A basic guide to torrents
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
I thought this might be useful for those who aren't already familiar with the format and want to learn more. I'm not an expert by any means so others should feel free to chime in.TORRENTSaThis has become the new standard in peer-2-peer (P2P) transfers but instead of getting a file from a single source, it makes use of multiple sources which can help speed up the process. Don't ask me how it works. It just does. What do I need?: 1) First, you need to search torrents from specific sites. I'd recommend any of the three:torrentz.comtorrentspy.commininova.org2) Using any of these sites, you can locate a torrent to download. What you're downloading is NOT the file itself. In other words, when you download a torrent, you're not downloading an album or a movie. The torrent file is a set of instructions more or less that automates the downloading of the actual file. Therefore,3) You need a program that can properly process the torrent. I use Bittorrent, which is a Macintosh program but there are many torrent software programs you can choose and they all pretty much do the same thing so don't trip over which one you find. Once you have downloaded said program, use it to open the torrent file and that should handle things from there.Keep in mind: the really real shit is downloading files from USENET but it's not quite as easy to breakdown and explain how to do this successfully. It's one of those things that's easier to show in person.
Comments
isohunt.com
bogaa.org
bitenova.org
I used to use TorrentStorm, but wanted something where I could see everything. Kind of like the 69 of torrent clients. Azureus is what I use.
I also go to the Usenet as well, but my news reader doesn't do solid downloads anymore. It will only download 15 minutes at a time and then close down. Finding a news reader that is not only free, but works, is difficult. However, while one can find a news client, not all news servers are the same, as I have learned. Some may hold content for 60 days, while others will hold it for much less. However, a torrent will last as long as there are seeders, even if it's just one. With one, others will jump on and assist you in your download, making the process a bit faster.
Any clue?
There's a general torrent ethic, which is if you download something, seed it long enough to where your ratio for that file is 1 or 2. If the torrent is small, I'll keep it going for as long as I can. I try to have a ratio of 5 for each torrent before I remove it. The 24 hour thing basically is a way of saying "if you download it, allow others to leech off of you for awhile as well", a helpful distribution network if you will.
www.myspleen.net
tracker.zaerc.com/index.php
and this is the king of all torrent sites, but it's very hard to get into:
karagarga.kicks-ass.org/
the pirate bay pretty decent swedish torrent site with a little bit of everything..
Karagarga is for everything not mainstraim: rare movies, arthouse, classics, b-movies, ...
I had been on there for awhile before they switched servers, lots of obscure stuff on there, especially movies. The only movie I downloaded from them was "More", the film that Pink Floyd made music for. Always loved the album, never seen the film, and it was taken from the UK DVD (months before they released it this year in the U.S.) It's a bit slow, though.
that application is surrious. do you think my collection of NOT MAINSTREAM independently released gangsta rap will wow them?
bam.
The only problme with USENET is that the learning curve to work it is slightly higher than torrents. Maybe I'll give it a gander this morning.
True, but fairly easy once you get the hang of it. I wasn't aware of rar and par files until last year so...
I may have to use EasyNews. Or try to find a good news client that's better, because the one I have (NewsRover) sucks.
You're on karagaraga too!?
What's your name?
- spidey
- spidey