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How to Download a Torrent

May 28th, 2009

“How do I download a torrent?” This is a question that gets asked quite frequently- Torrents are the new form of P2P downloading these days. It is the new Napster, and just like Napster- you need to be careful with what you download. A lot of the files that are available through torrents are copyrighted, such as music, movies, and applications, so you are responsible for what you choose to download. Let’s get started shall we..

Step 1:

Download the Torrent client-

The best for Windows is: uTorrent
The best for Mac is: Transmission
The best for Ubuntu is: Transmission (search for it under Applications > Add/Remove)

Step 2:

Once installed, we look for a torrent-

Go http://www.thepiratebay.com (you have probably heard of these guys)

-We are going to search for “Ubuntu”, and specify the search by check-marking “Applications” below the search bar.

-You will be presented with the results of your search. Here is the important part- you need to know how to pick the torrents. These files are not hosted on 1 central server. They are spread out across a whole network of torrent users.

We need to pay close attention to “SE” (seeders), and “LE” (leechers). SE is the number of people hosting the file, LE is the number of people downloading the file.

- Click “SE” to sort by the highest number of seeders.

A good ratio of seeders, and leechers is one that has far more SE’s than LE’s. In my example, I found a copy of Ubuntu 9.04 with 98 SE’s, and 9 LE’s. We like this ratio- this means that the download will be pretty fast.

Step 3:

So we decided to go with the torrent mentioned above. Click the file name, and you will be taken to download page.

Click “Download This Torrent” > save the torrent file to your desktop.

Step 4:

Fire up the torrent client you downloaded during step 1.

Go to File > Open > and browse for the torrent file on your desktop (in uTorrent it will be called ‘Add Torrent’ and not ‘Open’)

This will start your download- once it is at 100%, go to the directory you downloaded the file to (you can find this under the program’s preferences menu), and move the file wherever you want.

Done!

Entry Filed under: Apple,Downloads,Hacks & Tweaks,Linux,Mac OS X,Ubuntu,Vista,Windows,XP