Speeds did take a hit. Some torrents aren't as bad as others. I used their testing torrent ( which is really just ubuntu 10.04 iso) and the speeds maxed out my connection. But for my day-to-day downloading, speeds are cut about half. Some torrents were especially hit. Whereas I was getting 100k-200k/s before, I'd be lucky to get into 60k/s with BTGuard.
Usually this isn't such a big deal. For the average 350MB file, this means that it takes 20 minutes instead of 10 minutes. But if you're downloading something closer to the 8GB to 20GB range, then this could be a significant increase in how long you're in the swarm.
I haven't quite decided if BTGuard is worth it. I was originally getting it so that I could get the bigger torrents without worrying about having to be in the swarm for a long time, unprotected. But if BTGuard's speeds are so slow that I end up being in the swarm 2x-3x longer, then the protection its proxies give me may not be worth it.
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