Torrents

From: iain
Message:

How it works
============
Bittorrent is a piece of code that allows the sharing of files over the
internet. A 'torrent' file is created for the particular thing being
shared, and if a user has the torrent open in their torrent client (the
program for downloading and uploading stuff shared by the torrents)
anyone that has the torrent open but doesn't have the full file will
download from them. The person with the full file is called the 'seeder'
and the person downloading is the 'leecher'. To enable the torrent
community to survive you should keep your torrent open for a while after
you've finished your download.

To get torrent files you can either create them yourself for stuff you
already own using a torrent client like 'Azureus', but normally you'd
find a website hosting torrent files and click on what you want to
download. The click should autostart your installed bittorrent client
and the client will ask you where you want to save whatever it is your
downloading to.

Bittorrent doesn't work the same way as Kazaa and other filesharing
programs where the older a file is, the easier it is to get. With
bittorrent it's normally the case that the older a file is, the harder
it is to get - that's why it's important to check your favourite torrent
sites at least on a weekly basis. I personally check my faves every two
days if they don't already have an RSS feed my client scans
automatically (but I'm not going into RSS feeds, google it if you want
more info).

So your looking for some torrent host websites? Well they are normally
up and down like yoyo's, but some of the oldest and best are
www.suprnova.org, www.elitetorrents.org, www.tvtorrents.net and www.uknova.com.

PC Clients
==========
The original BT client can be found at http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/

Personally I use the excellent 'Azureus' - http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

Mac Clients
===========
Tomato Torrent is supposedly the best - http://sarwat.net/bittorrent/
... but being a PC geezer I ain't ever used it.

iain