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.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Download Unlimited free of Cost? Why Torrent? Is it unethical to use it?
Torrent, almost everyone using the internet might have heard of it. Almost 1% of the internet users are advanced Torrent Users, 20% of people using the internet are active users and another 20% know about it or have used it occasionally. More than 50% of the internet users do not know about it or have never used it. So what is Torrent? Is it as bad as some copyright protectors say? Or is it as good as thousands of pro-piracy advocates claim? Or is it just controversial? Lets find the answer. This is not a web page, but a blog and therefore comments and discussions are most welcome. It will benefit us all.
Torrent is actually a peer-to-peer(P2P) sharing tool to share huge amounts of data among peers through the internet. The unique features of Torrent are:-
1. It is free.
2. It is for the people and by the people.
3. It requires a good internet connection.
4. It is really easy to use.
Now lets go back to our initial question, why is Torrent controversial? My answer is that because it screws up the profits of big software giants, movie and music production houses, game production companies and virtually any digital product in the world. Torrent is a tool which helps people to share movies, music, software, games, photos etc. through the internet. The idea of building Torrent was not to promote piracy but to help people to share data with their online peers across geographical barriers. Over time Torrent has evolved as a tool wherein people have started sharing pirated digital products with the entire world.
If Torrent had been illegal, The Pirate Bay which is one of the largest Torrent Websites would not have survived the Legal Proceedings against it. After some production houses of Hollywood filed a copyright infringement case against The Pirate Bay, the servers and all equipments of the owners of Pirate Bay were confiscated following a subsequent raid on their premises. But it was only a matter of 3 days and Pirate Bay was back on Track again. This sparked huge pro-piracy protests against the government and the Hollywood and finally Pirate Bay got a huge fan following. Their logo at that time depicted a pirate ship firing canons at the HOLLYWOOD.
So we know that Torrent is not illegal, but what about the morality and ethics. What about the huge losses which people suffer due to Torrent. Yes I agree that it is immoral and unethical to share pirated versions of software through Torrent and we should refrain from it as far as possible. Only opensource software should be shared through Torrent. Only software, games, movies and music whose shelf life is over should be shared over Torrent.
Unfortunately some people use Torrent to share the latest movies, music and cracked versions of software and games. Movies and Music get shared almost on the day of release on Torrent. Software and games get shared as soon as some hacker finds the crack to it. But this is not good and people with good ethics should not download these. Even if you download a new movie from Torrent and like it, do consider paying a visit to a theatre so that the Theatre owner and the movie producer also gets his due.
The best way to use Torrent is to share your wedding video with the world, share your new music video shot in your college with all your online peers across the world or to share the new piece of Java Application you have developed with your Techie Friends.
Stay Tuned, I will soon write a post on how to Use Torrent and also about my best Torrent Sites and Clients so that you can get going - Coming up within a week.
Torrent is actually a peer-to-peer(P2P) sharing tool to share huge amounts of data among peers through the internet. The unique features of Torrent are:-
1. It is free.
2. It is for the people and by the people.
3. It requires a good internet connection.
4. It is really easy to use.
Now lets go back to our initial question, why is Torrent controversial? My answer is that because it screws up the profits of big software giants, movie and music production houses, game production companies and virtually any digital product in the world. Torrent is a tool which helps people to share movies, music, software, games, photos etc. through the internet. The idea of building Torrent was not to promote piracy but to help people to share data with their online peers across geographical barriers. Over time Torrent has evolved as a tool wherein people have started sharing pirated digital products with the entire world.
If Torrent had been illegal, The Pirate Bay which is one of the largest Torrent Websites would not have survived the Legal Proceedings against it. After some production houses of Hollywood filed a copyright infringement case against The Pirate Bay, the servers and all equipments of the owners of Pirate Bay were confiscated following a subsequent raid on their premises. But it was only a matter of 3 days and Pirate Bay was back on Track again. This sparked huge pro-piracy protests against the government and the Hollywood and finally Pirate Bay got a huge fan following. Their logo at that time depicted a pirate ship firing canons at the HOLLYWOOD.
So we know that Torrent is not illegal, but what about the morality and ethics. What about the huge losses which people suffer due to Torrent. Yes I agree that it is immoral and unethical to share pirated versions of software through Torrent and we should refrain from it as far as possible. Only opensource software should be shared through Torrent. Only software, games, movies and music whose shelf life is over should be shared over Torrent.
Unfortunately some people use Torrent to share the latest movies, music and cracked versions of software and games. Movies and Music get shared almost on the day of release on Torrent. Software and games get shared as soon as some hacker finds the crack to it. But this is not good and people with good ethics should not download these. Even if you download a new movie from Torrent and like it, do consider paying a visit to a theatre so that the Theatre owner and the movie producer also gets his due.
The best way to use Torrent is to share your wedding video with the world, share your new music video shot in your college with all your online peers across the world or to share the new piece of Java Application you have developed with your Techie Friends.
Stay Tuned, I will soon write a post on how to Use Torrent and also about my best Torrent Sites and Clients so that you can get going - Coming up within a week.
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