Difference between revisions of "Torrents"
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[[image:UTorrent.png|thumb|right|'''Figure 1: μTorrent''' <br> The user interface of the popular bit-torrent client: μTorrent. <br><small>Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UTorrent.png</small>]] | [[image:UTorrent.png|thumb|right|'''Figure 1: μTorrent''' <br> The user interface of the popular bit-torrent client: μTorrent. <br><small>Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UTorrent.png</small>]] | ||
| − | A torrent is a small file that you can download from various [http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/torrent-websites popular torrent sites]<ref>'''Popular torrent sites''' Available from: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/torrent-websites Accessed 2 December 2009</ref> Once you have the desired torrent downloaded, you must open the torrent file in a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients bit-torrent client]<ref>'''Bit torrent clients''' Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients Accessed 2 December 2009</ref>. A simple bit-torrent client that I would suggest would be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CTorrent μTorrent]<ref>'''μTorrent''' Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CTorrent Accessed 2 December 2009</ref>. The user interface of μTorrent is shown in Figure 1 to the right. Once you have opened the .torrent file in your bit-torrent client, it will begin downloading. The files will be | + | A torrent is a small file that you can download from various [http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/torrent-websites popular torrent sites]<ref>'''Popular torrent sites''' Available from: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/torrent-websites Accessed 2 December 2009</ref> Once you have the desired torrent downloaded, you must open the torrent file in a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients bit-torrent client]<ref>'''Bit torrent clients''' Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients Accessed 2 December 2009</ref>. A simple bit-torrent client that I would suggest would be [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CTorrent μTorrent]<ref>'''μTorrent''' Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CTorrent Accessed 2 December 2009</ref>. The user interface of μTorrent is shown in Figure 1 to the right. Once you have opened the .torrent file in your bit-torrent client, it will begin downloading. The files will be uploaded from multiple computers around the world who have also downloaded the same file. The people who have completed downloading the file that are uploading it are called a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_vocabulary#Seeder 'seeder']. This is called peer-to-peer file sharing. A file is split in many small pieces and downloaded a piece (or multiple pieces) at a time. You can think of it as a letter that is cut into hundreds of pieces that is being sent to you from many people. Once you have all the pieces of the file, the download is complete and you can use the file. |
Revision as of 11:46, 4 December 2009
Introduction
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...by studentsThese days torrents are everywhere. Anyone and everyone can have access to free music, software, games, and movies by downloading them via torrents. Doing this however, is taking away from the people that are creating the music, software, games and movies. Not to mention the legal ramifications of downloading pirated software and multimedia. See "Borrowing" Software for effects of what downloading torrents as well as other pirated software has on the world. I believe that if you like the product, you should be paying for it. Without consumers paying for products, how are the companies going to make any money? How would you feel if you created software that could be downloaded for free by anyone? As a software developer, hopefully I will be making software that people will be paying for in the near future. If anyone can get all my hard work for free, what is the point? I will still tell you what a torrent is and some of the legal issues and about the viruses you can get from downloading torrents. |
Torrents
The user interface of the popular bit-torrent client: μTorrent.
Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UTorrent.png
A torrent is a small file that you can download from various popular torrent sites[1] Once you have the desired torrent downloaded, you must open the torrent file in a bit-torrent client[2]. A simple bit-torrent client that I would suggest would be μTorrent[3]. The user interface of μTorrent is shown in Figure 1 to the right. Once you have opened the .torrent file in your bit-torrent client, it will begin downloading. The files will be uploaded from multiple computers around the world who have also downloaded the same file. The people who have completed downloading the file that are uploading it are called a 'seeder'. This is called peer-to-peer file sharing. A file is split in many small pieces and downloaded a piece (or multiple pieces) at a time. You can think of it as a letter that is cut into hundreds of pieces that is being sent to you from many people. Once you have all the pieces of the file, the download is complete and you can use the file.
Types of Torrents
Legal
There are several legal torrent sites that are available. [4] Mininova (a popular torrent site) has recently shut down all illegal torrent activity. They have gone legal and provided their users with strict Content Distribution guidelines. Mininova users must comply with the following: [5]
- You are (or your company is) the copyright owner or publisher of quality content. - You would like to distribute your content for free. - You agree that you will not upload DRM-protected content or spam.
Having these strict guidelines, and constant monitoring of these legal torrent sites keeps the content free from illegal torrent sources.
Illegal
There are even more illegal torrent sites. They will distribute illegal torrent content. They often contain sexually explicit ads, and are not work safe. Some of the most popular torrent sites of 2009 are: [6]
- The Pirate Bay
- Iso Hunt
- Torrentz
- Now Torrents
- BTjunkie
Some of these sites are just meta-search pages of other torrent sites.
Legal Issues
Many people have raised questions as to what types of file sharing is legal in Canada. Despite the rumors you might have heard, file sharing is still illegal in Canada.
Viruses?
Yes. Yes there are. You have to be careful when looking in torrent sites for torrents. A rule of thumb is that if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. For example: if you find a movie that just was released in theaters and there is a DvdRip of it on a torrent site. It likely either contains a virus, or a password protected file, or it is a different movie. Many torrent sites include a comment section. It is best to find a torrent that many people have commented on and read a few comments. If the comments say something like: "This is a VIRUS! DO NOT DOWNLOAD!", then someone may have downloaded it and has had their virus scanner catch it. Your best way to weed out bad torrents is to look through the comments. Occasionally a file will be split into many pieces (called a .rar file) and usually these are the files that contain viruses, but this is not always true. A .rar file is similar to a .zip file, but it needs to be opened with Winrar.
References
- ↑ Popular torrent sites Available from: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/torrent-websites Accessed 2 December 2009
- ↑ Bit torrent clients Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients Accessed 2 December 2009
- ↑ μTorrent Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9CTorrent Accessed 2 December 2009
- ↑ Legal Torrent Sites Available from: http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/Legal_torrent_sites Accessed: 1 December 2009
- ↑ Mininova Content Distribution Available from: http://www.mininova.org/apply Accessed: 1 December 2009
- ↑ Popular Torrent Sites Available from: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/torrent-websites Accessed: 3 December 2009
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