How To Use Torrents

Updated 21. March 2013 - 0:17 by mr6n8

Introduction

This guide is to help users in getting started in bittorrent, the most popular protocol for the transfer of music, videos, ebooks, software and other content. There is a great deal of content available through torrents and this guide will help you to find and download that content.

What is Bittorrent?

Bittorrent is a decentralized peer to peer (P2P) distribution of content which uses the upload bandwidth of each individual who is downloading the content, and those who have downloaded, to transfer the content. Click on the header above for more information.

No central server
Content is distributed by active users
Transferred content is an exact copy of the original
Content associated with a torrent can not be altered
Downloads may be stopped and re-started

Best Free Bittorrent Client

To get started in torrents, you first need to have a bittorrent client. Click on the header above for a selection of the best free bittorrent clients.

Optimizing Bittorrent Clients for Speed

After you have chosen a bittorrent client, there are a few steps to set it up properly to be able to communicate to the other active users and to get the best speeds. Click on the header above for guides for all the bittorrent clients that are (and have been) suggested here at Gizmo's Freeware.

Finding Content

There is over 20 million torrents and over 25 PetaBytes of content available through those torrents. Torrent search sites offer the best way to filter results to find the clean and real content that you want. Since the content associated with a torrent can not be altered, comments and ratings may be used to make sure that what you are getting is the quality you want.
Bittorrent is a decentralized protocol, so the content offered is not from the bittorrent clients, but from independent torrent search sites on the web. There are two pages here at Gizmo's Freeware with information on where to find the free content you are looking for.
Searching for Torrents (Best Free Torrent Search Sites)

over 20 million torrents in their listings
over 25 PetaBytes of content
although there is a great deal of legal content at these sites, there is also content at these sites that is copyrighted and not legal to distribute.

Finding Legal (and Free) Torrents

over 3 million torrents in their listings
all the content offered at these sites is legal to distribute

Additional Help

In addition to the setup guides, above, there are other pages here at Gizmo's Freeware to help with additional features of the bittorrent clients. If there is a feature that you would like help with on a particular client, you may post here or on the help page for that client and I will try to put a guide together

µTorrent & BitTorrent Help - Contains the help articles below and support links

These two clients are identical, so the help pages will work for either.

Vuze Help - Contains the help articles below and support links

qBittorrent Help - Contains the help articles below and support links

Conclusion

Hopefully, this guide has helped in getting you started in bittorrent.
If you have questions or corrections on any of the features listed here, please post in the comments below or at the Internet, Webware & Networking section of Gizmo's Freeware Forums.

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Thursday, March 21, 2013