ISPs use a variety of techniques to prevent their clients from using P2P networks like Bittorrent. Limiting the clients bandwidth is just one of them. Other techniques limit the bandwidth during a certain period of the day, prevent the user from downloading files with the .torrent extension, prevent seeding while some even cause unresolvable NAT problems.

The developers of the Bittorrent client Azureus have created a plugin for their application that gathers information “relating to network interference, in particular, to shed light on which ISPs are forging RST packets. Every ten minutes, the plug-in detects from your computer the number of reset tcp connections, and then displays the results to you.”

Those information can then be anonymously shared with a central server which in return leads to an updated table of Bad ISPs but also gives the Bittorrent community more firepower against those ISPs.

I like the second sentence on the page with the table, it says: “If you are using one of the following ISPs, please consider finding a new, better one.” That’s exactly what one should do and what I would consider doing even if I would not be affected by it.

The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom lead the table currently with several ISPs that impose some sort of restrictions on their users. Interesting read.

Overall speed was improved as well which needed to be done. I personally disliked Azureus because it was slower compared to uTorrent and Bitcomet. The new version might change this in favor of Azureus although I´am pretty sure that Azureus will never reach the performance of the other two clients.

Check out the complete change log on the Azureus homepage. Some security features have been introduced as well which make a fine addition like blocking certain port ranges or signed updates for increased security. If you encounter problems with Azureus check out the Azureus wiki homepage which provides articles that deal with common problems.