How to download using Torrents

Today were going to be discussing torrents, what they are and how to use them to get what you want without any of the nasties. Allot of people dont know exactly how to download using torrents but probably have friends who use them all the time, so stop pestering them for the latest episode of your favorite show and read this "How to"!

What is a Torrent?
A Torrent is a very small file (just few kilobytes (very small)) with the extension of .torrent, which contains all the information needed to download a file the torrent was made for. You can get torrents for almost anything including software, games, music or videos.

How do they work?
You dont need to know much about how they work, just they they do. But in simplified terms: Imagine you had a light globe (your PC or Mac), a small battery (the computer your downloading from) and some wire to make a circuit (the wire would be torrent).

When you connect the light to the battery with the wire the light will shine but not very brightly. The more batteries you have the brighter the light shines. So, the more computers your downloading from (ie. batteries), the faster it goes. These are called seeds.

How to get started
FIRST:
First thing you need to do is download some free software that can interpret the information that comes with torrent you download. These programs are called Bittorrents. I recommend uTorrent because it works on PC and Mac, its easy to use and understand, but most importantly its FREE!

SECOND:
Once you have uTorrent installed, we can start searching for torrents that you would like to download. There are allot of sites out there and their relativley easy to find if you google it, but i recommend The Pirate Bay for starters.

On The Pirate Bay you can either search or brows for the torrent you want. Once you have found it, click "Download". This will cause a window to pop up (on a PC). You can either set it to open in uTorrent or save it on you computer somewhere.

Note:
What you should be looking for is obviously the torrent you want, but also try and find one with as many seeds (SE) as possible because this will make the download go faster. Also, try and find one with at least a few comments and have a bit of a read about what people say - they generally give you a good idea of the quality and the rest of it but most importantly will let you know if its got a virus attached to the file your downloading. Just because the description said "How i met your mother season 3 episode 5" wont mean that its a virus in disguise.

THIRD:
If you set the file to open in uTorrent by default (which i recommend) then uTorrent will open up and another window will open asking for confirmation. Just click "Ok".

If you haven't set it to open up automatically, then all you have to do is open uTorrent then click: File > Add Torrent... > then locate the torrent file and click "Open". Click "Ok" on the window that pops open and it will start downloading.

FORTH:
Sit back n watch it download!

I hope that helps out a few people. If you have anything further to add to what ive said feel free to comment. Happy downloading!

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