Introduction to BitTorrent Technology

Since many of my blog post ideas would involve referencing it, I thought I would write up an introduction to BitTorrent technology.

According to bittorrent.com, BitTorrent is a peer-assisted, digital content delivery platform that provides the fastest, most efficient means of distributing, discovering, and consuming large, high-quality files on the Web.

This is mostly marketing terminology for the purpose of giving business men erections.

Let me take you back in time.

Around the end of 8th grade I was still watching MTV whenever I could go to someone's house with cable (the cable co. stopped service a mile from our house). One day, while consuming this amazing array of advertising, I saw a beautiful woman interviewing some forgotten recording artist about his opinion on Napster. Well upon hearing this buzzword I searched for it on the web that very night and thus was my introduction to illegal file sharing borne.



Mind you my parents' computer was still crawling along the web with a 28.8 kbps phone line connection until only a couple years ago. So, slowly I started collecting a large mass of single, low-quality mp3 files through the magic of Napster.

Napster didn't remain the single content provider for long before Morpheus showed up, and then there was Kazaa, and more recently Limewire has been the client of choice for those seeking to plug in a search term for their favorite pop ditty and get immediate (if greatly varying in quality) results.

Now we are back in the present again and Limewire still commands a lot of loyal users, but those who are serious about their music (or movies, games, software, porn) know that bittorrent is the only way to fly (or trade files).

Here is the man who created bittorrent just for reference.



Now in order to use this amazing service, one simply needs a bittorrent client program, a tracker website, and an internet connection.

Here is a cute graphic from the bittorrent.com site

Now the way it works is: the content (music) is on someone else's computer, they use software to create a very small .torrent file, this file then goes up on a tracker page (the delivery), when you download the .torrent file, it lets your client software see where those files are on that other person's computer and it proceeds to download them promptly onto your hard drive(the device).

The best client software in my opinion is: µTorrent (or Transmission for those Mac users)

There are many popular tracker pages out there to choose from, if you want to search many at once you can use Torrentz, if you are more in the browsing mood I recommend The Pirate Bay

Haven't figured it out yet? OK so click “download utorrent” in the right corner of this page and install it on your computer.

Go find that latest episode of Grey's Anatomy on The Pirate Bay:LINK
and click “download this torrent” in green.

(Quick side-note, you will probably need this to play these video files as Windows Media Player or Quicktime will usually not work)

Don't click “Save As” just click “Open” and your torrent software should pop up saying, “Where do you want to save this?” Just choose a folder on your computer where you will remember and hit start and once the status bar fills up you can go and watch your precious Grey's Anatomy with a pint of Ben & Jerry's at any hour and without commercial interruption!

Now I kind of lost track of that original topic of superior music downloads that I mentioned earlier so let me just catch up real quick with this:

So you forgot to backup your data and just lost your entire music collection? Don't think you will have to re-search for every one of those precious Enya songs on Limewire, no! Because bittorrent trackers will often have people compiling every cd an artist has ever made into a discography torrent. Please, before you shed any more tears on your keyboard, go here and download those 5 Enya albums, run a hot bath, light some candles, put itunes on repeat, and never leave the house again!