omg torrents yay.

[semisweet]

so you want to use torrents

i said i'd do this a while ago, and then i got preoccupied with fangirling something or other, so i didn't do it. oops. but, better late than never, yes? here we go!

first of all, you need to know that torrents? are SO easy. it seems weird and foreign, but as soon as you use it even one time, you're like..."oh. that's it?"

a quick glossary in total layman's terms, which is really all you need, imo:

-clients. a client is simply the program you use to download. generally speaking, it's similar to something like limewire, napster, etc. i recommend utorrent.

-torrent files. for all intents and purposes, a torrent file is a roadmap. it tells your computer where to grab all the bits and pieces of whatever you're downloading, so when the download is finished, you have a shiny complete file.

-seeding. while you're downloading, you're also uploading to other people, aka seeding. this happens automatically (unless you mess with your settings), so no real worries there. once your file has finished downloading, it'll keep seeding as long as you have your client running.

-ratio. it's considered proper etiquette to at least upload as much as you've downloaded. clients will show how much you've uploaded and will give you your ratio for each file - so if you've downloaded a 100 MB file and uploaded 50 MB, your ratio will be .500. i know, this is not rocket science.

-leeching. downloading without seeding. douchebaggy. don't do it.

ok, so let's do this.

01. download a client. like i said, i recommend utorrent. it's pretty user-friendly and it's a very small program, so it's not a resource hog. another popular client is azureus, which is java-based and, in my opinion, a TOTAL resource hog.

02. install the client. it's pretty simple. follow the on-screen directions. at some point, you'll be asked to forward your ports. that varies depending on your modem/router. i personally can NEVER get them forwarded properly, but i'm happy to report that torrents still work for me, so this is not a crisis. (aren't you feeling confident about my torrent-explaining skillz? lol.)

03. find yourself something to download. there are plenty of sites out there to search for torrents. two of the ones i've used are mininova and torrentspy.

so, let's say i want to download an episode of heroes. so i go to mininova and search for it, and i get a page that looks like this. hour-long tv shows will always be approximately 350 MB. if you see one that's 700, it's hi-res. if you see one that's much less than 345 or so, it's probably a wonky transfer and i'd avoid it.

also, you generally want to look for torrents that show a lot of seeders. if no one's seeding the file, it's obviously not going to be downloadable.

i go ahead pick the third one, "Heroes - Heros [S01E18] avi" and click it and get this screen. i click the giant blue link that says "download this torrent!" (i told y'all this was easy) and either save the file (it doesn't matter where, just remember where you put it), or i just tell it to open with the default program, aka utorrent.

04. get it downloading!

(ok, so if i didn't tell it to open with the default program, i just open up utorrent and choose "file" and then "add torrent." i select the file and click ok.)

so now we're all on the same page, and that page will look like this. i tell the file where to save, and i confirm what files i want. this isn't really relevant when you're downloading a single episode of something, but if you're downloading, say, an entire season of something, but you already have a couple of episodes, you can deselect those episodes rather than downloading them again. dig it?

so you hit "ok" and there you have it, it pops into your queue (that's what she said) and is ready to go.

if you download utorrent, it'll look a little different from mine, as i've got a skin on mine, but all the basic controls are the same and you shouldn't have any problems.

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i think that pretty much sums it up. if you have questions, i'm happy to try and help, but i'm not really all that technologically inclined. which i'm assuming is obvious. but should also be comforting, because if i can do this, you totally can. (and in keeping with my lack of actual conmputer skills, if you see i've explained something in a way that's idiotic/a total lie, yell at me.)

Comments

[themightybee.livejournal.com]

Question [/dwight]: does my choice for "connection type" have any adverse effect on my downloading speed? I took the speed test which resulted in a number in the 4000s. I don't know what to choose in the "connection type" drop menu.