App Spotlight: PeerBlock

Pirates rejoice over an app that offers hope.

While we do not condone piracy in any way shape or form, it is best to know what you are up against when you download something illegally. If you are using Comcast or Speakeasy, you might be familiar with the “Cease and desist” e-mails you get when attempting to download something via BitTorrent.

 

Spyware companies, advertisers, YOUR ISP; all of them want to know what you are up to. There is good news though; PeerBlock is an open source (fancy word for free) program, which allows you to block ranges (or full lists) of known “Bad IPs” (people you probably don’t want monitoring your traffic).

These lists are divided into P2P, Spyware, Advertising & Education. For those of you that live on campus, the last couple might be beneficial.

 

Although there are perfectly legitimate reasons for using  Bit Torrent (we cant find any), it should be noted that PeerBlock  admits it will not provide total security, (some tests claim protection from just over 1/3 of bad IP addresses) and if you are violating your college’s or ISP’s terms of internet usage (who isn’t?), or engaging in illegal activity, this program (or any similar tool) is not going to keep you safe. We like to live by the old mantra, better safe than sorry.

 

Where it falls short

Setting up PeerBlock requires a little bit of patience, practice, and technical savvy. Simply letting it run with everything set to high or on will cause some issues (one of them being inability to browse). If you’re super paranoid, just make sure you tick the box that says “Always allow HTTP”.

 

Tweaking PeerBlock settings to get both protection and functionality can be a bit of a pain. Fortunately, PeerBlock has an intuitive UI and a great user base that are always available for help on the forums (or you can just contact us).