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I have been out of the loop for over a decade, where do I begin?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Title, I haven't Yo ho ho'd in forever in internet time.. What/where do I need to start again? I'm tired of ads and 3+ streaming services to watch stuff that's interesting. Running windows. Thanks dudes and dudettes.
It's a poor analogy, but imagine a public IP like a hotel, there can be lots of guests (clients) at this hotel. Hotel policy is they won't let any outsiders in unless you know the room number (port) of the person you're trying to reach.
Imagine you and a friend are staying in separate hotels and want to give each other copies of your favorite Linux .ISOs, but neither of you knows the other's room number - you show up at the hotel and the front desk tells you to pound sand because you don't have their room number.
As long as one of you knows the other's room number though, you can meet.
Torrenting without port forwarding means you can only trade your favorite .ISOs with people who have port forwarding enabled (sharing their room number to the tracker), which makes you less effective of a seeder. Enabling port forwarding allows you to share with anyone (sharing your room number with the tracker).