There is no doubt that torrents are the method of download these days. The times of Kazaa or Bearshare are long gone. However, some people are still a bit confused about how torrents work and how to use them, so I’ve created this post to clear things up. Remember, downloading copyrighted material is illegal; this post is for information purposes only.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing. Basically how it works is a bunch of people have FileX on their computer. You want to have FileX on your computer as well, so you connect to all of those people who already have FileX and start downloading small chunks from each of them until you have the whole file on your computer. Now that it’s on your computer, other people who need it can start downloading from you. It’s one big sharing community.

A torrent is a small file (about 20KB) that holds the information needed to allow you to connect to other people who have the file(s) you’re looking for. When you open this file with a program that reads torrents, the program will go out and search for people with the file you’re looking for, connect to them, and then start downloading from them. For example, if I want to download MovieX (a home movie of course), I would simply do a search on a torrent website (which hosts torrents for all sorts of downloads), find the torrent I’m looking for, download it to my computer, and then open it with my torrent program. My torrent program will then search for people who have MovieX, connect, and then download from them.

So, where do you get all the necessary tools to get your downloads started? Well, there are many torrent programs and sites that can be used, but some are better than others. Here are my preferences:

Torrent program: utorrent (for multiple downloads in one window) or bittornado (for multiple downloads in multiple windows). I find utorrent to be far more convenient although bittornado is also very nice. Go with utorrent to start.

Torrent sites: the most important part. My first choice is btjunkie.org then torrentz.com. Torrentz.com is like the google of torrents. It will search multiple torrent sites and list which ones have what you’re looking for. You then have to select which one you think is most reliable. Sites that I’ve found to be pretty good include: thepiratebay.org, mininova.org, newtorrents.info, torrentportal.com. I’d use them first if possible, yet if they all offer the same torrent, it’s really only a matter of preference.

That’s pretty much all you need. Here is a quick tutorial as an example of how to download something:

1. Make sure your torrent program is installed

2. Go to a torrent site to search for a file (I’ll use btjunkie.org for this example)

3. In the search bar type the name of the home movie/song/application/etc that you’re looking for

4. You will get many results. I usually go with the first one because it has the most “seeds” (explained below). So, click the first result

5. This will bring you to that torrent’s page. Then click the big, fat green download link

6. It will ask to either “open with” or “download to computer.” Select the “open with” option and make sure it opes with utorrent

7. Once it is open in utorrent, you’re good to go. It’ll download on its own and you’ll be able to access it when it’s finished.

There are the basics to how torrents work and how to get a torrent to start downloading. Of course, there is some fine-tuning that should be done to make sure things download as smoothly as possible; I will cover those topics now.

First, here is some Torrent Lingo:

torrent: a small file containing information on where to find people who have your file

torrent program: the program that reads the torrent file, finds people with the actual file you’re looking for, and then downloads from them

seeds: how many people have a full copy of the file on their computer and are uploading to others

leechers: how many people are trying to download the file (they have anywhere from 0-99.9% of the file on their computer).

Port Forwarding:
The most common problem people have is that there downloads are dead slow because their router is blocking the incoming connections the torrent program needs in order to download your files. To fix this you need to change some settings on your router to let those connections in. Here’s how:

1. Open utorrent

2. Go to Options–>Speed Guide

3. Look at the part that says “Current Port:”

4. Press the “Test if port is forwarded properly” button

5. If it works, great; forget about it! If you get an error, read on.

6. See that number beside “Current Port”? That is the port number you need to forward on your router

7. In Windows XP, go to Start–>Run and type “cmd” (no quotes) then press enter. In command prompt, type “ipconfig”. Look for where it says “IP Address” and then write that number down. It should be something like 192.168.1.2. For Windows Vista, go to Start and then type “cmd” in the search bar and press enter. Type “ipconfig” in the command prompt and then record the IPv4 Address. Same address, different name.

8. Now, you will have to go into your router settings, go to the “port forwarding” section (On Linksys routers this is found under Applications and Gaming–>Port Range Forward). Once there, type the port number you got from utorrent, select TCP, and then type the last digit of the IP Address you found in command prompt. Enable and then Save.

9. Go back to utorrent’s Options–>Speed Guide and then test the port again. It should work. If not, you did something wrong… leave a comment and I’ll try to help you out.

10. If you don’t know how to get to your router’s settings in step 8, RTFM (read the frickin’ manual). The manual should also tell you where you can port forward. If you don’t have the manual, you have two options: 1) google how to port forward on your router 2) leave a message and if I’m nice I’ll do the research for you and tell you how to do it.

That should pretty much do it. This was much longer than I had planned, but hopefully I’ve answered most questions. If I haven’t, leave a comment and I’ll try to clear it up. Happy downloading!