A BitTorrent Guide for Newbies

Normally when you download something from a website, you are connecting to a host server and downloading the desired file directly off of it. When a lot of people are trying to download the same file, this bogs down the server and slows down the speed of your download. Bittorrent works differently. Instead of downloading from one special computer that hosts a file, BitTorrent allows users to cooperatively download a file from each other, often at much faster speeds.

BitTorrent files are catalogued by metafiles, which are very small files that point to the location of the actual download. This makes it possible for various "tracker" websites to list the metafiles of various torrents without actually hosting the files themselves; many of these websites use this as an excuse when accused of allowing piracy, which is the distribution of copyrighted media such as movies, video games, and music. While BitTorrent is often considered synonymous with piracy because of the ease of sharing files with it, BitTorrent actually can be an alternative means of downloading legal content quickly.

Once you have chosen a file, click it and choose to open it. Once you have clicked on the metafile, it will start the torrent in a BitTorrent client on your computer. You need a BitTorrent client in order to download torrent files. Favored ones include Azureus (Vuze), uTorrent, BitLord, and of course, the original BitTorrent client (this is by no means an exhaustive list). Any one of these will allow you to open torrent files and start downloading them.

A downloading torrent has seeders, leechers, and peers. A seeder is someone who has the entire file on their computer and is making it available for others to download. A leecher is someone who downloads a file from others without seeding or sharing in return, and is not well-liked in the P2P (peer-to-peer) community. Finally, there are peers, who are simply other people downloading the same file as you at the same time.

Torrent files are broken down into pieces. Everyone who's downloading a certain file gets pieces of the file. The reason it works well is because peers can swap pieces from other peers while downloading, resulting in much faster downloads. Peers are helpful, but a file is unlikely to ever finish downloading if there aren't any seeders, because seeders have the entire file on their computers. Without any seeders, peers can still download each others' pieces, but will most likely never finish the entire download.

Once the BitTorrent client has downloaded all the pieces, it puts them back together in the right order. BitTorrent files are often compressed in .zip format to make the file size a bit smaller. If not, the file you wanted should show up in the destination folder on your hard drive. To be courteous, you should leave your BitTorrent client open to upload to others. Make sure it says "seeding," which means you are allowing "peers" the chance to download the completed file from your computer now.

The end result for popular torrent files with a lot of seeders and peers is a very fast download. Some ISPs (Internet Service Providers) block torrent websites or files, so you should be wary of which ISP you have. Also, it should be noted that many BitTorrent clients hog system memory and internet bandwidth. Another point: If you have a firewall or a router, you often need to designate an open port so that the BitTorrent client can get through, otherwise your downloads will be painfully slow.

And finally, keep in mind that this wonderful technology is also used as a way to steal copyrighted content. While it is potentially good as a means of keeping makers of games, music, and movies from overpricing their products, just be honest and pay for the things that you enjoy. In other words, keep your malfeasance to a minimum. BitTorrent is a very impressive and world-changing means of data transfer, and now you hopefully understand how it works a bit better (no pun intended).