So here is Torrent Guide for newbies.
What is BitTorrent?
BitTorrent (often abbreviated to 'BT') is a protocol that allows you to download files quickly and efficiently.
It is a peer to peer protocol, which means you download and upload to other people downloading the same file.
BitTorrent is often used for distribution of very large files, very popular files and files available for free, as it is a cheap, fast, efficient way to distribute files to users like you.
µTorrent is a BitTorrent client.
A 'client' in this case is a computer program that follows the rules of a protocol.
For example, HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the protocol used to download web pages and other content - like this page - and your HTTP client (or browser) is the program you use to get those web pages.
Some popular browsers include Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari.
Email , Direct Downloads Via File hosting and FTP rely on one computer Server hosting the file and transmitting it to another connected computer.
downloading is spread out over many computers using a technology called Peer-to-Peer .
We
can use BitTorrent to share or download any type of files .exe, mp3, AVI, Jpeg, and Doc
etc.
Some Important Terms:
Torrent: Its is a file itself. The .torrent file is not the entire file the people who are sharing it. It is like a map which is used by the BitTorrent client to
assemble all the pieces together.
BitTorrent client :It is a piece of software which takes the .torrent file, reads the information in it and
starts the download.
Peer :A peer is any computer participating in the download and upload of a torrent file.
Seeder :A seed (or seeder) is anyone who is uploading copy of the file being shared
across the torrent network.
Leecher :A leech (or a leecher) is the person who does not have the complete file yet but
has joined the network to download it. A leecher becomes a seeder when he downloads the entire file and then shares it across the network.
Port : it is where your computer receives the communication signals from the outside network.
Share ratio: The ratio is the amount of data a user has uploaded divided by the amount of
data they have downloaded for a particular torrent (UL÷DL). A share ratio of 1+ has a other users than he has received. Conversely, share ratios under 1 have a negative effect.
Swarm :The swarm is the sum total of all the leechers and seeders (i.e. all the computers)
participating in the torrent process.
Tracker: The tracker is a server which has the information of who has what files and who
needs which ones, thus acting as a bridge between seeders and leechers. Some trackers
are private requiring a registration where most are public.
Availability : That number tells you how many unique copies of the file are available between yourself and the peers you're connected to. If this is less than 1, you most likely will not be able to complete the torrent. The only thing you can do is wait and hope a seeder hops onto the torrent to allow you to complete it.
You can also try and request a "reseed" on the tracker's forum. Sometimes, this may never happen because the torrent was abandoned, and you may need to find the torrent elsewhere.
Be savvy about copyright laws
The world of digital distribution can often be seen clashing with copyright laws.
Peer to Peer file sharing is completely legal but using it for distribution of copyrighted material it a punishable offence.
The protocol makes everyone a downloader as well as a distributor .
There have been numerous cases where torrent trackers which index the torrents available
have been shut down for infringing so Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have become proactive against many of them, because it represents a source of piracy.
The safest course of action is to follow the copyright laws as laid down. Browse to the
copyright policy link of the respective tracker website; the better ones have it.
Getting Started
Get your hands on a good torrent client, set it up and download our first file.
Life on the BitTorrent lane gets easier if we have a good client to do the job for us.
I would recommend µTorrent And Vuze (formerly Azureus) .
Both are free, lightweight and cross platform (for all operating systems).
Make sure you have the latest updated version.
Installing them is easy you can do it yourself.
Gearing up the torrent client for smoother run.
Fortunately, µTorrent makes this very easy for the beginner.
Here are the basic steps -
1. When you start µTorrent for the first time it helps you out with a Speed Guide.
2. The speed guide helps you to choose your correct upload speed . If you are not aware
from DSLReports website. Connect to the site by pressing the button. Do not run any other application or browser at the time you are running the speed test. Run the test 2-3
times to get an idea of your average upload rate.
3. Select a setting close to your obtained upload rate using the Connection Type
dropdown. When µTorrent runs for the first time, a port is automatically selected for you.
4. Use Selected Settings button and you are ready to begin.
5. If you want to recheck your upload speed, you can also run the speed test from the
µTorrent toolbar > Options > Speed Guide.
Finding and downloading torrents
Going to a reliable torrent site also lets us avoid the pitfalls of downloading a corrupted file or even worse, a malicious virus.
A good torrent website filters out the undesirable and hosts clean torrents.
The recommended ones are –
PirateBay and Btjunkie– By its sheer size it is probably the most popular site in the torrent world with nearly 3.5 million users. The torrents also have little icons labeling them which say whether the torrents are from VIP users or trusted users. This reputation management serves as a mark of quality assurance. In their fight to bring the best they are constantly facing lawsuit threats
Mininova – It enjoys a very good reputation of filtering out junk torrents. It is also one of the oldest torrent sites out there and definitely one of the cleanest sans any objectionable ads. If you have to restrict yourself to just torrent sites, then these two do the job.
Vertor – In your continuing hunt to find clean, virus free and quality torrents, Vertor is a good place to stop by. Vertor separates itself from the herd by providing snippets of the file you are about to download. This helps to confirm the torrent as safe for download. Vertor by the way
Demonoid – This site, though amongst the best, has one shortfall you need to register for a free account. The registrations are only open for some time and you require an invitation to get into Demonoid. If you manage to get an account you will see why this is one of the best. Being a restricted circle, it has a strict usage policy.
Legit Torrents and Legal Torrents list only torrents which are in the public domain and thus 100%legal.
Torrent search engines
There are the torrent search engines, which basically search a bunch of torrent
sites in one go and bring together all the results in one page.
Torrent-Finder: Search 172 torrent sites and trackers with this multi-search engine.
Torrentz: A simple no fuss torrent meta-search engine.
I personally use Torrentz and Demonoid.
The number of torrent search sites reflect the popularity of the protocol.
1. Surf to any of the torrent sites and search for your desired torrent file.
Remember, a torrent file is nothing but a small 15-100Kb sized file which points to
the contents of the whole file and the people in the swarm.
2. Click on the desired file (or any download link) to download the file to your computer.
The small file sizes will take up just couple of seconds of your time.
3. Browse to your saved .torrent file and double click it to open the file with your torrent
client Or drag and drop the .torrent file into your software
window.
4. Now, your software begins the download by first connecting to the tracker server to
find out who else is downloading the same file and which bits they have.
5. The tracker server identifies the users participating in the share and labels them as
either seeders or leechers. Look for a torrent with a higher number of seeders. The
ratio of seeders to leechers is the share ratio and a higher figure makes for a
healthier (and faster) torrent.
6. The download begins and speeds up as the swarm increases.
The time to complete the download will of course depend on the file size, the speed of your connection and the quality of the swarm.
When µTorrent finished downloading, but now it says it's Seeding
It is where you leave your Torrent client open after you've finished your download to help distribute it (you distribute the file while downloading, but it's even more helpful if you continue to distribute the full file even after you have finished downloading).
All the data you got was from seeds, so help give back to the community!
It doesn't require anything - µTorrent will continue seeding until the torrent is removed.
Proper practice is to seed until the ratio of upload:download is at least 1.00 or more if You like The torrent content and You Want other users to have it.
After your download finishes, you may enjoy the file you just got.
Now after all that hard work if you are thinking of deleting the leftover .torrent file and closing the client software just pause here.
This single selfish act.
Always remember torrent remains alive And healthy only by uploading.
Upload is essential for torrenting.
if we just keep downloading and no one uploads torrents would die and so would the content.
Uploading Wont Affect Your Download Speed!
So let the Torrent Seed while you can enjoy the download.
How to be a good member of the torrent community?
After your download finishes, leave your Torrent client software running for at least for a day, or until you have uploaded as much as you have downloaded.
Sometimes it may not be possible to follow this rule but it is important to get close to it.
Tip: Do your downloading at night so that by the time you wake up you have downloaded
your file and you would uploaded your share too.
1. Make a habit to check comments left by earlier downloaders regarding the quality of torrents.
2. Download torrents from a reputable website or join a private tracker.
Private trackers moderate the quality vigorously but then they are equally rigorous with their rules.
3. Try to avoid downloading files which have been split and zipped. Commonly they are fake torrents. Beware as there are a many fake torrents out there. Most of them are malicious.
4. Always read the rules and the copyright policy of the website you are downloading from.
5. If the torrent site you obtained it from offers comments, be sure to read those first.
But regardless of the comments, running a virus scan on the downloaded files is usually a good idea.
µTorrent guarantees that the content you download is not altered from when the torrent was originally created, but if the source files used to create the torrent were already infected, this will provide no protection!
A fine-tuning tutorial for faster downloads
By now you should be feeling confident about tackling a few settings under the hood. Just a
few nips and tucks to the default settings will help boost your torrent download speeds and
optimize it for your bandwidth.
Your ISP is where it starts a specific bandwidths for both uploads and downloads. Obviously your torrent download speed depends on Isp so you cant Exceed the limits by Isp.
Choosing the right BitTorrent client and Keep updated to the latest version.
Go for healthy seeds and peers
For high torrent speeds, the best bet is in numbers.
Greater the number of seeders, healthier is the torrent and better is the chance of higher speeds.
Choose torrent files with a high number of seeders and preferably lesser number of leechers i.e. a higher seed-leecher ratio.
Firewalls
It can block all incoming BitTorrent connections coming through.
To ensure otherwise, a firewall should be manually configured to accept the connections and let it through the client.
Configure the firewall installed to accept the connections by checking the BitTorrent client on the allowed list i.e. Options>Preferences > Connection > (check) Add µTorrent to Windows Firewall .
Also, check the Windows Firewall exception (if you keep it enabled) in your client too. Shutting down the firewall is not recommended as it leaves the computer open to attack.
Limit your Upload rate and Download rate too
Using the speed tests, find out your maximum Upload speed and then set 80% of your maximum Download speed.
You can try varying your upload speeds keep it high initially and then gradually bring it down towards the middle of the download.
Downloads also tend to go quicker if you seed more.
Note: Mind the speed units it may be given in kilobits per second (kb/sec) or kilobytes per second (kB/sec). 1 kilobyte = 8 kilobit
Go to a different port
The default port for the BitTorrent protocol is any between port numbers 6881-6999. ISPs
throttle traffic on these ports as BitTorrent sharing
configure a different port in your torrent client. Use some number above 10000 to get around
ISPs and also avoid problems with other applications. By default, the µTorrent port is
randomized each time it starts. Set a specific port by not enabling the Randomize Port
setting. Again check if the port is forwarded properly using the button in the Speed Guide.
Remember, different types of data, such as web sites, file downloads, and torrents, are each given a specific port.
Port forwarding is the process that a software (or hardware like routers) uses to screen the right kind of data to the right port.
Portforward.com provides step-by-step guides on how to set up this port forwarding.
Increase the number of Max Half Open TCP connections
This figure specifies how many connections a torrent client should attempt to establish
simultaneously at any given time. To make it clearer it is the number of connection
attempts in progress and NOT the total number of connections.
Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or newer, limits this to a default of 10 as a barrier torrent speeds as torrents too need a large number of simultaneous connections. A patch has been available for a while from www.LvlLord.de , which modifies the TCPIP.sys file in Windows to allow higher number of TCP connections.
After running the patch, you have to set the number of connections in your torrent client. For example, in µTorrent go to Options > Preferences > Advanced > net.max_halfopen.
Set any number from 50 to 100. But see that net.max_halfopen is set lower than the value set in TCPIP.SYS. Always check if it is still patched because Windows updates sometimes overwrite it.
Mac and Linux need not Tweak it as this is a Windows Only Shit.
Experiment with Protocol Encryption
Some ISPs love to act like Big Brothers and constrict bandwidth for P2P protocols. Protocol
Encryption in most of the torrent clients helps to over ride this bandwidth shaping. Enable
outgoing protocol encryption and put a checkmark on Allow Incoming Legacy Connections
With protocol encryption, ISPs find it difficult if not impossible to detect that the traffic is
coming from BitTorrent. Experiment with enabled, disabled and forced options because you could be getting better speeds with encryption disabled. Non-encryption makes a torrent connection compatible with someone who is not using encryption but as a minus it makes the torrent detectable but an ISP with a bandwidth restricting policy.
Bandwidth and connections
Options will let you enter figures for Global maximum number of connections gives the maximum number of connections that a BitTorrent client can make for any P2P exchange. Setting this too high DOES not mean higher speeds.
Setting it too high would take up useless bandwidth and too low a figure would miss out on peers.
For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 130 Maximum number of connected peers per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent client can connect to for any P2P exchange.
Experiment by setting this number close to the available peers for a particular torrent. For my 256kbps connection, I have a default setting of 70.
Number of upload slots per torrent gives the maximum number of peers that a BitTorrent
client will upload to for any P2P exchange. A low setting may affect downloads.
For my 256kbps connection, I have a setting of 3.
Optimizing the speed of torrent downloads is a lot of trial and error and a bit of patience.
Creating our own Torrent
So far we have been preoccupied with downloading features but torrents are not a one way
street. The community survives and thrives because somebody out there is taking the pains
to create and upload the torrents. Uploading a torrent is not all about being large
torrents and uploading them for your friends to download is also a cool way to distribute a
large digital chunk in one go.
and the manner of torrents before you start with your first upload.
As soon as you save your torrent file, it gets added to your active list in µTorrent, and
the Tracker.
All that is left is to upload the .torrent file to a tracker website like Mininova or
Piratebay. All tracker websites have an Upload link.
Some like PirateBay require a
log-in for you to access their upload page. Please read the rules and the copyright
policy before you upload your .torrent file.
Enter the details in the form. Click on submit and you are done. Not quite! Now let the
torrent seed for a while so others can pick it up.
Utorrent has a perfect guide for making Torrents
http://www.utorrent.com/documentation/make-a-torrent
If u got any problems Leave it in Comments Or check FAQ bu utorrent http://www.utorrent.com/faq/
Keep seeding!
Happy Torrenting!
Related Posts
Utorrent turbo patch http://ultimate-hacker.blogspot.com/2009/08/boost-and-increase-p2p-and-torrent.html
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