Protect Your Privacy On P2P With Peer Guardian 2
Do you love the fact that some organizations try to track your downloading behavior? Well, I personally like my privacy, and I’m sure that most people around the Internet like their privacy as well.
There are several articles on MakeUseOf about increasing your browsing privacy like this one on Chrome, and this one on Firefox. Only the other day, Jeffry talked about a privacy app called JAP which can help you to maintain your privacy on the web. Privacy is VERY important.
Peer Guardian 2 is an IP blocker that will increase your privacy when you are downloading on any type of P2P network. Peer Guardian 2 is available for download on Windows, Linux and OS X. It is an extremely easy software to use that runs in the background of your OS and starts up with your computer.
How It Works
Peer Guardian 2 protects your privacy by blocking IPs while you are downloading from your favorite P2P network. It knows which IPs to block, because it comes with several IP lists of known IP offenders. These lists are updated just about every day in order to keep up with any new or changing IP addresses.
Peer Guardian 2 doesn’t get in the way of any of your other programs, as it lives in your tray or behind all of your other applications. It also doesn’t hog up all your resources while running in the background.
IP Lists
These lists aren’t just limited to anti-P2P IP addresses. You can also block ad, spyware, government and educational IPs. These all come from pre-built lists that are updated just about daily as IPs are changed.
You can also create your own list. This list might come from other sources or from a buddy “in the know.” Either way, Peer Guardian makes it incredibly easy to add additional lists to your already robust IP list.
Using Peer Guardian 2
The best thing about Peer Guardian 2 is that you don’t really have to interact with it except to check for updates. You can pop up your window and watch in real-time all the IPs getting blocked. There is a hard to describe feeling that comes over you watching IP after IP getting rejected from your computer. It makes me feel a little more in control.
Peer Guardian 2 is an effective tool for increasing your privacy while downloading from P2P websites around the Internet. However, don’t think it is the perfect solution, as such a thing does not exist. It only does as it advertises. But the risks of using P2P networks are still there.
Can you recommend any similar P2P privacy tools?
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I have been using peerguardian since I ever started with P2P. Remember, the ipblock list is only as good as your source.
I love to go to iblocklist.org for the latest lists to integrate into PG2.
I’ve been using PeerGuardian for almost 2 years now and it works like it says it does. The only thing that I have to keep on eye on is that sometimes after I update the lists (which is almost every day) is that I have to check to see if it blocks Google (when I’m downloading my email via Outlook) to allow it. Other than that it’s not a big deal.
Does it already support VISTA? Last time I checked it didn’t support VISTA
I think I did get PG2 to work in Vista, 32 bit version (is easiest). They do have a Vista client.
Even better, the same client works great in 32 bit Windows 7 beta!!!! I tried it on the 64-bit version, but I couldn’t get it to work properly.
32 yes 64 no :/
…Argh.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Another big thing (literally) to watch out for is the history log file in the PeerGuardian directory of “Program Files”. If you don’t keep a check on this, you can find yourself rapidly losing disk space and wondering why.
Having not deleted or checked the history file for over a year, mine was over 4 gigs!
Great Post!
this sounds great, I have my Windows Home Server running my p2p stuff, so I guess I’d need to run peer gaurdian as a service on that. hopefully updating the block lists would then be as simple as copying a file to a folder on the WHS. Would be very interested in hearing if anyone else is using this in that way?
Thanks.
Updating blocklists in pg2 is even simpler than that. You just feed it the blocklist host url and it will auto update at said intervals.
You can feed it as many as you like too without using a blocklist manager. PG2 is an amazing app. I just wish they could get it to work with Vista 64 already /sigh
Cool, but I wouldn’t want to have to log into(RDP) WHS everytime I wanted to update the blocklist. To meet my needs it would need to either automatically load a block list from a given folder, like utorrent can load torrent files or have a WHS console front end. Of course if it could just update automatically that would be perfect. Anybody know if devlopment is still ongoing with this app? Perhaps PG3 could have some new features like this.
Cheers.
(Comments wont nest below this level)Ongoing but slow. If you’re even a medium P2P user, you NEED something like this imo.
If you want to get a more advanced blocklist manager scope this:
http://www.bluetack.co.uk/forums/index.php?act=dscriptca&CODE=viewcat&cat_id=2
That will allow you to gather multiple lists into one file separate from PG2. You can then just point PG2 at that file. The interface is a little kluge, but it serves it’s purpose. Blocklists can also be found at bluetack.
Good luck!
I don’t know about WHS in particular, but I do know that PG2 does have an autoupdate feature. Tell it to update daily, every other day, once a week, or whatever you want it to do.
Once we received a warning from our ISP for downloading some new English movies. With this program, can I download movies and still my ISP can not track my traffic??
It’s usually not your ISP who is doing the tracking, but they hold all of the data needed to prosecute.
Usually your ISP will receive a warning from a 3rd party tracking company on behalf of say HBO. They’ll warn that said IP address (insert your IP address here) belongs to the ISP and that it is in violation of copyright infringement blah blah blah.
Your ISP will then either forward the letter with a warning of some sort or just a warning to you.
To answer your question, no. PG2 will not block your ISP from tracking what you do, but it will (as best it can) block the 3rd party company(s) from tracking you.
Good luck! And remember it’s not a 100% safe downloading solution. It’s just another layer of security in your favor.
Yes peerguardian does support 64-bit Vista I’ve been running it for months.
You can’t download the client they have on their website you have to go to their forums where they have a beta client for vista 64-bit users. The client will require you to do some tweaks all outlined in the thread.
http://forums.phoenixlabs.org/showthread.php?t=14168&highlight=vista
Seen this… ’some tweaks’ is an under statement.
http://forums.phoenixlabs.org/showthread.php?t=15268
This is unacceptable IMO.
Minus the tweaks, it’s still unstable. The one thing I don’t want my IP filter to do is to go down in the middle of the night :/
Azureus/Vuze has a built in Blocklist manager which seems to work fine. IMO this works much better on Vista 64 than PG2, especially using the classic interface.
Vuze is a bit heavier on the system, but the hit definitely out weighs all the system tweaks needed to get pg2 on v64 running. I mean, booting to ‘without driver signing’ every time…maybe if torrents and PG2 is all my machine was for.
No thanks.
PG is actually quite useless against stopping companies discovering you IP address and tracking down your ISP for ban. PG can only stop MPAA and others from hacking ur box. Trust me PG didn’t stop me from getting nicked in only 15mins after I started a torrent (UT3) I got a blocked by my ISP. Couldn’t believe it… The only way to aviod detection as I have now found out is through secure
VPN services, unfortunatly most good one’s cost money.
In these cases, some would say that a private torrent site like torrentleech may help, as you need to be a member in order to download. What are chances MPAA or BSA or other has a torrentleech account? :0
Further… If u think about it all the IP addresses are logged in torrent announce window for all to see. Companies don’t have to worry about blocked IP addresses all they have to do is sit in a active torrent and write down all the IP addresses that leech.
Yeah it doesn’t do any good if the 3rd party say, FOX intentionally releases a movie like say, Wolverine working print and then sits on the torren themselves to get IP’s so they can sue and make millions and still get killer ticket sales because of all the publicity. They are just collecting IP’s by the hundreds of thousands. Well that’s my theory anyway.
But yeah they can get IP’s simply by downloading the torrent themselves.
It works with Vista 64bit, you just got to google a few things. I have Vista 64bit and PG2, Vista likes to disable not digitally signed drivers.
Lose that giant .log file by creating a text doc on your desktop > save as: (whatever it’s called).log > paste it into the Program File folder > replace it when asked. Opening and deleting the body/text is often not an option due to the sheer size of these monsters.
I’ve used PG in concert with Protowall for years now (I also utilize BLM & now Peerblock)with stellar results. PG is great at stopping outbound packets, while PW is much better at blocking inbound.
Learn to configure your firewall properly, incorporate block lists when applicable, get behind a router (hard-firewall) if not already, keep those lists up to date.
Also, if you’re having trouble running any of these in Vista – try to run in “compatibility mode” it will often help.
for vista and windows 7 you should use PeerBlock. It’s the same program but is updated and is digitally signed.
hi if i download from rapid share will peer guardian protect me or is it useless