Here's a short guide to Bittorrent 1. Intro to BT 2. Installation 3. Where to find stuff 4. Downloading and seeding 5. Resuming a download 6. Useful tips 7. Further reading So, let's begin! 1. INTRO TO BT So u heard of Bittorrent, but what is it exactly? Well, instead of using kazaa and keeping to download at 10 kB/s, why not invent a new system? Yes, all those P2P networks can be closed down, even if they don't say it's true, Kazaa-alike network DO USE SERVERS. Bittorrent doesn't need to, it establish a direct connection between two or more computers and you can share your files. But don't think this is going to be easy, in fact, I’m not going to cover in this quick guide how to share your files (could be tricky 4 first timers), I just teach u how to download (AND KEEP OTHERS DOWNLOAD AS WELL). First of all, there is NO SEARCH FACILITY with Bittorrent, if u'r looking 4 something, u'll have to use a web search engine, such as Google. You will need to download a "blueprint" file that used in combination with Bittorrent will let you download what u actually want. Do I make any sense? Read on, it'll get clear! 2. INSTALLATION Bittorrent is open-source, and as such, there a lot of graphic user interfaces (commonly called clients) that u can download for free on the internet, if u have an OS different from Windows, I suggest AZUREUS, it's java based so it works everywhere. Other commonly used are TORRENTSTORM and BITTORNADO (just put "Bittorrent client" and the name of which one you want on google and download it). After the installation of your client you'r now ready 4 your first download! 3. WHERE TO FIND STUFF Well now, you need an hash file (remember, the "blueprint" for the download I was talking about earlier on?). Ok, go to www.suprnova.org (probably the biggest bittorrent source there is out there). Here u'll see lists of movies, cds, programs etc. (Remember, if u download copyright protected stuff, u must own an original copy, otherwise what u'r doing is illegal!!!), anyway, now click on one of the files and u'll start the download of something like this "name_of_file.torrent". There are a lot of websites where to download bittorrent hash files, find one and make it yours! Most of the sites are specialized (anime subs, tv series etc), all you have to do is search with google or join some irc chats and ask around! DISCLAIMER: all these sites DO NOT contain copyrighted material, but they might have the hash file of these kind of files, remember that this is illegal, if you do it, do it at your own risk and don't blame anyone else than you if you get caught. 4. DOWNLOADING AND SEEDING once u have downloaded that file, simply double click on it (with some browsers after the download the file might open automatically). Now the real download of the file is going to start. Choose your output folder, and waiting accordingly to your internet connection speed u'll get the file. ATTENTION: after you have finished the download, let it run, other people r going to upload the same file from you and this is VITAL 4 the Bittorrent network to survive! So don't be a f***ing lamer and share! usually you should wait until the file is well seeded, but I’m not going to explain here what this mean, so just let it run at least until you have uploaded as much as you have downloaded! 5. RESUMING A DOWNLOAD Ok, 4 some reason u've stopped your download, now how do u resume it? Easy, restart the download in the same way as point 4, (by reopening the hash file and saving to the same directory) and the client will do a check on the file and restart the download, that's it! 6. USEFUL TIPS -One thing to bare in mind is that with Bittorrent you are broadcasting your ip, this means that if you r downloading a file, whoever is downloading the same file knows you'r getting it. Some company might download those files to check if you'r downloading it just to suit you for breaking copyrights laws. So if you'r downloading your favourite Linux distribution, then u'r all right, otherwise, don't download copyrighted stuff (I know I already said it, but I’m just warning you!). -Make sure that if you'r behind a router to allow forwarding of ports, so u can receive NAT connections (if u don't know what I’m talking about, I hope u don't have a router). -Make sure to seed after the download, some websites might ban you for not seeding 7. FURTHER READINGS If u'r interested in audio/video compression, go to www.doom9.org For the original Bittorrent webpage go to http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/ Some torrent trackers: suprnova.org, torrentreactor.net, torrentz.com, torrents.co.uk Anime funs: saiyaman.net, anime-kraze.org, iy4ever.net If you need to play movie clips I suggest the following players: BSPlayer, VLCPlayer, Media Player Classic (just search with google). more later...
