What is a Torrent and how do they benefit those that use them?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_(protocol)

A torrent is a way for many people to upload/download one file simultaneously, resulting in increased speeds. Unlike Kazaa, for example, it affords the ability to be more anonymous and the file is not on one particular server, it would be anywhere on the web.

That’s the short answer.

the torrent is form of sharing files.You can take files for free(game,music,movies etc)The one who founded it didn’t get any reward.They did this just to give people a way to get things for free.
Great live the torrents

You get a bit client like Utorrent, then download torrent from a place like TPB. Depending on what your download you may have to go through a lot installation and procedures.

Johnpowell is completely correct. Bask in the majesty of his intellectual fortitude.

It’s the way I was able to get all the music by the Dutch band Djumbo (not easy to find). Also the way my boyfriend got Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash (an $1800 value) for free. Luckily, when he got a new computer, he was able to get them the honest way…

If that doesn’t sound appealing to you, I wouldn’t mess with it, since let’s face it, that’s mainly what people use it for. In college, if you’re caught doing that you can lose your internet privileges, so I haven’t been doing stuff like that in a while. I only do it when I can’t find the music on iTunes or other paid sources.

On the flipside, there is also a benefit for distributors. BitTorrent in itself is completely legal, for example many podcasts and Linux installations are distributed using BitTorrent.

Downloading copyrighted software is less legal, but I won’t tell :)

Bittorrent is the protocol that is used to transfer very large files very fast. Usually video. Two things are needed. You need a program on your computer that handles the transfer. I use this. Next you need a .torrent file that contains some info about the file you want to download. MiniNova is a popular place to get them.

The torrent files are really small. Some people get confused and think that little .torrent file is what they wanted to download. It is not. It just tells the bittorrent client what server to talk to. So you open the little file in the program I linked to before and it will start to do its thing. Depending on your connection it can take a while.

It works like this. A big file is broken down into a bunch of tiny chunks. Once I download one chunk I will start to send that out to other people that need that chunk. So everyone is randomly shooting around parts of the file.

That is different from the normal way where everyone is pulling down a file from one server.

Short video

A .torrent file is nothing more than a precise description of another type of file. For example, I could have an MP3 of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and create a .torrent file for it. The .torrent file contains information on the name, exact size, location of the file on my computer, etc.

I can take this .torrent file and upload it to a bittorrent tracker (a server that hosts only .torrent files, not actual files). Other users can choose to download that .torrent file with a bittorrent client (application used for opening/creating/downloading torrents), like Azureus/Vuze, uTorrent, etc. When other users grab my .torrent file from the tracker, their bittorrent clients know exactly what file to look for and where it is located, to start downloading it.

The reason bittorrent works so well is that you are not downloading from a central location, like a server on the internet. You are downloading files directly from other people’s computers. The .torrent file adds a level of ease in downloading because clients will not download the wrong files and can actually grab chunks of the file from hundreds of users at a time, then assemble the whole file on the destination computer. This allows for very fast downloading.

The #1 use of bit torrent technology is software piracy unfortunately.

Is it me, or there hasn’t been any new questions for a pretty long time? /edit ahh it was just me.

Thanks so much everyone! And @johnpowell thanks so much for that video! I watched it once and will check it out again tonight!