What Exactly Does Port Fowarding Do?

[Vamp]

Am I correct in saying that it allows you to download better and faster? if you're behind a router-firewall? Can it affect my internet in any way?

[CornerPocket]

You can say the you will benefit from port forwarding. Without that makes it hard for others to connect to you should you be sharing files. Speeds will show increasement as well. Good info here portforward.com (http://www.portforward.com/).