My ISP uses a transparent proxy. What should I do? Caveat: This section should be considered experimental. It is not meant to be authoritative. Short reply: change to an ISP that does not force a proxy upon you. If you cannot or do not want to then read on. What is a proxy? Basically a middleman. When you're browsing a site through a proxy your requests are sent to the proxy and the proxy forwards them to the site instead of you connecting directly to the site. There are several classifications (the terminology is far from standard): Transparent A transparent proxy is one that needs no configuration on the clients. It works by automatically redirecting all port 80 traffic to the proxy. (Sometimes used as synonymous for non-anonymous.) Explicit/Voluntary Clients must configure their browsers to use them. Anonymous The proxy sends no client identification to the server. (HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR header is not sent; the server doesn't see your IP.) Highly Anonymous The proxy sends no client nor proxy identification to the server. (HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR, HTTP_VIA and HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION headers are not sent; the server doesn't see your IP and doesn't even know you're using a proxy.) Public (Self explanatory) A transparent proxy may or may not be anonymous, and there are several levels of anonymity. How do I find out if I'm behind a (transparent/anonymous) proxy? Try ProxyJudge. It lists the HTTP headers that the server where it is running received from you. The relevant ones are HTTP_CLIENT_IP, HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR and REMOTE_ADDR. Why is my port listed as '---' even though I'm not NAT/Firewalled? The TorrentBits tracker is quite smart at finding your real IP, but it does need the proxy to send the HTTP header HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR. If your ISP's proxy does not then what happens is that the tracker will interpret the proxy's IP address as the client's IP address. So when you login and the tracker tries to connect to your client to see if you're NAT/firewalled it will actually try to connect to the proxy on one of the usual BT ports (6881-6999). Naturally the proxy is not listening on those ports, the connection will fail and the tracker will think you're NAT/firewalled. Can I bypass my ISP's proxy? If your ISP only allows HTTP traffic through port 80 or blocks the usual proxy ports then you would need to use something like socks and that is outside the scope of this FAQ. Otherwise you may try the following: Choose any public non-anonymous proxy that does not use port 80 (e.g. from this or this list). Configure your computer to use that proxy. For Windows XP, do Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings, Use a Proxy server, Advanced and type in the IP and port of your chosen Proxy. Or from Internet Explorer use Tools, Internet Options, ... (Facultative) Visit ProxyJudge. If you see an HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR in the list followed by your IP then everything should be ok, otherwise choose another proxy and try again. Visit TorrentBits. Hopefully the tracker will now pickup your real IP (check your profile to make sure). Notice that now you will be doing all your browsing through a public proxy, which are typically quite slow. Communications between peers do not use port 80 so their speed will not be affected by this, and should be better than when you were 'unconnectable'. How do I make my bittorrent client use a proxy? Just configure Windows XP as above. When you configure a proxy for Internet Explorer you're actually configuring a proxy for all HTTP traffic (thank Microsoft and their "IE as part of the OS policy"). On the other hand if you use another browser (Opera/Mozilla/Firefox) and configure a proxy there you'll be configuring a proxy just for that browser. We don't know of any BT client that allows a proxy to be specified explicitly. Does this apply to other torrent sites? This section was written for TorrentBits, a closed, port 80 tracker. Other trackers may be open or closed, and many listen on the default port 6969. The above does not necessarily apply to other trackers.

My ISP is blocking TorrentBits! Can I still reach the site? Yes, but you'll have to use a proxy. Follow the instructions in the section on proxies. In this case it doesn't matter if the proxy is anonymous or not, or which port it listens to. Notice that you will always be listed as an 'unconnectable' client because the tracker will be unable to check that you're capable of accepting incoming connections.

My IP address is dynamic. How do I stay logged in? The IP address associated with your account is the one from the computer where you last logged in from (either interactively or via cookies). So if your IP changes the tracker will not recognise your IP as valid the next time the client tries to connect to it and will therefore refuse the connection. The solution is to login again, by browsing to the site or refreshing a site page. Some browsers allow you to periodically reload pages automatically: Opera: right-click on page, 'Reload every' ... Firefox (with Reload Every extension): right-click on page, 'Reload every' ... Suggestions for other browsers are welcome Notice that even if your client stops being able to connect to the tracker in the middle of a session it will keep seeding/leeching. It will just not learn about new peers, and so will be working in sub optimal conditions.