OK - Port Forwarding - in a brief description,

can anyone explain to me what is going on with

this thing; why it is a good thing for a gamer ?

 

I have a friend at work who told me about it.

I downloaded a free app to set my IP to static.

What am I missing here ?

 

Thanks in advance.

Basically, the internet doesnt know anything about your internal home network. When something has to get to your computer (such as a game) it has to know the address of that specific computer. Your router has the intelligence to automatically decide where it should send information based on the device that requests it (So if you do a google search, it sends the results to YOU instead of your printer)

 

Port forwarding essentially bypasses the decision making process and forces a certain port (number used by games, applications, email etc) to goto a certain device in your network.

 

So for example, you can force all BF3 information by forwarding the following ports to your computer IP address.

 

TCP: 80, 443, 9988, 20000-20100, 22990, 17502, 42127

UDP: 3659, 14000-14016, 22990-23006, 25200-25300

... and what would be good about that, Kushluk? Is there a good reason to do so?

 

 

What risks are involved - is my computer more likely to be hacked by Romanian money launderers who'll steal my identity and clone my genes to produce 100,000 mini-Saltbushes?

steal my identity and clone my genes to produce 100,000 mini-Saltbushes?

 

god help us - please dont port forward !!

sounds like your mates were talking about getting the packets through a router faster by the router only needing to read so much of a packet header

 

will open up a hole in the firewall for that port, meaning that your game could be hacked

 

needs a good router

will open up a hole in the firewall for that port, meaning that your game could be hacked

 

ok

 

thanks

that being said if your router firewall is good enough

when you go on the internet it will open a "session", that your PC must open, for anything from the internet to talk to it, that is from the IP accessed from that session.

 

EG only the game server could "hack" your PC or more likely get infected and pass what ever on to you.

or have some one playing the game do it

that's not necessarily true - if the port is open it can be gotten into, however the likelihood of it happening is extremely low as its a personal machine and would have limited valuable information on it, so unless you have pissed off the wrong person the percentages of it happening are very low.

 

with a decent router ports do not need to be forwarded to anything unless you are hosting something behind the router that someone needs to get into from the outside world. ie: a server of some kind.

 

most new routers make use of UPnP (universal plug n play) which is a device to device architecture - meaning ports that need to be opened will open on their own (when the application starts) and close when not in use.