lol that's why I originally held back from answering this thread.

If you're using a dial-up modem, then yes it can affect the bandwidth. If you're using adsl it won't affect dwnld bandwidth b/c upld & dwnld bandwidths are separate.

Rather than not sharing at all there's another way of doing it. Control your upld bandwidth. Tools>Options>Upload>Basic & adjust the upload bandwidth slider to minimum or close to minimum. But make sure you have at least one or two upld slots. Your choice whether you allow partial file sharing. Don't forget to press the Apply button after any changes.

By sharing it allows you to connect to more people giving you much better search results, better chances of dwnlding from more than one source. Also some people filter out those people that share less than a minimum number of files be that 5, 50 or 500 for example. So you would never be able to dwnld from those people if you are not sharing or not sharing a certain no. of files.