Bittorrent Guide
From The.forest
[edit] Introduction
[edit] Why use Bittorrent?
Bittorrent seems something like black voodoo magic the first time you use it, there are a lot of terms that are neither self explanatory or comparable to anything else you've encountered, even if you have used filesharing programs like edonkey or gnutella, there is definitely a learning curve to bittorrent.
However the benefits of bittorrent as a p2p filesharing method over others are massive, so it's well worth taking the time to learn how to best make use of your torrent client. So, what are the main benefits of bittorrent?
- Speed - Bittorrent is by far the fastest p2p service around, this was the original idea behind its design and why 1/3 of the traffic on the web is now from people using bittorrent.
- File Quality - Typically the files that people download over bittorrent are of better quality than those found on networks like gnutella or emule. Why is this? Older filesharing networks have become flooded with poor quality files, lots of which are fake and have been leaked onto the network by by associations such as the RIAA who want to prevent people from downloading music and movies. Why is bittorrent any different? Due to the way bittorrent is designed it allows websites that host torrent servers to have tighter control over the content, so bad stuff doesn't leak through. However I will explain more about this later as this will constitute the main content of the article.
- Less Viruses - This is a corollary of the previous bullet point; Due to the better file quality when downloading via bittorrent, it is less likely you will download viruses. There is still the possibility that you might, which is a good reason to have a virus scanner running.
- Strength in Numbers - If you have ever felt scared about being caught downloading illegal content such as movies and music, the greatest benefit bittorrent can offer you is the size of the bittorrent community. With bittorrent servers like thepiratebay serving millions of people every day, it is pointless for the Police to waste their time trying to catch people downloading the latest episode of Lost. They only care about preventing the big pirates who copy DVDs and sell them cheap.
For a more complete explanation of bittorrent, check out the Wikipedia article.
