Beginers Guide to Torrents

The basics

So, some people out there still don’t know what a torrent file is or what it is to do with that file. I am writing this to help out the few that are unaware of what a torrent is, what BitTorrent is, or what to do with the files you grab in the meantime.

BitTorrent the protocol was developed in 2001 by Bram Cohen as Python code. At the time he had rounded up free pornography to lure beta testers to use the software. Had he not, the protocol probably would not have taken off the way it had.

What makes bittorrent so efficient for large transfers is that paired with the error checking, the mechanism to make sure the file is correct, it uses a distribution of different peers, seeders, and leachers to download the files from. Using this distributed or mesh network makes for high reliability, high redundancy, and high speed transfers.

How the protocol works by the use of a torrent file and within that file you will find all sorts of information about the files being shared such as the size, tracker,the chunk size, along with a stored SSH-1 hash that will verify the correct unaltered file has reached the destination machine.

When the user finds a torrent that they would like to download they must download the file from the server in a file format that ends with a .torrent and open that torrent file in an appropriate program such as uTorrent, bitLord, or many other programs.

Once the torrent file is opened in a client it reads the data out of the file and sends a request to the tracker to find out what machines are currently sharing the file.

Now that the list of machines that are sharing the file are gathered connections will be made to the host systems,or seeds, that are sharing the file and at that point the download starts. When you start a download you will become a leach until the download has ended, at that time if you automatically become a seeder and will then start to send the files back out to other people requesting the files.

Getting started

To get started you will need these things to be sucessful with bittorrent.

1. A torrent client to handle your downloads
2. A site with a tracker to get your .torrent files from
3. An internet connection*
4. Some free hard drive space to store those files
   *optionally networking experience comes in handy but not necessary

Finding a client

To get a torrent client I recommend µTorrent since it is the most widely used torrent client out there.  µTorrent has a large community that is skillful in helping with issues that will pop up from time to time, such as dropped network connectivity, saturated uploading, slow browsing speeds, failure to download quickly, no downloading, poor uploading, and many other problems that you might come accross.  To download go to www.utorrent.com and to visit the forums www.forum.utorrent.com

There are many more clients out there such as Vuze, Azureus, ABC, BitLord, TorrentRelay, TorrentFlux,  BitThief, BitComet, BitTornado, and quite a few more.

Finding a torrent site and tracker

This is probably the easiest part of the equation because all you have to do is a Google search for “torrent trackers” to get a pretty good list of what is out there as far as trackers go.

Once you have located a tracker that does not display too many ads or try to trick you into downloading files that are trash or have been smudged and wreaked havoc upon you can go ahead and download the file.

When searching for a torrent file is is a good idea to find a torrent that has many seeders as it has probably reached critical mass and will result in a faster overall download, typically the sites will have a column marked SE for seeds and an LE for leachers as illustrated in the image below.

The Pirate Bay

As you can see there is other information available too, such as the size of the files, the descriptive name, and when you click on the links there is most times a good description of what the file contains. When in the view show some sites also have a way to directly download without first going to the link page you can do that by clicking on the green down arrows.

Now that you have found a few places to get torrents you are well on your way, but there is still more to go over.

Setting up your internet connection

Well no one said this was the easiet thing out there to do but you are almost done. Now that you have your client, found your sites, and can download files you might think that you are golden, in fact you are not, you have just begun. To finish everything up you will need to check your router/gateway to make sure that ports are forwarded properly. Depending upon your router/gateway the method will be different but a quick search can and will help you find out what it is that you need to do so that you can maximize your download speed as well as become an effective seeder.

A good place to start would be PortForward.com as they have some of the best guides on many different types of routers out there. If you need any other help sometimes DSLreports.com can be helpful as well. Also as a side note, if you join a non-public tracker you can get some excellent help in the forums there as well.

Free hard drive space

This part is probably the hardest thing to do once you get things set up just where you want them, the way that a private/invite only/user name and password needed, tracker works is by keeping track of how much you download vs. how much you upload, so at times you might be in big heap of trouble and need to seed something that has already been downloaded. It is a good idea in some cases to hold onto the files until the dawn of time in case you need them again on a rainy day and someone else is looking for a re-seed. The technique is especially handy on private trackers because people will not download as much as often as they will on a public tracker. Due to the ratio requirements (download divided by upload) of 0.15 to 0.5 people will look and see if they will benefit from a file before they decide to download it.

A note to new users. Downloading copyrighted files is illegal so don’t do it.

Torrent communities

There are very few rules of the Torrent P2P communities, but a few are listed below.

• try to seed as much as you leach, if that can’t be done do your best
• if someone uploaded something you really enjoyed, leave a comment
• Be respectful of private tracker ops or you will get banned
• Read the rules before you do something you might regret later

Just use your common sense out there and if you leave a comment saying “OMFG this is so slow, SEEEEEEEEED!!!” I will hunt you down and give you a Cleaveland Steamer.