Although there is no proven way to completely protect yourself from the money hungry bastards that want to limit and control the P2P networks, there are some ways that you can protect yourself.

First of all, don’t share your entire hard drives. I have seen people sharing their entire C: drive. (Windows users of course)

Second, use some sort of program that will block connections to and from servers and clients that are known as fake, bad, corrupt, or just some unknown that seem suspicious. Two programs I know of are… Protowall and PeerGuardian.

After you have an IP Blocking Program, you have to keep it updated. There are probably many more, but I use Blocklist Manager which can update block lists for eMule, PeerGuardian, Protowall and many more.

Third, if you are sharing lots of files, DON’T leave your P2P program running 24/7 if your not downloading anything!

So you want to download files from sites that are using Bittorrent? But have no idea how to start? No problem, I am going to walk you through downloading files using a Bittorrent client.

First, you are going to need a piece of software called a Bittorrent client. There are quite a few programs that will do this task, but I like using uTorrent, and thats what I’m going to walk you through.

Get uTorrent by clicking here [Link: http://www.utorrent.com/download.php ]. I recommend that you download the Installation Program version, as you can easily remove it later on, if you don’t have a use for it.

When the file is done downloading, double click to open it. Choose your language from the list and click OK.

Click Next on the Welcome Screen. The default Destination Folder is best in most cases, click Next at the bottom. The installer will now ask you what to call the start menu folder, click Install at the bottom, as the default is fine.

When it is done, click Finish at the bottom. Lets configure the client now.

You can delete the file that you downloaded if you wish, then go to Start -> Programs -> uTorrent and run uTorrent.

The welcome message will display, you can click on No, because we already have a shortcut on the start menu. uTorrent will now ask if you wish for it to be the default application for .torrent files. Go ahead and click Yes, this will make your life much easier.

The next screen is where things get a little confusing. For uTorrent to download files more efficiently you have to forward a port in your router, it can be any number you choose at the bottom. Default is 32459. I will have to let you refer to your routers manual if you have a router.

Click Run speed test at button and choose the best speed for what the site returns to you. Then, click Use Selected Settings at the bottom of the dialog.

Now you have completed the install of uTorrent.

Now the easiest way to download files, is to find a tracker website, and follow their way to download the .torrent files, when your browser goes to download the file, uTorrent will open the file and begin.