 Why the the BitTorrent Post? Well, for several reasons really, it would help a lot of people out, BitTorrent is great and should be shared, and I have too much free time at work (not really). Many of my friends and co-workers have asked me how to get started on the non-stop bandwagon that is BitTorrent, without having to understand techie words like ’swarm’, ‘peer’, ’seed’ or ‘ratio’. So without further ado, I’d like to get to it.
- BitTorrent is essentially a protocol, a way two computers can talk to each other, like HTTP (that thing your computer uses to talk to web pages), and you can use it to download files (like movies, games and mp3s) from the internet, and onto your computer. I will go over a quick run through, then explain each part a little more in depth. You are going to need:
- a program to access the torrent, such as Azureus or uTorrent
- And a Bit Torrent search engine web site which can search for torrents of the file you want
- A torrent is a pointer to all the small parts of the file that will make up the complete file once downloaded
- A BitTorrent (BT) client is what makes it possible to access the torrent, and begin downloading the file. There are several different BT clients, the most popular today being Azureus. That is what I will be suggesting here, it works with Windows, Linux and OSX, is simple enough to start out with and leaves you some room to grow and learn (and is also what everyone here uses.) When you head over to the Azureus download page, you’ll notice it first tells you to install something called the JRE. Nothing to fret about, there is a chance you already have it, and the Azureus download page will let you know by saying ‘java detected’ or not. If you don’t have it, no biggie, just go get it, it’s a very simple install.
- Follow the link on the Azureus download page and download and install the JRE first (if you don’t have it), and Azureus second. Make sure to get the latest release of Azureus.
- The second thing you will need to do is find a torrent search engine that’s right for you (in most cases, that’s searching through as many as it takes till you find the file you want.) This is probably the tricky part about BitTorrent. While many people may know that they need a client, it can be hard to find the sites which will link you to the torrent you are looking for. For that reason, I will provide links to the top sites we use to find torrent files:
- Search for whatever you are looking for in one of these search engines. In our example, I will search for ‘family guy movie’. So I will go to The Pirate Bay, type in ‘family guy movie’ and hit search. It then brings me to the search results.
The thing to focus on at this point is making sure you are getting the right file, as in, make sure the title saying something about what you are looking for (you don’t want to get a TV episode instead of the movie!), and more importantly, make sure you are getting the file from the best available torrent. How do you tell which is the best? By looking at the search results.
The outlined columns specify what data on the search grid is important (other columns have been cut out of the picture.)
- Size - This is the size of the file. Make sure you have enough hard disk space before downloading!
- DL = Downloads - The number of times this file has been downloaded. The bigger this is, usually the better, because if many people have gotten it, it is the popular result. In the picture above, you can see the first search result has more downloads (1082) vs. the second result (630), this would lead me to believe the first result is the best file.
- SE = Seeds - I know I said you wouldn’t have to understand techie words like this, but bear with me, it’s easy! A seed is simply someone who has 100% of the file, and is sharing it in the torrent. The more seeds the torrent has, the faster it will download. You want to make sure the torrent you are downloading from has at least 1 seed. In the picture above, you can see the first search result has more seeds (9) vs. the second result (3), this would lead me to believe the first result is the best served (fastest downloading) file.
- LE = Leechers - Also known as ‘Peers’ (I know I said you wouldn’t have to know this either
 ). A leecher is someone who between 0-99% of the file downloaded, and is including the parts he/she has on the torrent. When you begin downloading a torrent, you will become a leecher until you complete the torrent and seed it. With bit torrent, you become part of the torrent, sharing whatever of the file you have, the moment you become a peer/leecher. Typically, the more leechers, the better, because that means more parts of the file are available for download. In the picture above, you can see the first search result has more leechers (23) vs. the second result (8), this would lead me to believe the first result is the most available (also fastest downloading) file.
So I can conclude that the first torrent returned in the search result is the one I want to download from.
- Clicking on the first search result will bring you to the Pirate Bay’s download page. Click ‘Download This Torrent’. This will cause Firefox to ask you if you want to ‘open the file with’ BitTorrent (or Azureus), or if you want to save it to disk. Open the file with BitTorrent (or Azureus).
- If this option is not available for you, select ‘Open With’ and browse to where you installed Azureus (probably c:\program files\azureus\), and select Azureus.exe.
Once open, Azureus, will ask you where you want to save the file.
Select where you want to save it, and click save. You will now begin downloading the torrent. The status of the torrent is indicated on the top half of Azureus.
- The ‘Done’ column indicates what percent of your file is done
- the ’seeds’ column indicates how many seeds there are for this torrent
- The ‘peers’ column indicates how many peers there are for this torrent.
- The ‘Down Speed’ column tells you what your download speed is
When the file is complete, it gets moved to the bottom half of Azureus, and you begin seeding it for the torrent. The file is complete! YAY! Now you can start watching it, installing it, listening to it, etc..
- When you are seeding, there is a ‘Share Ratio’ column which indicates how much of the file you have uploaded versus downloaded.
- Share Ratio = Amount Uploaded / Amount Downloaded
Meaning, if you have just completed downloading a whole file, and begun seeding it, your share ratio will be low. If the total you have uploaded to peers for this file is bigger than the amount you downloaded (file size itself), you get a share ratio of > 1.0. A share ratio of at least 1.0 is typically desired, because this means you have shared back to the torrent as much of the file as you have taken from the torrent. At any time (or once your share ratio reaches 1.0), you may remove the torrent from your seeds list, thereby stopping seeding of it. To remove the seed, right click on it, and click remove.
And that’s about it! You’ve just learned how to get started on BitTorrent!
hint: To find more torrent search engines, go to Google and search ‘bittorrent search engine’ or ‘torrent saerch’ or something along those lines 
General Disclaimer: Common Web Sense (CWS) is designed for educational purposes only and is not engaged in illegal file trading on or offline. The information provided through CWS should not be used for pirating music, movies or any other type of data which requires purchase. If you enjoy a movie, game or song, go buy it! That’s what we do.
Source taken from here |
