Guide for Better and Safer Torrenting

Revisions:
8-25-11: Fixed link for Peerguardian. Recommend Peerblock now.

---

[This is guide is designed for everyone out there who wants to know the tips and tricks for better and safer d0wnloading.I will be going into full detail as to what a torrent is, to who are the best uploaders out there right now,and finally what torrent clients and media players are the best to use.]

So let’s get started. First off there have been many questions about who are the best uploaders of torrents out there. Well,  there are many great uploaders such as Axxo, FXG, and Kingben666 but with their success comes problems. I’ll explain a little later on, but first I wanna go into full detail about this so everyone will get their movies,music and games safely (and better yet), for free.  > ” />

What is a Torrent?

A torrent or bitorrent  is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing  protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and by some estimates it accounts for about 35% of all traffic on the entire Internet.  The protocol works initially when a file provider makes his file (or group of files) available to the network. This is called a seed and allows others, named peers, to connect and download the file.  In order to download these files, you are going to need a torrent client.

Torrent Clients

So now that you know what a torrent is let’s get to the heart of how to download them.  First off you’ll need a good bitorrent client such as Utorrent or Vuze (azureus).  These are programs that search popular sites for the information you want and which you’ll need in order too download the files you want.  Click here for  the top 7 torrent sites on the internet today. Get downloading by selecting one of  the 2 bitorrent clients below.

• VUZE (or formerly called Azureus)-  This is a great program for new people trying to get in the torrent scene.  It has a very sleek user friendly interface and offers a wide array of their own custom videos such as movie previews and homemade movies, kind of like youtube.  Get VUZE now click here>>>

• Utorrent–  This torrent client is a lot more customizable and recommended for a more advanced user.  It has some really good options like shutdown mode after download is complete and is alot more basic looking in terms of the style.  For more advanced users.  Get Utorrent now click here>>>>>>>

Now that you have the necessary tools too download a torrent let’s get some movies, music, games or programs.

How to Use Vuze

Vuze is very easy to use all you have to do is load it up and type what you want too find in the search bar at the top.  This program comes preloaded with 6 popular sites for good torrenting.  Also on the right hand side is an add/edit button that allows you to add other good torrenting sites so Vuze can search them. The video below on vuze will guide you along.

How to use Utorrent

The best part about Utorrent is that it’s alot smaller in size than vuze so it won’t eat up disk space.  Now utorrent does look a lot simpler or more plain than vuze but is also way more customizable than vuze is.  Keep in mind if you decide on getting utorrent that it does not have a search bar in it and that you will have to know what sites to find good torrents on by using the internet.  Here’s a link to the 7 most used torrent sites on the internet today. The video below will explain in better detail the advantages of using utorrent as your client.

Seeds and Peers

Seeds are the people who have uploaded or are sharing the media you want to the community.  The more seeds your computer connects to at the time you try and download the file the faster the download will finish.  You can also manually set your upload and download limits.

Peers are others connected to the same network as you at the same time as you trying to download the file.  Peers don’t really affect your downloads too much but can give you an indication as to who has tried downloading the same file.  The less peers it has the more suspicious it can be.  Which brings us to the next topic….

Trusting Files

So now you have the necessary program too download these torrents but your asking,  “there are so many that look the same, which one should I download?”  well there are a couple ways too determine this.  First of all when downloading anything off of the net, please do your homework first.  This is really important when downloading a torrent.  Make a judgment call on each and every file by reading the comments others have posted about it.  If your careless about this, you more than likely will download a virus or trojan, and be suspicious of any file without a comment.  Now on the torrent sites are some very good uploaders out there,  people such as Axxo, Fxg, Kingben666, and Skullptura .  But with their success comes pitfalls.  For example, others will upload their torrents with one of these person’s names in it and it won’t be real or it’s their own crappy version.  This is all about making a judgment call on what too trust.   Like if you see the same torrent with a million axxo’s at the end your gonna have too read about each one and the community will let you know which is the real one.  Let others in the forums do the downloading for you first, then read their comments and you’ll know which torrents are safe.   Also there are a bunch of different formats a torrent can be such as an .avi, .rar, and so on.  Now .avi’s are the most trustworthy because they are direct video files and cannot contain viruses.  Now .rar’s on the other hand are unpacked on your computer using an extraction program such as Winrar or 7zip and can contain viruses or trojans so be particularly careful with rar’s.

Programs and Tools

Ok so now you have the torrent you want but it won’t play with your media player or what is this extract thing all about.   If you have a rar file, then you are going to  need a program such as winrar or 7 zip.  Now you can get these programs on the internet but I would just use vuze or utorrent and search for them.  This way you can read what others think about the download.  If your media player cannot play the torrent you have, then more than likely your player does not have the supported codec (code decifer) too play it.   There’s a couple ways of addressing this issue.  First, you could get a player that has most of the codecs already preloaded with it such as  VLC player or Kmplayer.  Secondly, you can download a codec pack using your bitorrent program.  Just search codec and you’ll get listings of codec packs people have made.  I would suggest using the K-Lite codec pack, cause not only will it play every type of file it’s also necessary for encoding a DVD  if you want to burn a torrent to a disk.  These codec packs and media players can be downloaded through vuze or utorrent, just use good judgment once again.

Peerblock–  This program monitors all incoming and outgoing traffic on your IP address.  Peerblock is primarily used by the Peer2Peer sharing community to block the RIAA, MPAA and other organizations from tracking a sharer’s IP address and online activity. In addition to blocking IP addresses, Peer Guardian also can block adware, spyware, government IP’s and educational IP’s.  Download Peerblock here.

“If you have any questions about a torrent or just have an issue with a torrent file not working for you after downloading it please post it here and I will help you to the best of my ability, Thank You.”