Posted on: 07/11/2003 @ 0900

Subject: Bit Torrent

A new method of P2P file-sharing has emerged in BitTorrent.  The system is community based as you upload parts of the file you are downloading to others who are downloading the same file.  Another good thing?  It supports resume!  One last thing,  it's open source!  The way it works is with .torrent files which contain the information about the file you want to get: file size, md5 hash, announce server, and some other stuff.  To actually download the file you want from BitTorrent you just download the .torrent file from a website or forum.  After which your BitTorrent client will open and start the download.  You do have to upload parts of the file you are getting but with the BitTorrent experimental client (which I recommend) you can specify how much upload bandwidth to share.  With some playing around with the upload speed you can easily find the right amount for your connection.  It's really works great.  One thing to note though is that when you first open the .torrent file it will create the framework of the file before it actually downloads it, so just because the file looks complete where you saved it, doesn't mean it's complete yet, wait for it to finish in the BitTorrent window before trying to open it. 

Now.. to control the amount you want to upload in the expiremental client, there's a slider at the bottom of the window.

It's pretty simple how this works.  Obviously at the top there is a progress bar, and some information about the transfer.  Now at the bottom there's a drop-down box where you can pick the settings you want for your upload speed.  Choose the one for your connection.  Now, if it's not going as quick as you want it to, you can try adjusting the sliders to the right, pretty much you only need to adjust the upload rate.  Try it higher or lower and find the setting you like it at.  That's about all there is to it.

So, let's break it down in steps:

1) Download the BitTorrent client.  There are a few different ones out there, choose the one you like best, I'd recommend the BitTorrent Experimental Client.

2) Find the file you want to download.  There are some links at the bottom of the page you can try, or search google!

3) Download the .torrent file, your BitTorrent client should open up and start downloading.

Pretty simple huh?

Related Links:

BitTorrent - http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/

Experimental Client - http://ei.kefro.st/projects/btclient/

Torrent Sites:

SuprNova - http://www.suprnova.org/

List of Sites - http://members.chello.nl/~p.wiersema/links.html