not the problem. I thinks it's one of two things. Either you're college broadband connection is slow (maybe too many people online at the same time, or just a shit connection in general) or maybe your client's maximum upload speed needs to be adjusted to suit your broadband speed.

You can adjust the upload speed of your client fairly easily, but it all depends on your internet speed. If you Google something like "optimising torrent client speed" or something, you'll find instructions on how to find your upload speed, thus enabling you change the maximum client upload speed.

[AcousticSmash]

Pretty much every port that can be used by torrent software is blocked off by college and university campus networks, plus if the network detects that your computer is drawing in lots of data at a fast speed, it will throttle the speed back on you. You know, it's easier to shell out 25 bucks for 180GB's worth of downloads and 11 bucks for unlimited access to NZB's and go through Usenet because it is faster and uses SSL so they won't be able to detect that you are downloading stuff. Send me a PM if you want more info, Usenet is faster and has far more content available if you are willing to spend a small amount of cash to download lots of stuff.

[Claptonman]

My client upload speed is set at unlimited, and my network usually does about 600 kb/s through megaupload and all those. I guess I'll have to survive with 25 kb/s.

[AcousticSmash]

It's because they don't block those kinds of downloads, they block P2P downloads because when you get a whole bunch of idiots using torrents on a single connection, everyone else gets bogged down. Download rates from Megaupload are fast because you are connecting directly to a server, much like Usenet, so you aren't connecting through other people so your data comes from one source as fast as possible without throttling. The problem with torrents is that you have to rely on high seeding counts in order to get a really fast connection, above what your provider can actually give you. But at least on Usenet you don't have to worry about throttling since school networks can't throttle your speed due to SSL encryption throwing it off.

[Sizzler]

Seeds come and go but the usenet server is always there.

[gusdotcom]

I doubt it. As far as I'm aware it's pretty difficult to set up a block on torrent downloading, except for blocking access to the individual torrent sites. and I gather that's not the problem. I thinks it's one of two things. Either you're college broadband connection is slow (maybe too many people online at the same time, or just a shit connection in general) or maybe your client's maximum upload speed needs to be adjusted to suit your broadband speed.

You can adjust the upload speed of your client fairly easily, but it all depends on your internet speed. If you Google something like "optimising torrent client speed" or something, you'll find instructions on how to find your upload speed, thus enabling you change the maximum client upload speed.

They have most likely blocked the standard ports used by torrent clients and it is possible that they have caped the available bandwidth.
Furthermore many such places log traffic and scan for torrent downloads. If you try P2P or illegal torrents at Chalmers you will get in some serious trouble.
They even scanned network traffic to catch us when we were playing DotA on the local network.

[jenniferdurst]

They have most likely blocked the standard ports used by torrent clients and it is possible that they have caped the available bandwidth.
Furthermore many such places log traffic and scan for torrent downloads. If you try P2P or illegal torrents at Chalmers you will get in some serious trouble.
They even scanned network traffic to catch us when we were playing DotA on the local network.

That's what they did when I was in college and also in my apt complex now. Here its annoying as hell 'cause it blocks the ports Steam needs to play connect.

HOWEVER. I'm certain your college has a LAN network set up where people can share the stuff on their computers. You just need to find somewhere where someone has indexed everybody's computers. If not, the guys who created ours left their search engine for all to use http://sourceforge.net/projects/strangesearch/ You'll probably have to mod it a little bit though. Anyway, I never had any problems using the LAN and I knew a kid who got sued for torrenting, but that may have been a coincidence.