Kazaa Lite SLOW download speed

HelterSkelter

Hi Lads,

hope some of you can help me out here.

Problem is that since I reinstalled XP, my Kazaa Lite download speeds have become unbearable slow. Even when I try to download a very popular song with lots of sources I get speeds of somewhere between 0.5 to 3kb/s. I am on 512mbps broadband!! I used to get 50+kbps on popular mp3's

Have you got any ideas?

Thanks

ai ing

check your options to see if your functioning as a supernode, that could slow you down a bit. its automatically set to yes in the newer versions

Mutant_Fruit

this happened to me too, i assumed it was my ISP.

BTW, i'm not a supernode.

daveyjoe

Try disabling any firewalls if you're running any or else run them through SOCKS. This is usually the problem, I turn off my firewall if I'm downloading off a P2P program and then turn it on again when i'm finished. The Windows XP firewall is very basic and cumbersome.

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by daveyjoe
This is usually the problem, I turn off my firewall if I'm downloading off a P2P program and then turn it on again when i'm finished.

Guess who's PC will be a Zombie soon...

BB without a firewall - you are a danger to other net users- risk your pc being controlled by spamers or msblaster etc..

OfflerCrocGod

I'm having the same kinda problem but I'm not using WinXP, maybe it's just the network is being attacked or slowed down on purpose?:(, by the ISPs in EIRE.

MartMax

Sounds paranoid, keep your PC healthy and not being spammed. Do Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy and also SpyBlaster. I do like at least once a week and not surprise that all those crap like Gator, data miners, unnecessary cookies running inside Windows. Not to forget, firewall is important. Check your PC for free at www.symantec.com for vulnerabilities, etc. Good for broadband users!

MrPinK

Originally posted by daveyjoe
Try disabling any firewalls if you're running any or else run them through SOCKS. This is usually the problem, I turn off my firewall if I'm downloading off a P2P program and then turn it on again when i'm finished

Sounds like you need to get yourself a better firewall

daveyjoe

Originally posted by MrPinK
Sounds like you need to get yourself a better firewall

I'm running behind a router, so I guess a firewall is less neccessary for me.
It is safe enough to turn your firewall off for an hour or so while you download as long as you don't leave it off all night or anything. Obviously if kazaa works fine when you're behind a firewall then there's no need to disable your firewall, but I find a dramatic reduction in download speeds with p2p software when my firewalls on.

I use the standard windows xp firewall and it's pretty basic but I don't find the need for a better one.

OfflerCrocGod

I'm behind a router aswell I'm convinced that it's causing this slow down

Capt'n Midnight

An hour eh ?

Have you heard of the concept of the Warhol worm, or one that could infect the entire Internet in 15 minutes.

ONLY it's not a concept AND it only took 10 minutes :eek:

The SLAMMER (Sapphire worm) a Microsoft SQL specific virus - infected 90% of all vunerable M$SQL servers connected to the internet within 10 Minutes in Feburary.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2720337.stm
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-983108.html

vibe666

Originally posted by daveyjoe
I'm running behind a router, so I guess a firewall is less neccessary for me.
It is safe enough to turn your firewall off for an hour or so while you download as long as you don't leave it off all night or anything. Obviously if kazaa works fine when you're behind a firewall then there's no need to disable your firewall, but I find a dramatic reduction in download speeds with p2p software when my firewalls on.

I use the standard windows xp firewall and it's pretty basic but I don't find the need for a better one.

seriously, dude, stop saying things like that, and sort your security out. I really can't believe after the summer of virii, trojans, worms etc. we had that people are still taking such a lax view of PC security.

people like you are the reason all those problems had such a bad effect on net users.
that and crappy sys admins.

and microsoft

and spotty 15 year old script kiddies.

and probably slow acting isp's too.

daveyjoe

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
An hour eh ?

Have you heard of the concept of the Warhol worm, or one that could infect the entire Internet in 15 minutes.

ONLY it's not a concept AND it only took 10 minutes :eek:

The SLAMMER (Sapphire worm) a Microsoft SQL specific virus - infected 90% of all vunerable M$SQL servers connected to the internet within 10 Minutes in Feburary.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2720337.stm
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-983108.html

I understand what you're saying and although your example refers to servers it's a valid point. Of course disabling your firewall means you're more vunerable
but..
I've been running my PC on and off without a firewall for almost a year now, I've never got a worm or virus or anything like that. While everyone I know was getting infected by the blaster worm, I was safe because I had downloaded the patch two weeks earlier.

My point is that if you patch your PC regularly, don't leave your connection vunerable for prolonged periods and have a decent virus scanner, you will reduce your risks considerably.

Again, I would like to stress that I only do this because I see a significant increase in speed on P2P networks.

MrPinK

Originally posted by daveyjoe
Again, I would like to stress that I only do this because I see a significant increase in speed on P2P networks.

My point was that if you had a decent firewall (and there are many excellent free ones) it wouldn't be effecting your speed at all and you could remain protected all the time.

pickarooney

Not sure how kazaa works, but if it's anything like emule/xmule with its low/high IDs, then the router is probably causing the slow down.
You'll need to configure the router to open a kazaa port for each machine, then change the default kazaa port for each installation of kazaa in your network to correspond to one of the open ports.
If you don't do this, each computer will send out through the same port and the received information will come back to this same port on the router, where it will get stuck, as the router won't know to which PC it should send the info.

Ripwave

Originally posted by daveyjoe
I've been running my PC on and off without a firewall for almost a year now,

Wow, a whole year?

You obviously have nothing to worry about then.

Ripwave

Originally posted by pickarooney
Not sure how kazaa works, but if it's anything like emule/xmule with its low/high IDs, then the router is probably causing the slow down.
You'll need to configure the router to open a kazaa port for each machine, then change the default kazaa port for each installation of kazaa in your network to correspond to one of the open ports.
If you don't do this, each computer will send out through the same port and the received information will come back to this same port on the router, where it will get stuck, as the router won't know to which PC it should send the info.

Excuse me for being blunt about this, but what a total load of cobblers!

Cake Fiend

Originally posted by pickarooney
If you don't do this, each computer will send out through the same port and the received information will come back to this same port on the router, where it will get stuck, as the router won't know to which PC it should send the info.

A router that doesn't route? What a fantastic idea!

:rolleyes:

tonky

Talk about askin' for it. Where's that Noddy fella, must be around here somewheres ....
Must be a verrry special router.

Original post from HelterSkelter:
"Problem is that since I reinstalled XP, my Kazaa Lite download speeds have become unbearable slow. Even when I try to download a very popular song with lots of sources I get speeds of somewhere between 0.5 to 3kb/s. I am on 512mbps broadband!! I used to get 50+kbps on popular mp3's"

The problem has only arisen since you reinstalled XP.
AFAIK Kazaa uses port 1214 which should be enabled on your firewall if it's on.

Try reinstalling Kazaa, you've probably done this already.

Also I found this on the 'Net:

I recently downloaded Kazaa Lite which seemed to work fine at first. Trouble is that after 10 minutes or so of downloading it just slows down to a trickle. I have cable 512 connection so i dont understand why this is.
: The only remedys i find are to restart my pc then turn kazaa lite back on for another 10 minutes of fast downloading, or pause specific downloads then resume them. This is a problem which seems common on all other p2p programmes i have used so im beginning to think its my computer. Someone please help!!!!!!


Right i used to use Kazaa, then went to kazaa lite, and had the same problem as yours, you need to downoad a file called Diet Kazaa, it is easy enough to install! When you search for a file on kazaa, at most you will get 7 users, EVEN if the file is really popular, and maybe only one of those users will have a good connection! What diets kazaa does is it keeps on searchin, and at times i have had 50 users, for one file! so the speed never gets slower than 40kbps!

OfflerCrocGod

I've been on the Internet for 7 years without ever using a firewall or a virus scanner EVER, from Dial-up to BB, I have never been hit by a virus nor have had my machine fubared. You need to keep up with the patches use a non-monopolistic browser/e-mail client close down any un-neccessary Services and take care what you download and run; you should be fine then, pretty simple really.

bricks

Originally posted by Ripwave
Excuse me for being blunt about this, but what a total load of cobblers!

He's describing basically that the router needs to have port forwarding setup on it.
Without port forwarding the router will in effect not know where to send the packets.
To fix this problem you guys need to find out what ports need to be forwarded (Should be in the KAzza docs) and forward them.
Port forwarding looks like this.

Say your external Internet address is 159.134.96.200 and your internal network is 192.168.0.0/24
Then you could have:
159.134.96.200:1300 -> 192.168.0.10:1300 (PC 1)
159.134.96.200:1301 -> 192.168.0.11:1301 (PC 2)

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by bricks
He's describing basically that the router needs to have port forwarding setup on it.
Without port forwarding the router will in effect not know where to send the packets.

He's wrong, if that was the case you'd have to set that up for all applications to work.

HelterSkelter

Tonky>> Thanks for your suggestion, I installed Diet Kazaa and it has improved somewhat, I can download a popular mp3 at about 12kbps now but it is still not anywhere was fast as it should be :-( Any other ideas?

bricks

Originally posted by Frank Grimes
He's wrong, if that was the case you'd have to set that up for all applications to work.

It depends on the way they are written.
EDonkey/Emule needs port 4662, 4711 TCP and port 4672 UDP – to be forwarded.
Otherwise you get a lowid.
So maybe KAzza and Winmx need this port forwarding also.

Frank Grimes

Originally posted by bricks
So maybe KAzza and Winmx need this port forwarding also.

Those two programs don't.

MrPinK

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
You need to keep up with the patches use a non-monopolistic browser/e-mail client close down any un-neccessary Services and take care what you download and run; you should be fine then, pretty simple really.

That assumes that a patch is released before a worm/virus is widely released. You're putting a lot of fate in the security ppl to always be one step ahead.

CombatCow

Originally posted by HelterSkelter
Tonky>> Thanks for your suggestion, I installed Diet Kazaa and it has improved somewhat, I can download a popular mp3 at about 12kbps now but it is still not anywhere was fast as it should be :-( Any other ideas?

Yeah stop using kazaa,iv had a 1mb broadband for the last year, and iv recently stopped using kazaa ( 4 months ago ) because of all the fake,buggy,slow downloads.get some bittorrent software,and check a certan super website ,google will reveal all.


CombatCow

daveyjoe

Originally posted by Combatcow
Yeah stop using kazaa,iv had a 1mb broadband for the last year, and iv recently stopped using kazaa ( 4 months ago ) because of all the fake,buggy,slow downloads.get some bittorrent software,and check a certan super website ,google will reveal all.


CombatCow

Yeah bit torrent is a whole lot better than kazaa, only problem is that you wont find anything obscure there, and you don't have to disable your firewall to get decent speeds from it <sarcasm>(yippee!)</sarcasm>
Expect speeds to be up closer to 50kb/s with broadband and keep your download window open for a couple of hours when your finished - Sharing is caring.

OfflerCrocGod

That assumes that a patch is released before a worm/virus is widely released. You're putting a lot of fate in the security ppl to always be one step ahead.

Well it has worked so far most viruses are spread by idiots lets face it!, most of us here would be able to take care off our machines much better Joe & Jane Homeowner.

manic_monster

Best way is to use ftp sites(non ratio) or music directories if you know how to find them. If you can find one before anyone else you can usually download at top speed.

Chaz

I might get stung with this (since I work for an ISP) - but I agree with OfflerCrocGod. I have been on all kinds of 24/7 connections for a while now. The level of security that I run is low to non existant - and I rarely have any problems. I have found more issues running software firelwalls than what they are worth.

OfflerCrocGod

Ummm firewalls seem to protect you from the evils of the Internet by making sure you can't access it:rolleyes:, not a winning strategy by my books.

daveyjoe

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
Ummm firewalls seem to protect you from the evils of the Internet by making sure you can't access it:rolleyes:, not a winning strategy by my books.

Yeah, the second I mentioned turning off your firewall in this thread, I was attacked by everyone, but I honestly think that it is safe enough to leave your firewall off. Even if worst does come to worst you can always do a system restore and rewind your settings back to the day before (presuming you have xp of course). If your firewall is causing you problems connecting to other computers (aka p2p) then get rid of it providing you know what to do if something goes wrong.

Mutant_Fruit

i;ve never had problems with my firewall blocking anything i didn't want it to block. I usse Kerio 4. Also, for those of you die-hards who think they need no firewall, do a fresh install of windows, and i guarentee you, that before you have time to download a firewall from the internet, you'll have a virus (such as the Blaster virus)

I got caught out on this one. WIthin 4 minutes of starting up windows after clean install i had the blaster induced crashes etc.

OfflerCrocGod

I do fresh installs all the time never hit by anything at all.

kida

just turn on your firewall alerts and watch the amount of people trying to connect to your machine.

Mutant_Fruit

Offler, i can guarentee you 100% that if you load up Windows (one of the versions that the blaster virus DOES affect) and connect to the internet without having patches or firewall installed, you WILL get that virus, definately within 10 minutes.

Also, good firewalls show the attempts to "hack" your computer, and save em in a log. I have seen many attempts by virii, such as blaster and other misc virii in these logs lately.

OfflerCrocGod

I've DONE it 2 weeks ago 1 month ago and again 1 month + 1-2 weeks I went on the net and downloaded SP4 first even using BB I was on the net on all those machines for quiet a while, they all started with SP1 so they were not protected I was fine nothing happened no router in the way either.

Töpher

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
i;ve never had problems with my firewall blocking anything i didn't want it to block. I usse Kerio 4. Also, for those of you die-hards who think they need no firewall, do a fresh install of windows, and i guarentee you, that before you have time to download a firewall from the internet, you'll have a virus (such as the Blaster virus)

I got caught out on this one. WIthin 4 minutes of starting up windows after clean install i had the blaster induced crashes etc.

Yeah, I had that too. problem was my comp decided to stop reading cd-r's after the upgrade to XP pro so I couldnt get my BB drivers! Trying to sort that out on a 56k was a kick in the teeth!

MrPinK

Even if worst does come to worst you can always do a system restore and rewind your settings back to the day before

Not quite the worst that can happen. Blaster has been mentioned already, so lets run with that example....

The DCOM RPC vulnerability that Blaster exploited was there unpatched for almost 3 years. During that time, anyone who discovered it could have written a programme to connect to your pc and do anything they wanted. They could run any piece of code with system privileges, allowing them to steal files, delete user accounts, install backdoors, reformat your computer, etc. Fortunately it was MS that discovered their mistake, and not someone malicious, and the patch was released before the worm came. Also fortunately (because a lot of ppl don't patch their systems), was the fact that Blaster turn out to be pretty harmless. All it did was propagate itself and try (really badly) to DoS an MS server.

Now, if you really believe that this vulnerability was a once off, and that the Windows OS is completely safe now, then you're just kidding yourself. With a firewall, you're protected against the vunerabilities that have yet to be discovered and patched. Can you stay connected to the internet for years without ever being hacked/infected? Of course you can. Leaving your door unlocked doesn't mean you'll definitely be burgled. But many ppl do get hacked/infected all the time and could prevent it by just leaving a free piece of software running in the background.

daveyjoe

Originally posted by MrPinK
Not quite the worst that can happen. Blaster has been mentioned already, so lets run with that example....

The DCOM RPC vulnerability that Blaster exploited was there unpatched for almost 3 years. During that time, anyone who discovered it could have written a programme to connect to your pc and do anything they wanted. They could run any piece of code with system privileges, allowing them to steal files, delete user accounts, install backdoors, reformat your computer, etc. Fortunately it was MS that discovered their mistake, and not someone malicious, and the patch was released before the worm came. Also fortunately (because a lot of ppl don't patch their systems), was the fact that Blaster turn out to be pretty harmless. All it did was propagate itself and try (really badly) to DoS an MS server.

Now, if you really believe that this vulnerability was a once off, and that the Windows OS is completely safe now, then you're just kidding yourself. With a firewall, you're protected against the vunerabilities that have yet to be discovered and patched. Can you stay connected to the internet for years without ever being hacked/infected? Of course you can. Leaving your door unlocked doesn't mean you'll definitely be burgled. But many ppl do get hacked/infected all the time and could prevent it by just leaving a free piece of software running in the background.

If the firewall did just run in the background and not affect your download rate when using P2P clients (for me anyway) then I wouldn't disable it. But it does, so I will choose to turn it off whenever I use P2P. Could something go wrong, of course it could, but so far I've been safe, perhaps that's naive but I honestly think that the firewall thing is blown out of proportion.

Having said that when I leave my computer on overnight (every night), I always enable my firewall, on occasions I have forgotten although even then nothing bad has happened.

MrPinK

If your firewall is slowing your traffic, or interferring with it in anyway other than in a way you want it too, then I wouldn't just disable it when using P2P. I'd get rid of it completely and get a proper one. It doesn't sound like it's working properly.

on occasions I have forgotten although even then nothing bad has happened

Like I said, you can leave it online for years without suffering a thing, but if someone does try to attack your comp you won't be protected.

gurramok

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
I do fresh installs all the time never hit by anything at all.

Do you use the internet much ?

A few hours a day/week ? (assuming from home and not work/college where firewalls are used which are not responsible of end user)

Run Adaware/spybot on your PC, guaranteed something will be there.

Install a firewall for a few minutes and look at its log and you will see the amount of probing and attempts on your PC that occurs. Things like your personal info is exposed once on the net without a firewall, this should be one reason to use one.
If you are using P2P software like kazaa without a firewall, you are asking for trouble

I leave pc on 24/7(dsl) , have 2 firewalls (1 hardware/1 software). Firewalls only interfere with your download speeds when you do not let the traffic through your firewall.(Allowing program traffic through unhindered and/or port forwarding)

ie..Its user of the firewall, not the firewall itself which is responsible.

I use and have used alot of P2P in the past and present, a firewall has/does not affect the download speed(bar no proper configuration) one iota

Can you stay connected to the internet for years without ever being hacked/infected? Of course you can

Chance of not getting infected with something(backdoor trojans, spyware..etc) in this scenario is nearly lotto odds

OfflerCrocGod

I installed emm Zone Alarm(?) once just to see what the fuss was in 2-3 weeks of use I may have been probed 5-6 times, so I said screw this it's more hassle then its worth and got rid of it. Maybe Zone Alarm is absolute rubbish at this kinda stuff I dont know?!, but I'm on the net a HUGE AMOUNT OF TIME, I had NTL w/e thing were the w/e was unlimited and free and I went on constantly(re-dial) during the w/e before that my mother used to have heart-attacks from phone bills:D, now its 24/7 ADSL internet for me. I run Adaware and search and destory regulary and get nothing. I never install s/w I get from the net that I haven't checked out before most of the stuff I install nowadays is open source comes form Source Forge etc.... I disable ALL useless services on my PC I have 4 or 5 Services starting up on my computer at boot, I check for patches for everything every 2-3 days AT LEAST. Im paranoied, I never run joke .exes I get from my friends in e-mails I'm always reading sites like slashdot, theinquirer.net, theReg etc...if something is out there I'll know it as soon as possible. Most VXs are spread from users lack of knowledge.

muffen

Just saw this thread... seriously guys... turning off you firewall to run kazaa???
And just because you've never had a virus/worm before, doesn't mean that you cannot get it now.

The XP firewall is completely crap, get a decent firewall. I used to run Norton Internet Security, worked pretty well.

I just recently swapped to a linux firewall, as I have 4 computers on the network I felt it was easier to setup one computer as a firewall, not having to install personal firewalls on each computer individually.
Furthermore, in my current setup, my internet wouldn't work if my firewall went down!

On my current firewall, I have opened up the ports used by eMule and bittorrent (why would anyone use Kazaa anyways, its completly crap).

somano

Just been using Kazaa and whilst downloading my virus scan came out with vbs love letter warning 3 times !

ozmo

Used to use XP firewall - worked really well. You can turn on the log - and a text file is written to windows directory of all the attempted hacks - really scary stuff. About 10 attempted hacks per hour (all script virus's looking for hosts).

Then used a dsl modem/router built in NAT and that was just as good.

Zone Alarm is so daft - difficult to see what its protecting and makes pc slow.


ps. if you like mule - try eDonkey2000 - the full version does the two main networks simutaneously.
DC++ is difficult and very different, but well worth checking out also. Remember to observe copyright rules.

careful now not to get this thread closed.

ozmo

OfflerCrocGod

Originally posted by ozmo

Remember to observe copyright rules.

Are you implying something!;).

Turner

Ok I think this thread has come to the end of its life.

We all now know

(1) What kazaa is.
(2) We need internet security.
(3) That kazaa can be used to download copyright material.

Thanks all for your input.

Thread closed.

Chief.