firewall, does it effect downloads?

[itzkinz]

Does having a firewall effect the speed of downloads on a dsl connection? Currently i use Verizon DSL and the downloads, especially using Bittorrent are way under par ( i download around 7-8kbps). If having a firewall does hinder the speed of my downloads, are there any possible ways to remove it? Thank you all for your time and cooperation.

[Byte 2.0]

A firewall is not going to be much of a strain on your downloads.

Remember, when you are downloading on Peer to Peer from other people your downloads totally depend on the other person or people's uploads.

Sometimes while on a Torrent, some people run programs to limit their uploads as well because normally torrents will run at max upload and kill their connection.

From what I have seen using firewalls with routers, I am still able to maintain connection from sites at my max connection.

[DragonNOA1]

A firewall is, for the most part, transparent to the user and, once the connection has been made, allows packets to flow between hosts without further checking, thereby not degrading performance.

[Lardass]

Sometimes it can depend on the whether the firewall is inbuilt in a router or whether the firewall is a generic program i.e Norton or Mc free. Is it inbuilt into a router?? Or is it just generic software??