# How does bittorrent.com work?



## Guest (Mar 8, 2008)

I've seen references to it for years, but never bothered with it.

But during a google search I discovered they have some silent movies I don't yet have in my collection. I clicked on a movie, and went to a page that says I have to download and install BitTorrent.

What is that? I have download managers and I have all sorts of software to watch videos. What exactly does BitTorrent do? Does it have any spyware?


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## lharvey (Jul 1, 2003)

Bit Torrent is a file sharing program like Kazaa and all those other things.

Here is a link to read more about it. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

L


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Bit-torrent is software that can find, share, and download files using the torrent protocol, but Bit-torrent isn't the only software that can do that. I prefer to access files shared by the torrent protocol with Ares Galaxy.

But what I think what you're really asking is what a "torrent" is and how to take advantage of that protocol. When you're looking for a shared file on the P2P networks the torrent protocol is a good way to do it, since it's the most common way to find and download shared files today. You do that by first locating a "torrent" file for the file you're looking for, although the torrent file itself isn't file you're really after.

A "torrent" is a file that contains the file description and identifier. The torrent is what you're torrent-compliant application (like Bit-torrent or Ares) will use to locate users who are sharing the file. The torrent doesn't contain any part of the file you're looking for, it only contains the download instructions.

To get a file using the torrent protocol you should first visit a torrent index site, search for the file you're looking for, and download the torrent. Without a doubt, the largest torrent index in the world is The Pirate Bay. At The Pirate Bay you'll find torrents for everything from program applications & operating systems to feature-length films.

After you find a file description you're interested in at The Pirate Bay, check how many "seeders" there are for the file in the torrent description. That tells you how many network users are sharing a copy of the file. The description also tells you how many "leechers" there are, but that only tells you how many people have partially downloaded the file, which is of no real help to you. The more seeders the better, since you can download parts of your file from multiple users at the same time.

Okay, now download the torrent file for the file you want to your computer, and save it somewhere where you can remember where it is (your desktop is fine, you'll delete the torrent file after downloading the file you're after anyway).

If you have a torrent-compliant application (such as Bit-torrent or Ares) already installed then the torrent file type will probably already be associated with that application. In that case, all you need to do to initiate the file download is to double-click on the torrent file. You can monitor the file download progress on the Transfer tab.

Good luck!


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Bit torrent is a file download method. Instead of going to a site and downloading an entire file all at one bittorrent grabs bits a pieces of the file over a longer time period and from possible many sites. The idea is everyone has bits a pieces of files not entire files. Bit torrent is very good for slower links as it only grabs a small chunk of file at a time and you can still do other stuff. The file pirates like it since no one has an entire file so you can blame them of piracy (or so the story goes).


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## RainyDay (Feb 11, 2008)

Note that not all files that you download from bittorrent and p2p apps are not legal. Download illegal files at your own risk.


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## Guest (Mar 9, 2008)

RainyDay said:


> Note that not all files that you download from bittorrent and p2p apps are not legal. Download illegal files at your own risk.


Yeah, when the above replies indicated p2p I got a little leery. The silent movies I want are public domain, but I worry about malware maybe being bundled with some of them.

But I found several more sites with silents I don't have that just have the regular .flv downloads that I'm used to getting, so I'll put off bittorent for the moment. I'm keeping it in mind for possible use in the future, though.

I download OTR, wax cylinders, old movies, cartoons, and TV shows that are *public domain ONLY*. I'm really careful about that. I don't want to get in trouble in those crackdowns I've heard about.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Opera browser has capability to download bittorrents built in. I dont like them, lot of linux stuff gets put on such downloads and in my experience they are slow. Thought it might be just because it doesnt work well with dialup, but I tried downloading at library and it wanted to download at dialup speed! Course maybe library has some software in place to discourage such downloads, dont know. I only use bittorrent as last resort, usually if you know file name, you can search and find file mirrored on some storage server, well at least for linux stuff. 

I dont know, but imagine there is probably a Firefox extension to add bittorent capability to it also. I just mostly use Opera unless website is totally uncooperative with Opera. Firefox has enough marketshare, that websites pretty much have to take it into consideration anymore, though there are some totally clueless sites where its IE or die.


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## Klapton (Mar 9, 2008)

ladycat said:


> Yeah, when the above replies indicated p2p I got a little leery. The silent movies I want are public domain, but I worry about malware maybe being bundled with some of them.
> 
> But I found several more sites with silents I don't have that just have the regular .flv downloads that I'm used to getting, so I'll put off bittorent for the moment. I'm keeping it in mind for possible use in the future, though.
> 
> I download OTR, wax cylinders, old movies, cartoons, and TV shows that are *public domain ONLY*. I'm really careful about that. I don't want to get in trouble in those crackdowns I've heard about.


I wouldn't worry overmuch about getting viruses from downloading silent films, unless the lead actress was Betty Paige. 

People who propogate malware want to infact as many people as possible. That's why their favorite vehicle is email, and why porn sites are dangerous. Another example of this is the fact that Mac users have way fewer problems. I'm sure Mac would like everyone to think it's because their stuff is better. The biggest reason is because if someone is going to go to the trouble to write a virus, they can infect 10 times as many people if they write it for Windows.

Going after silent film buffs is a pretty small market share, hehe.

NOTE: by all means, you should use anti-virus software to scan ANYTHING you download.


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