Disable Peer-Assisted Networking in Adobe Flash Player

[Batu69]

Peer-assisted networking is not very different from peer-to-peer (P2P) networking. While in the peer-to-peer networking two people are exchanging data back and forth using P2P software like BitTorrent, the peer-assisted networking involves partial sharing of data from other peers using the same website. Adobe Flash Player enables peer-assisted networking by default. This means when you are watching videos on websites, some of the data is being downloaded straight from the web server of that website while some of the data is downloaded from the computers of other users who are watching or have watched that video from the same time.

In theory peer-assisted networking should improve the performance of any content that uses Adobe Flash Player. But in reality, things are much different as some of these peers may not have faster internet connections – resulting in slower video downloads. Furthermore, you are also sharing your downloaded data with other users which puts a strain on your internet bandwidth especially if you have a limited internet connection. And really, now when everyone has multi-Mbps internet connections, who needs peer-assisted networking?

For the sake of improving system security and minimizing internet bandwidth usage, you can disable Adobe Flash Player from using peer-assisted networking in the following manner:

1. Press Win+X or right-click on the Start icon

[freeforever03]

I didn't realize that Adobe Flash Player was doing this.

[Nastrahl]

In fact, it set to ask you if you want to use this feature on a per-site basis by default.