Thread: Downloading files with bittorrent

Other Bittorrent guides and FAQ

Dessent.net English huge bittorrent faq and guide
Monduna Big bittorrent FAQ
Vladd44.com Bitttorrent help site
Torrentguide.net Bittorrent FAQ and guide
Usuarios.vtr.net/~kenneth/bittorrent.html Spanish bittorrent tutorial

There are a lot of bittorrent clients today, below is a list of most of them.

Bittorrent Client or App Description
Bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent Official Bittorrent client
Azureus Java Bittorrent client
BitTornado
G3 Torrent
ABC
Utorrent
BitComet Highly recommand!
BitLord
Experimental Client TorrentTopia
TurboTorrent
XBT
BtQueue
UPNP
OpenDNS
Arctic Torrent
Anatomic P2P
Tomato Torrent Mac
Bits On Wheels Mac
Shareaza Bittorrent, Edonkey, FastTrack, Gnutella2 network
MLdonkey Bittorrent, Edonkey, FastTrack, Gnutella2 network
TrustyFiles Bittorrent, Edonkey, FastTrack, Gnutella2, more networks
Iswipe Bittorrent, Edonkey, FastTrack, Gnutella2, more networks Bittorrent plugin for Edonkey Bittorrent plugin for Edonkey
Krypt.dyndns.org Maketorrent

Downloading files with bittorrent

After you have installed a bittorrent client from the list above, go to btsites.tk and visit one of the many bittorrent download sites listed there.
When you find a file you want on one of those sites, click on the link to start downloading. Make sure that you pick a file that is seeded, meaning that at least 1 person has the complete file and is uploading it, this is usually displayed on the site/tracker you downloaded the .torrent file from).
Usually, after clicking the download link, your bittorrent client will start the torrent and you will start to download the file you want.
Alternatively, you may be asked if you want to open the (torrent) file or save it to disk. Opening the file will start your bittorrent client and your download, saving to disc will download the small .torrent file (= text file) to your computer where you can open it with your bittorrent client and start downloading the file you want, or keep the .torrent file for later use. Saving the torrent to disc is recommended, if you're not given a choice to either save or open the .torrent file, rightclick on the download link and then select 'save target as' and save the .torrent file to your computer that way.
Soon after you start to download, you'll start to upload the pieces of the file you've just downloaded (bittorrent cuts the file you download into 2 Mb pieces for better transfer of the files). Don't set your upload speed too low, but also not to high because this will interfere with your download speed. Set your uploadspeed 10% under your maximum upload speed for best results. The faster you upload to others, the faster others will upload to you, that's the way bittorrent works.
When you are finished downloading the file you want, don't close the torrent down but let it upload at least until you have uploaded as much as you have downloaded.

Bittorrent terminology

1. Seeder: Someone who makes the torrent, puts it on a tracker/website and uploads the file with bittorrent to the downloaders. Or someone who has completely downloaded a file and is now only uploading that file, this is called seeding.
2. Leecher: Someone who is downloading a file but hasn't finished it yet.
3. Reseed: If someone seeds a torrent again after they had already finished and closed it earlier. This is done when a torrent has leechers, but no seeder. It's a great way to help out the community. It reactivates the torrent so others can now finish their download and then seed.
If you want to reseed a file, just start the torrent again and download the file to the same directory on your PC where you have your complete copy. Bittorrent will then check your existing data, find that you already have the complete file and then you'll just upload (seed).
4. Tracker: An application run by a webmaster of a bittorrent site. It regulates the up and downloads of the torrents which use the tracker's announce url. Basically it keeps track of who has or needs a certain file, with that info the users bittorrent clients can connect to eachother and exhange data (download/upload files).
5. Announce url: The website address your bittorrent client uses to connect to a tracker in order to get peer data (ie. OpenDNS), when you make a torrent, make sure you use the announce url of the site you want to upload your torrent to.
6. Peer: Someone who is uploading and/or downloading a torrent (seeders and leechers).
7. Swarm: All the seeders and leechers on a single torrent.
8. Hit 'n run: Closing down your torrent immediatly after you finish your download, this is very selfish and can and will get you banned from many sites. To avoid getting banned, try to always seed to 1:1 ratio (upload as much MB as you have downloaded from a certain torrent) and keep uploading at least a few hours after you have completely finished downloading your file.
9. Torrent: Small text file that points to a certain tracker and a certain file for downloading with bittorrent.