Hello,
I am using qbittorrent for torrenting and my ISP has refused to open up firewall because of fucking “security” reasons. however I can still seed the torrent how is that possible? I mean all the incoming connections should be blocked right? isn’t it how firewall works?
BT protocol works thru both parties. You have seeders and leachers (called peers). Both need to make a connection but how that connection is initiated and opened is important.
If your ports are blocked, you can still download, provided the seeders initiates the handshake. It’s how websites work and the fact that you can download something from say Apple.com or Steam.com without needing to open any ports.
Unfortunately not every seeder does this (for various reasons). And that’s when having your ports open makes a world of difference. Because if a seeder needs you to initiate, you never will and while there may be 40 seeders, you don’t connect to any of them.
On torrents that have hundreds of peers, you’re likely fine; they’ll be plenty that can initiate the transfer for you. But when you get obscure torrents with only a handful of peers, you’re likely fucked. I’m over simplifying for the sake of discussion.