Using Torrent is easy - believe it or not. This article is for absolute beginners. I will write about the advanced tips and trick in my later articles.
The requirements are you should have a good internet connection preferably an unlimited one with an average download speed of at least 50 kbps, good storage space and a Torrent Client. Installing a Torrent client is as easy as installing any other piece of software. Just go to your favorite search engine and type download torrent client. You will find a lot of websites which provide you free downloads of torrent clients. Just download one, click on the installation/ executable(.exe) file and follow the instructions to install it. My best torrent client is bit torrent. I recommend you to use bit torrent which provides a lot of features which are not available in many other torrent clients.
Just after you have installed this small piece of software you are ready to get going with your search. Just go to any torrent website and start searching what you want. It can be literally anything. I have found and downloaded movies of 1950s and 1960s from Torrent. My best torrent website is www.kickasstorrents.com. The reason why I like this website is that it is a 100% non profit. These guys do not show a single misleading ads and show a lot of information beside the torrent you want to download. They show the health of the Torrent file, the number of peers and seeds connected to the torrent file, whether the torrent is verified or not and also the comments of the users after the download. This helps you take a decision on whether to download a particular torrent or not. If the health of the file is high, the torrent is verified and there are a lot of positive comments on it, you do not need to worry about the quality of the file. It will work after the download.
The speed of the torrent download depends on the number of seeds. If there is a huge number of seeds then the download will be faster. Now you should understand how torrent works in comparison to a normal download. In a normal download you download the file directly from a server connected to the internet. But in Torrent you are downloaded bits and pieces of a file from your peers' systems who are connected to the internet. The Torrent software makes it possible.
I will tell you in brief how this entire process takes place.
1. The person who wants to share a file creates a torrent file of his particular file. The torrent file is very small(a few kbs) in size. The Torrent File contains information about the IP of the person and the folder in which he has saved the file.
2. He then goes to the various Torrent Websites and posts announcements about the Torrent he has created. This will create a link of the Torrent file which he has to upload and brief name and description of his torrent file.
3. Once his peers get interested in his torrent, they click on the announcement link and open the torrent file with their torrent client. The Torrent client connects itself to other clients who are downloading and uploading the particular file.
4. It is a rule for Torrent users that if you are downloading a particular file you should also upload the same amount/ or more data so that this process never stops. The upload happens automatically while you are downloading. The upload speed does not hamper your download speed and thus it can go on simultaneously. Although you can stop/ regulate the upload/ download speed, you should not do it unless you have any particular reason. Let the upload and download speed be maximum so that you help others while you take help.
5. Once the Torrent File is downloaded completely you can view and share it. Some players like VLC player also let you view/ listen to some file types even if they are not completely download. Another speciality of Torrent unlike normal browser downloading is that, if you get disconnected from internet in between the download, the next time you connect you can resume the download.
So this is how a torrent works. Welcome to the world of Torrents. Do let me know if you have any questions through comments below.
Nice article. May be you could have added some info regarding the determaination of health also. As a beginners guide it is damn good. its better if you had told about "uTorrent" which is the best when comes to torrent clients.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely write about the various factors which constitute the health of a torrent and also deeply discuss about the various analysis tools provided by a torrent client. I will also write more about how to determine the estimated speed based on your download speed according to the number of seeds and peers although it is difficult to accurately determine because you never know what is the speed of the other seeds and peers connected to the same download. This is more will come in the article for the next level torrent users. Thanks for all your great comments and suggestions Harsha.
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