HOW TO...

USE BitTorrents

Don't steal or download what you haven't paid for (disclaimer on the side). With that being said kiddies, you've got some learnin to do. Today's lesson is about BitTorrents or torrents. According to wikipedia, "BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data and is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files." It begins when one person creates a torrent descriptor file where it is hosted on a torrent website (I will list the sites later). Once activated, the original uploader becomes a 'seed' or 'seeder' and anyone is free to download that file. The way it works is a 'leecher' begins downloading pieces of the file until their download is completed and they too become seeder. A 'swarm' is the group of leechers who are known as a 'peers' or a 'peer'. These peers help alleviate the burden off the seeders by making available more pieces of the original file. The more seeders that are hosting the file translate to faster download time depending on your internet connection.

This is torrenting in action.

WTF

The process of BitTorrent downloading makes the original file available for an unlimited number of peers while changing the file is made impossible by a cryptographic hash. Basically, unless you download a bad torrent you won't get a virus.

THE MAGICAL WORLD OF TORRENTS

Now that you've had a very brief explanation of how torrents work, here's how to start using them. First, you need to download a BitTorrent Client which is a program that manages your downloaded torrents. I currently use VUZE, but I recommend uTorrent because it is more lightweight than VUZE while functioning exactly the same (download links at bottom). Once you have the program installed, it should be updated to the latest version and BLAM you're ready to start downloading. Your next step is to find a torrent to download which can be the trickiest part.

Torrent sites that I recommend are isohunt.com and piratebay.org. Once on one of these websites simply use the main search bar to locate the file you want. FOR EXAMPLE, we will be searching for the movie Wayne's World in isohunt. Type in 'Wayne's World' and you will be given a list of torrent names that include what you want and what you don't want like Lil Wayne's discography. There is a blue bar that says Category/Age/Torrent Tags, Name/Size/S/L and you need to click 'S' for Seeds and rearrange the list so the torrents with the most seeds will appear top to bottom. Scroll down to your desired video (ours is on the second page) and select it. It is important to read the comments to learn about the sound and video quality (if that matters to you) and to see if it is actually what you are looking for. In our Wayne's World example, according to the comments it is good quality and works so you can click 'download torrent'. Once the torrent link is downloaded from the internet it will appear in your torrent managing program (VUZE or uTorrent) and you can watch it's progress.  At first there will be no seeds or leechers then 1, 2, 3, 4.... they will start to appear and the torrent file itself will begin being downloaded.  Once the torrent is finished downloading SHWING you have you first torrent, congrats!

But, you're not finished yet. To torrent safely (and to be kind of a dick at the same time) you need to stop the torrent from uploading by right clicking the torrent name and selecting stop. A problem with videos that people may encounter is that they do not work with Quicktime. The solution is VLC which is basically the same thing as Quicktime, but is able to play much more video formats and functions slightly better.

The electronic world is your oyster with torrents, being smart is being safe when downloading.

Go get 'em tiger.

-gonz

VLC media-player download (click link)

You don't need both BitTorrent clients so just choose one.
uTorrent BitTorrent client download (click link)

VUZE BitTorrent client download (click link)


if you have any questions, ask me!