crankyborchers

torrents are a way to download files from someone else. instead of downloading a whole file, you download a torrent file. you open this torrent file with a torrent tracker. you tell the tracker where you want it to save the file (like napster or limewire)

if things dont go well on your first shot at this, dont give up. there are a few simple fixes to problems.

to do this, you need software and a website.

pc users should use bittorrent (http://www.bittorrent.com/) for their first piece of software. its lightweight and there arent a lot of bells or whistles. you should be able to easily specify some settings, like where files should be downloaded to.

when you feel like getting fancy, give utorrent(http://www.utorrent.com/download.php) a shot, its what i use

ok mac kids, you get to check out transmission (http://www.transmissionbt.com/download.php) and azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/download.php). the same notes apply as above

afterdownloading and installing, you are ready to download a torrent. EXCITING STUFF.

but first, know this. torrent sites are kind of a bitch. there are 2 kinds of people on torrent sites: seeders and leechers. seeders are people who have a file open in their torrent tracker and are currently letting other users download pieces from them, leechers are those who are doing the downloading.

while you are leeching, you are also seeding.

for every piece of a file you leech from someone, you begin seeding that piece to others, until you have the entire file, and then are purely seeding. THIS IS IMPORTANT

many torrent sites have ratio requirements, meaning that you must seed as much as you leech. maybe not AS much, but at least a certain amount. check out the ratio requirements for any new site you join.

the biggest torrent site right now is the piratebay (http://thepiratebay.org/) no invite required (yes, some do), no logins, no ratio requirements. so sometimes its slow, but they have everything.

test download: search for 'juno soundtrack' on the pirate bay.

results will have a bunch of columns. first thing we look at is the SE column. this tells us how many seeders there are. the more seeders, the more places to download pieces, the faster your download.

click the little green downward arrow next to the file with the most seeders.

this will do one of two things. either download a file to computer (probably your desktop) or it will automatically open your torrent tracker software. if it opened your torrent tracker, you may need to click ok to begin your downloading. if it saved the file,go ahead and open the file with your tracker (like you would open a .doc in word)

YOU ARE NOW DOWNLOADING FROM A TORRENT.

you now have my permission to go nuts on the internet. some non-invite sites i highly recommend are http://www.tvtorrents.com for ALL tv, new and old, full seasons or http://cinemageddon.org for really bad (but great) movies

you can also discover your own by search for something plus the word torrent: "back to the future torrent"

CONNECTABLE --- if you're getting this error you need to do some reading on http://portforward.com/ i dont have the energy for it