how much difference with listen port open ?

[zardave]

im sorry to say ive never had my listen port open (yellow light on )

probably a firewall or such but what i want to know is how much difference it makes as

far as download speed to dl with the listen port blocked versus being open. im my case

i have 1mb. verizon dsl. just a rough idea, thanks.

( i swear im going to work on it one of these days )

[kluelos]

The yellow light means "unknown", not "blocked". Since it's either one or the other, say "probably blocked", but subject to error.

It makes a tremendous difference. Exactly how much depends on the particular swarm composition at the moment, but downloads complete in a couple of hours instead of a couple of days.

Let's say that I'm a peer in this swarm. I've got a really fast connection, I've downloaded 60% of the movie, and I happen to be looking for new peers to connect to and trade with. Lucky you, I've picked you to try. Alas, your firewall blocks my sending to you, so you never answer me. Too bad. I'll go on to the next peer.

You decide that you will try to contact me. Since my listen port is open, I receive your packet, but now I am fully busy trading with others. You'll go in my list of connections, along with the hundreds of others already there. Maybe I'll get back to you. Eventually. Shame I couldn't get you when i was ready. So, yes, pretty big difference.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

There are three colors, grey means unknown, yellow simply means bitcomet has asked a remote server to send an inbound connection attempt, but no reply was received. This isn't conclusive that you are firewalled, it simply means that we couldn't verify that it is open. Green light is pretty much conclusive that your port is open to remote peers.