PeerGuardian: What is it?

I feel slightly stupid for having to ask this: What does PeerGuardian do? I gather that it keeps the copyright authorities at bay. I'm having trouble making sense of it beyond that. Does it address other P2P security issues?

Admittedly, I have not installed it. Would like somewhat of an idea before I do so. Also, I don't use p2p very often anymore, but I'd like to keep PeerGuardian in mind if I do.

 

Peerguardian works by blocking ranges of IP's which are known to be unsafe. Depending on what you see, either they are trying to make a connection to you or you are trying to make a connection to them. It protects in ranges of P2P (addresses not good for P2P since they are logged or they are RIAA/MPAA spy IP's) and other such as Ads etc.

It is usually them trying to get into your computer because you have something they want, or maybe you're connecting to them to try and get something. But whatever is blocked, is best blocked just for safety sake. The ranges are labelled with a name, which I don't always think is of an accurate representation of that netblock, but it really doesn't matter in the end cos it's working as intended.

one Link that might help;

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13913836
T772

 

is it still OK to use PeerGuardian? after the recent problems. i haven't installed it since my last reinstall. what's the name of that other program which does the same thing? thanks

 

Everything you could ever want to know about the wonderful PeerGuardian is here: http://forums.phoenixlabs.org/