Enabling BitTorrent Encryption

If you are experiencing slow or nonexistent downloads or uploads using BitTorrent, enabling encryption in your BitTorrent client may help. Note that if you are not experiencing slow speeds, enabling forced encryption will probably only slow you down.

µTorrent

µTorrent is a popular BitTorrent client for Windows. Enabling encryption in it is easy.

First, choose Preferences from the Options menu:

Then click BitTorrent at the left, then choose Forced from the Protocol Encryption: Outgoing dropdown menu:

Then click OK.

Although you may also simply choose Enabled to let µTorrent choose when to use encryption, if your ISP is using so-called "traffic shaping" to slow down your BitTorrent traffic, this may not be as effective as choosing Forced.

Azureus

Azureus is a popular multiplatform torrent client. To enable encryption in it, enter the Settings menu. This is accomplished under Mac OS X by selecting "Preferences" from the "Azureus" menu.

Then set the options under Connection: Transport Encryption match those shown in the above image.

Note: Although you can optionally check the "Allow non-encrypted incoming connections" box, if you are being affected by so-called "traffic shaping" from your ISP, it probably will not increase your speed very much if at all.

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