It is useful to underline the importance of full node. P2p Bitcoin is a currency that is based on the assumption that all users who use it and keep open exchange bitcoin-qt client and keep up the network with the CPU mining. Today unfortunately the mining cpu is literally impossible to do, but it is still very valid concept of a distributed network, consisting of many nodes, which in theory should correspond roughly to the same order of magnitude or slightly less than users who use it. Today worldwide there are just 5000 full nodes. If we want to maintain the autonomy and freedom typical of our favorite coin, we should think to actively contribute to the development and maintenance of the entire network. Do mining in this thread rule it out, but did not put two simple directions on how to keep a full node bitcoin, I think we can do it.
State that a full node can stay on even 5-8 hours a day. It is not really necessary to keep it always on. Just leave your PC switched on during the hours of use with bitcoin-qt program and the TCP port 8333 open on the modem / router.
Then let's recap:
1) download bitcoin-qt suitable for your operating system (windows, linux, osx)
https://bitcoin.org/en/download2) into your modem to create a virtual server or port mapping with the 8333 external port pointing to the internal LAN ip of our PC (if you have trouble with google look for the brand and model of your modem, adding the words: " open port "or" virtual server "; as far as possible, if you have trouble posted in this thread and some forum user, more experienced most likely will give you directions.
3) if necessary, enter the properties of your software firewall and open the 8333 port
How can I tell if indeed our bitcoin-qt client is behaving like a full node? Simple .. open the bitcoin-qt client and go to the bottom right, and hold the mouse positioned over the network small icon and if you see that you have exceeded 8 peers, then you are a full node
P.S. without entering into a discussion on the possible fork in place in bitcoin chain, it is fair to point out that there are alternatives to the bitcoin core client. Alternatives that support more blocks of 1 meg, for the so-called scalability of bitcoin. The alternatives are: XT, UNLIMITED AND CLASSIC.
The classic at the moment seems the most gettonato, as would seem to have received the support of the Chinese miner, and envisages implementation of a block of up to 2 Mbps, but in fact for anyone who takes up a bicoin node and wants to support the scalability bitcoin by providing support for large blocks, you may also install bitcoin unlimited. If someone wanted to hold an "alternative" node instead of bitcoin core, can refer to this site to download its client:
https://coin.dance/nodesfor convenience I put links to its clients:
XT ->
https://bitcoinxt.software/ (block 8 mega)
CLASSIC ->
https://github.com/bitcoinclassic/bitcoinclassic/releases/tag/v0.11.2.cl1.b2 (block 2 mega)
UNLIMITED ->
http://www.bitcoinunlimited.info/download (the maximum block size to determine who makes the node default install 16 mega)