Torrents! What are Torrents and How to use Torrents?

In Short:
Computer Torrents are a means to share data, files, movies, music, software etc. among users at much higher data rate without using a lot of bandwidth.

Definition :
1. A strong and fast-moving stream of water or other liquid.
2. A sudden, violent, and copious outpouring of (something, typically words or feelings): "she was subjected to a torrent of abuse"

Details:

Torrents are small files that track files and programs listed on websites. Your computer uses this tracking info to connect to sources for the files and programs desired. The computer needs a bittorrent client program to "read" these instructions. Here's how to get started:


1. Install a good torrent client program. Utorrent (or µtorrent - it's the same program, but is called by different names) will work well for anybody who uses a Windows operating system. Azureus is a torrent program that works on most PC platforms. Google or use your favorite search engine to search "bittorrent client" for a list of additional program choices. Install as per instructions included with the client.

2. Search for sites that track torrents. You can find many of them via a web search for "torrent tracker." Search for the websites that list many of the most popular torrent trackers for movies, ebooks and music. Or simply Google the name of the file with torrent appended to it e.g. books on life torrent.

3. Look for torrents with a good seed/leach ratio for fastest downloads. The more seeds per leech, the better. It may take longer if you have a slow internet connection. if this is the case, you might want to consider upgrading to your ISP's higher speed option since torrent transfers generate a lot of network traffic.

Torrent files work in a "peer to peer" (P2P) fashion rather then a server to client (S2C) fashion. This means you will not download the desired file(s) from a server, but rather from a number of other people who are "hosting" parts of the file needed. These hosts are called seeds. If a torrent has "0" seeds, don't bother attempting to download it.

4. Check the format of the torrent. Look for torrents with file types that you are more familiar with. If you are not familiar with any of them, spend a few minutes reviewing file types such as winrar, shn and zip in order to figure out how to open and extract them.

5. Download a torrent. Once the client of choice is installed and properly configured, simply double clicking a torrent file listed on a website should download the torrent file, which will then start the client program automatically. Once the client program has started, it should begin to download the program or file desired after it connects to the hosts that have the parts of the file needed (about a minute or so).

6. Check speed settings. Sometimes your upload speed can reduce your download speed. In this case, it might be wise to lower the upload speed limit of the torrent you are downloading. You can change this either by right clicking the torrent file in your client software or from preferences in the same program.

7. Keep seeding. After the download is finished, moving the file will cause the upload to other people to fail so if you wish to seed (which is strongly encouraged but not mandatory), you shouldn't move the file. You can, however, open or use it.

Keep Seeding

Beware :

a. Anti Virus software is a must. Torrents may contain viruses and other malicious software. Read the comments of the torrent before downloading it. Things aren't always what they appear to be. Even if everybody says the torrent is okay, note that there still may be malicious things hidden that can't even be seen by the trained eye. Always be wary of what you download.

b. Torrents are always uploaded by other people, so there is always a chance the file will not work on your computer. Again, read the comments before downloading.

Torrents are often (but not always) used to distribute commercial software, movies and other licensed products. Since the torrent system is a distributed system, which means everybody can take part in it, it's difficult to point out a guilty person for committing the act of piracy. Investigate PeerGuardian for software solutions to prevent being identified if accidentally downloading such files.

c. Torrents also may involve you in piracy without you even realizing it.

Last but not the Least...

i. The number of peers or leeches are the amount of people downloading the file.

ii. Once a file has been downloaded, you can choose to keep seeding the file so other people can download it, or just be a leech and stop hosting the file. It is usually encouraged to at least get a seeding ratio of 1. which means you upload as much as you download. The longer, faster and more frequently you upload, the faster people who are trying to download the file will be able to download it. If nobody seeded, torrents would die out.

Thank you for reading keep coming for more and if you need anything in specific just Mail Me or mention it in comments.

Thanks to Wikihow