How to Block Peers from Connecting in uTorrent?

Need may arise when you would like to kick and ban certain IP addresses from
connecting to your torrent client or network. Let’s check out in this post how to block
peers from connecting in uTorrent for Windows?

Whenever you are uploading or downloading files using uTorrent, you can see a list of
all Peers that are connecting to your computer. By default, the IP addresses of these
peers resolves to their respective DNS names. In order to view IP addresses of these
peers, right click anywhere on the Peers Tab and uncheck Resolve IPs:

This will hide DNS name of all connecting peers and you will be able to see their original
allotted IP address:

For blocking a single or a group of IP addresses, right click on them (by holding Control
CTRL Button) and click on Copy Selected Hosts:
Open Notepad, paste all copied host IP addresses in it and save the file
as ipfilter.dat at following location:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\uTorrent- For Windows XP,
2003 and 2000.

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\uTorrent – For Windows Vista, 7 and 8

(including 8.1).

Now in uTorrent, go to Options >> Preferences >> Advanced and set the value of
ipfilter.enable to true:
Click on OK Button and right click anywhere on the Peers Tab and select Reload IP
Filter:

This will immediately block all IP Addresses that are present in your ipfilter.dat file.

Important Notes:
 The AppData and Application Data folders in Windows are hidden by default. In
order to view them go to Folder Options >> Click on view tab >> select Show
 hidden files, folders, and drives under Hidden Files and Folders >> click on
OK Button.
 You can add and remove IP addresses in ipfilter.dat file by directly opening it in
Notepad and clicking on Save (CTRL + S).
 Use above trick to block leechers (who doesn’t upload a single byte of data) and
rogue IP addresses! But be very careful, as unnecessarily blocking peers can hurt
torrent’s overall health.
 The copied host IP addresses also includes port number with them. When pasting
them in notepad, they will look something like 122.50.xxx.xx:45686