Does anyone know anything about this? Supposed to forward DLs thru Canada to protect privacy.

BTGuard is a proxy service that reroutes your BitTorrent downloads thru thier servers. BTGuard's servers are located in Canada which has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world, ensuring the protection of your identity and IP address! tTheyeven protect you from your own ISP. No special software is required. BTGuard works with all major BitTorrent clients including uTorrent & Azureus. They don't log any of your activity and download volume is unlimited.

so its along the same lines as peer guardian? i find that when i have pguard running, my internet surfing slows to a crawl, so have to shut down my dl when i want to browse. anybody have opinions on which is better? (i really have no other complaint with pguard)

Talked to Cap a bit ago and he said it was most likley a scam.

@appara,
You must not be using uTorrent?
BTGuard is a proxy service,nothing like Peer Guardian.

@joker,
Check it out for your self,they offer a one day trial.
http://btguard.com/

@nip,
Was able to run down some info,have not found anything negative,yet.
BTGuard@gmail.com
company name:Netcrawled LLC
owned by Evilspoon,Grand Forks,North Dakota

I just purchased it for $6.95 monthly. Have to pay through pay-pal. I hope it's legit ? It's been on the front page of Junkie for a while now. Goes through servers in Canada. I also get the same speed as I normally do. Up to 150kbs with dsL. Only proxies downloads I believe. And web browsing will show my IP Is this a good thing to have ???

@avatarfan

Please let us all know how it works out.

btguard claims it will avert any throttling or choking from your isp Well no software program can do that. That is a hardware issue that most Canadian servers use especially bell (sympatico) and the cable companies the monitor all 163500 ports to check on download amounts. true the isp wont give out your name or addie unless it has to with child porn or terrorism not for downloading music or files. but there is no program that will stop throttling it wont change you download speed at all

@avatarfan,
BTGuard does not claim any of the propaganda that catpsheridan is claiming.Your speeds should be about the same as they were.You should tweek your client a bit for better speeds if thats possible.BTGuard is gaining some recognition as a legit proxy.Go to this url and read what Torrentfreak has to say about it.http://torrentfreak.com/btguard-anonymous-bittorrent-080309/
I tried it out and it works fine and does everything it claims.

One thing I didn't mention,it only puts your bittorent traffic through the proxy.I tried it recently and got the same speeds as always 150 to 300kbs.

@captsheridan
I dont understand your claim on "no software program can do that.." refering to stopping or assisting in avoiding throttling from isp's.
You can very easily trick your isp to avoid such problem. I run a few scripts that I have written in conjunction with Azureus that allow me to thwart my isp from bandwidth throttling. Port forwarding mass port rotations will assist in this matter, and since i use my scripts to automate this, this would fall under software assistance : )

You guys are both right within different constraints.

"No software program can do that (thwart bandwidth throttling)". True if all its trying to do is stop bandwidth throttling and the person doing the throttling has infinite resources.

But....what you said was equally true from a different perspective:

Bandwidth throttling only works if they know what to throttle because it would be insane to throttle your mail port for example. So they gotta know what to throttle and to do that they need to detect and to do that (pick you out of the bit stream) they need to build trends and such to check for certain activity patterns consistent with P2P traffic. By moving your ports around you disrupt those patterns and while its possible from a technical angle to catch you even with your countermeasures, it is not cost-effective for them to do so when there are 101 other schmoes out there not taking precautions, always using the same port range, etc.

So what you have done is make it too expensive to track you, achieving your desired results.


We need to make it too expensive to even detect the activity for everyone.
W~~~

► btguard does not work any more since almost all trackers banned it due to IP Spoofing or other problems, and has not worked for quite some time now.

They also don't respond to emails for assistance.

Complaints have been lodged with Paypal for false and deceptive advertising of a non-working service.
____________________________
►► Don't waste your money ◄◄
����������������������������

Ok mr. spammer,show us the proof,there is nothing on the web to support your claims.BTGuard is still going strong.I've been using it for almost a year and have had no problems.

My peer guardian hasn't work for over a year keeps getting some sort of exception. BTguard took my money and never worked. so i lose out on both counts.

I signed up for it last night, and it won't let me authenticate any trackers, which leads me to believe it's fake. Being that there are no credentials anywhere verifying their legitmacy I'm going to wait for ThePirateBay to offer their VPN service to the public before I try messing with traffic routing again.

I'm still using it and have upgraded to 6.0.
Looked at many forums to find if folks are having any problems.All I could find were people that were trying to use it for other than bit-torrent traffic.Perhaps folks should read up on how to use it properly.
Peer Guardian is another story,make sure you d/l the right one for your operating system.Mine was always crashing till I found out I was using the wrong one,5 months now without a crash.

BTGuard Anonymizing Service: Is it worth it?
By Jonathan DePrizio
Introduction
BTGuard is a paid proxy service intended for bittorrent users. For $6.95 a month you can use BTGuard to hide your IP address from other downloaders and bypass any traffic shaping your ISP performs to limit your bittorrent usage. I’ve given this service a try, with mixed results. Read on for more.




How it works
BTGuard provides a Socks5 proxy, through which you pass your bittorrent (or other data) traffic before it goes out to other members of a bittorrent swarm. As a result, the tracker, as well as anyone else on that torrent, will see the BTGuard IP address rather than your own; your identity effectively stays hidden from the public.

When you register for a BTGuard account, you set a username and password, which you use to identify yourself to the proxy. This is called Socks5/A, or Socks5 with Authentication. Consequently, the service will only work with programs that support this proxy scheme; most bittorrent clients do, with the notable exception of Transmission (now the default client for Ubuntu Linux).

It is possible to use the proxy for more than just bittorrent traffic; but as of yet I have been unable to find a web browser with Socks5/A support. This includes Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, and Internet Explorer. However, any program that has support for this protocol should work, and the primary intention of the BTGuard service is for bittorrent anonymization.

In my tests, I used various clients, including Deluge, Azureus, and uTorrent (running via Wine).




BTGuard in action
Setup
Setting up your client to use BTGuard (after you have procured an account) is simple, and instructions are provided on the BTGuard website for the most popular clients. The only information you have to fill in the proxy address and port number, as well as your username and password. Once you configure your client to use the proxy, you’re good to go.

Speed and reliability
Unfortunately, the speed of the BTGuard service isn’t quite up to par. While my download cap from my ISP is quite high (I’ve often hit 2MB/s, sustained), when routed through BTGuard this falls to approximately 100KBps on average, with peaks around 300KBps and lows of 50KBps. These speeds are sure to disappoint serious downloaders with fast connections, but for someone who only occasionally grabs a file or two it may be acceptable.

Another problem with BTGuard is reliability; more than once I noticed my connection dropping entirely for short periods (about 30 seconds) before it would start up again. I ran all tests with several Linux ISO files downloading at once, so I can say with certainty that the strength of the bittorrent swarm was not the issue; this is also a problem I only encounter when using the BTGuard proxy service.

Overall, using BTGuard will most likely mean a slower, less reliable connection (at least for now, or until they upgrade their systems to meet with demand), and it’s something to consider before spending $7/month on the service.


Security through trust
One of the largest questions about BTGuard is simple: Can you trust them? When you use a proxy, you’re sending all your data through someone else’s servers; as a result, they can view and log everything you do. Unfortunately, there isn’t any readily-available information on exactly who is behind BTGuard. On their website they explicitly state that they do not keep any logs, but you have to take them at their word.

Using BTGuard to become anonymous changes your bittorrent security paradigm from “security through obscurity,” or becoming lost in the crowd, to “security through trust” of BTGuard’s systems. It’s up to the individual to decide whether or not they want to trust BTGuard.


Improving the BTGuard system
Speed

The number one thing BTGuard needs to do to improve their service is make it faster; 100KBps on average is simply too slow for bittorrent traffic. As more users sign up for the service, their “tubes” will become increasingly full, and individuals will see their download speed decrease; hopefully BTGuard will vigorously combat these growing pains and provide a faster service.

Security
BTGuard needs to make it clearer that you can trust their service. More legal information, more information about who exactly is running the service, and a better privacy policy are must-haves before many people will consider them trustworthy.

Pricing
Currently, the BTGuard service costs $6,95 a month, which I think is fair for what they provide (although speed remains an issue, and some people will likely be turned away from paying for a service as slow as it is now). However, there is no long-term pricing; you can sign up for one month, or a recurring monthly payment, but there is no price difference. A 12-month discount price, for example, would be a nice addition; perhaps $75 instead of the current $83.50.


Conclusion
BTGuard fills an important niche, and many bittorrent users will likely be willing to pay for such a service, but it’s currently plagued by some significant problems that will turn many potential users. If the company is able to increase available bandwidth, deal with its growing pains, and make themselves more trustworthy, it’s likely that BTGuard will become a powerful tool in the fight for privacy on the internet.

I thought this an interesting read.I do agree that speeds are effected from time to time,I don't really sit here and watch the screen for hours,but my speeds seem to be maxed out whenever I check.