The Complete Guide to using Torrents.

CBROOKS

Active member
Alright kiddies, torrents 101 coming at you.

Using torrents, you can basically get any well known application / movie / album you would ever want. free.

Now, some of you may be lost the second I say the word Torrent. So, a torrent is basically this:

A method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using A torrent, recipients each supply data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence upon the original distributor.

In a nutshell, your downloading straight from another user (peer)'s computer. There is no server with all this data stored on it. everything relies on peers, which download, and in return upload the files they seek.

Torrents are optimized for downloading full albums, discographies (all the music an artist has ever released), movies and large files such as this, not single songs.

Now, to utilize a torrent you need the following:

A Client:

A client allows you to download use the torrents to upload and download information. If you dont have a client, you will be downloading a file that will be unusable to you.

For Mac users, download the software named "Transmission"

PC'ers have tons of different choices, I have little PC experience, but I know that the BitTorrent is a reliable client.

High Speed Connection

Shit is not for dialup kiddies, the smallest files will take you days to download. DSL, CAble or other highspeed options are mandatory.

Torrent Search Engine

This is where you find your torrents. I reccomend www.isohunt.com.

HARD DRIVE SPACE

you can not download a 1gb discography with 1gb of space left, it just doesnt work out. make sure you have sufficient storage space for whatever your downloading. I recommend an external hard drive if your gona go crazy on movies. (I have an external 80gb hard drive near full with movies alone, this shit piles up)

Putting it all together

So, you have your torrent client, you have your highspeed connection, your on isohunt.com or a similar site, and you have just finnished defragging and cleaning out your hard drive. Now what the fuck do I do with all this shit?

Step one - search for the artist / movie title / application your seeking.

Step two - Pick out your download. On the side of all the choices there will be a collomn with a large L and a collumn with a Large S. S's are seeders, people who are currently uploading the file. Your looking for the largest number of seeders you can find in your desired section. L's are leechers, or people downloading currently.

click on it, the selection will expand showing alot of confusing information. The only part of this you need to pay attention to is the file contents, which will be listed somewhere on the part of the page that has just expanded, look at this and make sure its all stuff your looking for.

Step three - Start your download. Click on the link that will say something to the effect of "download torrent". on a mac it will automatically ask you what to do with it, as its an unrecognized file. PC's must control click and go to open with. Either way you will have to choose what to do with the file. Select open with, and then find your client application, select it and open the torrent with it.

Step four - Click on your client application and watch as your torrent begins to gain peers and start downloading. (some clients may require you to click begin or resume to start the download).

Here is play by play, in photo form, of the process.

1. Enter the artist/movie/app name and choose the file type from the drop down bar

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1191/909587906_7957595127.jpg

2. Find choice with most Seeders

[img]http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1163/909588012_82d117cce1.jpg

3. Check file contents

909587806_06b2af36ac.jpg


4. Open with client

909587770_f1f58f0dd1_m.jpg


5. receive free shit!

909587640_9c72fd0991_m.jpg


Hopefully that gave you a basic understanding of torrents and how to use them. PM me with any questions.

 
your rate of download changes, usually in deirect consequence of the number of peers your connected to changing

generally more peers = faster DL times, there are exceptions though.

chances are your not going anywhere fast with one or two peers.
 
thanks a bunch man, im gonna try this out once I get a new camera and am searching for editting programs
 
this is really helpful

i tried downloading bittorrent, didn't know what to do and gave up

but you have given me new hope, thank you
 
okay, so i downloaded adobe premiere pro 2 and put it into bit torrent, it downloaded and everything, then when i try to open it it just comes up as a picture file.

untitled.jpg


any help?
 
Personally that file clearly isn't the Premier file. I know when i got my premier it was in an ISO file. Meaning I had to put on CD, then load onto the computer. Essentially it was the same thing as the cd from the box. But for the image file, you may want to try the new thing. Otherwise I am not sure.
 
when i double click it comes up with nero and asks me to put it onto a cd, maybe i have to do that, ill find a blank disc and try it in a few minutes
 
you're gonna want to download daemon tools, google it, or dowload the torrent. this allows you to open ISO files, most programs you'll download through torrents are saved as ISO images, which Deamon tools will open and allow you to then install said program.
 
sorry to keep posting in this thread so much, but i downloaded a new torrent of cs3, and it says its a DAA file, anyone know what program will open this?

Also when the download finishes do i need to leave it to seed, when it ends it says seeding, and i dont know what this means
 
I run a mac, so I don't worry too much about virus threats but I still run anti-virus software. As for PC's, just look for a torrent that many people have commented positively on and you will know its good.
 
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