How to download files from Torrent

What’s the best way to download files from the internet?  Many of you who are not so tech savvy will look for software on Google and will download it from a direct link. Generally, Google makes it easier to look for downloads which are common and most widely used but it becomes extremely difficult to look for not so popular downloads or when you want to download large files.  Therefore, in order to download large files you can make use of P2P file sharing softwares, which are freely available on the internet.  The P2P (peer to peer) sharing has many benefits as compared to direct downloads. You will have the capability to pause and resume downloads without affecting the file and its content. This approach makes it easier to download large files, which take hours to download depending on your bandwidth.

How do torrents work?

A torrent client downloads a file in bits from multiple sources, which greatly increase the downloading speed.

Download files using torrent client

In order to download a file from torrent you will need a torrent client like Bittorrent or Utorrent. Both are freely available for download.

Click Here to Download Bittorent

Click Here to Download Utorrent

All you have to do is, download the torrent client and install it on your system. The files are not more than 20MB in size and do not take much of your hard-disk space.

Once you have installed the client you will have to look for the download links on the internet. In case of torrent links, it is difficult to find them on Google. Therefore, you will have to use a torrent search engine, which will search the link for you. There are many search engines available online like www.torrentz.eu, which will search the link file and display the result for you to choose.

This is the Screenshot showing the search results for “Ubuntu Linux” on www.torrentz.com website. In similar way, you can search for any other file, which you wish to download.  Just enter any keyword and hit the search button you will get the results within seconds.

As you can see, there are so many search results showing in the results window.  Therefore, in order to choose the right link you will have to look for the following attributes.

Torrent Reputation:  any| low| good| verified (a verified torrent is the best)

Peers:  The column in the green color lists the number of peers. In the above case, the first link has the best peers. Usually, the link with the best peers is listed on the top of other results.

When you are sure about the link you have decided to download, Click the link and you will navigate to a new page, which will list the websites, who have the “Ubuntu linux” file for download. Click any one of those except for the first one, which is a sponsored and misleading link.

After clicking the links, a new page will open which will have the links for download.

Just search for the links or buttons saying “Magnet Download” or “torrent Download”

* Magnet links: These links will automatically invoke the torrent client application installed on your system and will start the download.

*Torrent Download: This will download a small link file. On clicking that link file, the client application will start and you can choose the files to download. Once you click Ok, the downloading will start.

Double click the link and your Bittorent (or Utorrent depending on your installation) will start the download.

Once the download has started, you will have to make some settings in the software, which will enhance your downloading speed. While a torrent file is being downloaded on your computer, the downloaded parts of the same file is being  uploaded by the software  so that the other users (called peers) who are also downloading the same  file at any other location can use you as a seed or source ,thus increasing their download speed. This mutual sharing of file is good for all the users who are simultaneously downloading the file but it can decrease your download speed negligibly as your computer is constantly uploading a file to the network. Therefore, you can decrease the upload speed (although the torrent community does not recommend this approach of file sharing. Such downloaders who do not allow their files to upload, are known as “Leechers” as these people are not contributing in the mutual sharing of the files.) So that your network remains, free for downloading the file.

What are peers, seeds and leeches?

So many people ask this question on the internet that download a torrent file for the first time. Therefore, what exactly are these terms?  Let us understand these with the help of an illustration.

In the above illustration, you can see that four people Peter, Calvin, Steve, Martin are downloading a file from the two seeds. Take the case of Martin, for Martin the other three downloaders of the files are the peers who are also downloading the same file.  Therefore, Martin’s software will show the number of seeds as two and number of peers as three (seeds: 2 | peers: 3).The black line indicates the download whereas the red line indicates the upload of the same file.  You can see that, in the case of Calvin, the upload is not taking place and therefore, he would be called a leech in torrent terminology. A leech is a person who downloads the file and goes offline without contributing anything to the download community. This practice is highly discouraged by the sharing community, as the whole concept of peer 2 peer sharing is dependent on its users to work successfully.

*Warning:  Many people download and upload copyrighted content through torrents and are promoting piracy, which is illegal in almost every country.  Downloading copyrighted content is illegal and you may be liable for criminal action for downloading or uploading such content. Pirated films, songs, software and similar content are often uploaded on the internet and are downloaded through torrents. This is the main reason that many governments and media companies want the torrent sharing to be banned. Therefore, you are advised that you only download software, which is freely available for download, or software, which has a license agreement, which allows sharing of files, based on certain conditions. I hope you are now capable of downloading files from torrents without any difficulty. Please feel free to contact me, in case you have any queries or face any difficulty while downloading your files.

Posted in: Bittorent, download, P2P, sharing, torrent, uTorrent