How to Use Bittorrent

So you've heard about Bittorrent, the P2P file sharing protocol. Now what? First of all, you need the torrent file, which contains all the inner workings of the system. The easiest way to search for torrents is to use a search engines for torrents. My favorite ones right now is to use either 1. thePiratebay.org or 2. Youtorrent.com (for this tutorial, I will use Youtorrent as it search across 10 torrent aggregates).

When you first arrive at Youtorrent.com, you'll see this screen:



Then enter what you want to search for (in this case, I put 'Ubuntu,' the open source operating system):



Notice the box around the "seeds" and "peers" columns. You want to pick the one with the most "peers," as that usually mean faster speeds.

Click on the link in Youtorrent and you'll arrive at another website. You should then be able to find a link saying "download .torrent file," or the likes. Example:



After you download the torrent file, you need something to work it's magic. That's where we go to a thing called a bittorrent client. It's like a web browser except for bittorrent. The most common ones right now are the original Bittorrent, uTorrent (my favorite one), Azureus (the most "advance" client) or Transmission (the best Mac client). We will use uTorrent.

When you go to uTorrent's website, click on the "download" tab and click on the yellow highlighted parts.

Now run the .exe file and install it (hopefully, you won't need guidance here...). And open up the program.

On the upper left corner, click "File -> Open" and choose the torrent file you downloaded. This window will pop up (the highligted area is for you to check what you are downloading).

Insert where you are going to save the potentially large file and click OK. The you wait... and VOILA! The completed file is there for you to use/enjoy.

If the torrent is slow, it might be your router slowing you down. I will right another tutorial tommorrow as I need to finish my Biology project and finish up my AP application for next year.

-runiteking1

Got comments? Post them below!