Bit Torrents

[Stupot]

Right.  First things first.  An admission... I've never downloaded a torrent in my life. At least not knowingly. I've certainly never used a client.  In all honesty I'm not entirely sure what torrents are nor what the difference is between them and any other file sharing system.

I've come across a file I need in .torrent format and I suppose now's as good a time as any to join the 21st Century.  So where should I begin?  I obviously need a client.  I've found a list of about 80.  Which ones do you guys use?  I'm not after any fancy features, I just want a safe and effective way to download this file.

Cheers all.

PS. I also don't use an mp3 player (well I do, but I use it as a memory stick for files - there are no songs on it)
PPS. I also have only burnt 2 CDs in my life.. and that was only a months ago, when I finally got around to backing up the recovery files on my computer.

man, for someone who has been an internet dweller for over ten years, I'm pretty shit at the internet.

[TerranRich]

You need a torrent client, like µTorrent (also known as uTorrent). It'll take the .torrent file, find all the seeds (people will the full file or set of files) and peers (others like you who need to DL the file(s)) and start downloading from them.

I forgot if you need to download something else before µTorrent, but I'm not sure.

I personally use www.torrentrelay.com (it's a free service, but it's better if you pay), which downloads the torrent for you (saving bandwidth on your end), then allows you to download the resulting file(s) directly from their own server.

[Leon]

Yeps, that's about it. In short: save the .torrent file to your disk. Download the client like µTorrent and run it. Choose for File/Add torrent and browse to the downloaded .torrent file. You can now choose one of the files listed in the torrent or download it all.

If it's about the MAGS-torrent and you don't want to go through the hassle for one game, I can post separates.

[Stupot]

Okay, cheers guys.  Ah, nah it's not for MAGS.  It's a book I can't find anywhere else.
I'll try this uTorrent thingy.

[update]
Well I'm doing it. It's a shame you can't chat to the other people who you're downloading it off.
Or can you?
I swear you used to be able to do that with Napster back when it was illegal.

[Matti]

I can't understand why nobody mentioned BitTorrent and that it's even the title of this thread. I use BitTorrent since quite a few years and I'm happy with it.

You don't even have to save the torrents to disk, you can open them directly from the browser and the file will download without having the torrent file on your HD.

[Evil]

+1 for uTorrent

I like it because it's small, simple, easy to use, and frequently updated.

If you're new to torrenting, remember to keep track of how much you're uploading. If it's bizzaro stuff like hard to find books or eccentric music no ones heard of, you won't get any nasty letters from your ISP about downloading or copyright infringement, but seed some of those more popular torrents and you can quickly go from uploading a few mb to a few gig in no time. I always set uTorrent to shut down when downloads complete, and delete torrents as soon as they are done downloading. It's kind of an ass thing to do, but I seed those hard to find rarities of the internet. At least for a little while.

[Vince Twelve]

Yes, BitTorrent is the name of a client AND the protocol.  BitTorrent the client is perfectly fine for downloading torrents, but I and, I believe, most other people prefer other clients like uTorrent.

The thing that you're talking about with opening them straight from the browser can also be done by any other torrent client, including uTorrent.  (Though you're wrong about the torrent file not being on your HD.  It's there, it's just being stored in a temp directory somewhere depending on your settings.)

[Matti]

The thing that you're talking about with opening them straight from the browser can also be done by any other torrent client, including uTorrent.

Yeah, that wasn't (necessarily) meant to be an advantage of BitTorrent, just a general point.

(Though you're wrong about the torrent file not being on your HD.  It's there, it's just being stored in a temp directory somewhere depending on your settings.)

True. But I consider it a bit cleaner and less messy when it's temporarily stored and then automatically deleted.

[Mr Flibble]

uTorrent is the only good client out there nowadays, in terms of the others being full of bloat or the dreaded Java.

My word to the wise, however, is to use a version earlier than 1.6. This is a bit of a tinfoil hat situation related to a change of management which took place after that version.

It's kind of an ass thing to do

The system wouldn't function if we all thought "It's okay if only I don't seed"  

[TerranRich]

A distant second to uTorrent is a P2P client that handles torrents, like LimeWire or FrostWire. But the 'Wire programs have become crap nowadays. All I get is junk, so I stick with torrents entirely.

So never mind, basically.

[Tuomas]

Basically my provider blocks every p2ps but allows torrents, so I use them. However, I'm not sure how ok it is to bring it up here, after all, it is mostly about illegal downloads, right?

I use utorrent myself, as most here, but I'd like to say, that Opera for one can download torrents too itself as a browser, so if you're using Opera, you don't even have to download the files. I don't know about firefox, IE doesn't do that as far as I know, I might be wrong, but still.

I find it easier just to have all the torrents on one folder on my computer. Then I'll always know where to go after they're finished downloading and delete them or something. The most awful would be to have them in a temp. folder when you'd never know if it's on your computer or not. That's why I basically always save everything to a certain folder I've made for them.

[Evil]

uTorrent allows you to add a torrent from a URL, but it just saves it to a temp folder, and I would guess Opera works the same way. I also place all of my .torrents in one folder, which helps me manage what I've already downloaded, not that that's much better. It's definitely just a false sense of security.

[Tuomas]

Not really addition to security no, but help managing them a lot, and that means a lot to me personally.

[Ishmael]

I have a subfolder of its own under my downloaded torrents folder for the .torrent files themselves, just so I know where they all are in case I might for a reason or another need the .torrent file itself later. And as they're really rather small there's no harm in having them at hand.

[Leon]

I have a subfolder of its own under my downloaded torrents folder for the .torrent files themselves, just so I know where they all are in case I might for a reason or another need the .torrent file itself later. And as they're really rather small there's no harm in having them at hand.

Same here. I like to stay in control of the files I download, that's why. Of course you can download everything directly from the browser but each app has it's own temp folder and your disk gets filled unknowingly. It's called a temp-folder but I never found files that are really temp in there... anyway, enough off-topic chat.

[blueskirt]

Opera can handle torrent files but I find that inconvenient since torrents can often be very long to download and seed, even with a fast connection and I just don't want to have all these torrents hogging my browser for weeks. Plus I don't find it very convenient to keep track of my seeding ratio.

Basically my provider blocks every p2ps but allows torrents, so I use them. However, I'm not sure how ok it is to bring it up here, after all, it is mostly about illegal downloads, right?

The system itself is legal, what people do with the system may or may not be. A lot of people use it to upload their own projects since finding enough mirrors/bandwidth for free to upload a big file, like the MAGS giga-torrent, can often be a pain.

My word to the wise, however, is to use a version earlier than 1.6. This is a bit of a tinfoil hat situation related to a change of management which took place after that version.

It's exactly what I'm doing. When they announced there was a critical vulnerability in old version of uTorrent, I tried Azureus only to discover they turned the bloated client into an even more bloated web 2.0 media management center, complete with the "Check the latest cool videos and trailers!" and "Add your friends to your client and see what they are downloading!". Then I tried Deluge which I kept hearing good things about, but it didn't last long since 30 minutes after I installed it, I wasted 15 minutes trying to open the client's window, which was permanently stuck between being minimized or not minimized but none the less invisible on the monitor. After that I just decided to take my chance with the possible critical vulnerability since utorrent 1.5 was and is still be the best torrent client I've ever seen.

[Gord10]

If you're new to torrenting, remember to keep track of how much you're uploading. If it's bizzaro stuff like hard to find books or eccentric music no ones heard of, you won't get any nasty letters from your ISP about downloading or copyright infringement, but seed some of those more popular torrents and you can quickly go from uploading a few mb to a few gig in no time. I always set uTorrent to shut down when downloads complete, and delete torrents as soon as they are done downloading. It's kind of an ass thing to do, but I seed those hard to find rarities of the internet. At least for a little while.

There's an upload limit option in BitTorrent. My upload limit usually gets set to about 30 kB/s everytime I start the PC, I set it to Unlimited whenever the PC is working and I'm not using the net.

And there is a chat section in Ares, a p2p tool. I thought it would be interesting to use this chat, but the users are mostly jerks. Don't expect something good.

[Anian]

Yeah, torrents are tricky when you want to modify them to your specific needs (like forwarding), but with just a bit of learning it becomes great.

I use uTorrent, cause it doesn't actually install on your system, you download and use it and that has the advantge, which I used when I didn't have flat rate at home, it can work on pcs that are protected (like computers in colleges and schools) where you can't install anything but the internet connection is great.  Not 100% legal but hey, it works.

[Andorxor]

I used Torrents to download Zak Mc Craken Between Time and Space and Broken sword 2 1/2

[Timosity]

I use ubuntu, and I use deluge which I've found is better than the others, but that's because it was the first one I found using ubuntu and stuck with it. I think they've got a windows version these days, so not sure what the windows version is like, but haha, there is still people actually using windows, haha, gotta laugh

Edit: but just out of interest, I went to jaunty, but went back to hardy, too many bugs, I think hardy is where ubuntu is the shit, after that, FUCKED, just crashes just using firefox after 5 mins, so I don't know where to go after this, if anyone has some better operating system let me know (just not a windows or mac cunt fuck)

edit 2: yeah sorry about the cunt language, haha