blacklilly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blacklilly) wrote2006-11-23 05:04 pm
blacklilly) wrote2006-11-23 05:04 pm
BitTorrent
Having decided I need more visual stimulation (and Firefly is coming to an end) I was looking at Bittorrent etc for downloading stuff. Has anyone used any of these sites? I'm rather concerned about viruses and the idea of 'hosting' - does this actually give people access to my hard drive? The idea of letting people download off of me is dubious, for the same reasons that I'm an eBay seller, not normally an eBay buyer - I trust myself, no one else.
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Basically, the torrent chops the file up into hundreds of pieces, and you download these pieces, one at a time, from each person. The way it works is that one person gets one piece from a person, another person gets a different piece, then the two people with pieces share those pieces between them. Multiply that a hundred times and that's how BT works.
You're not sharing any of the material on your hard drive, only the file you're actually downloading. Built into the protocol is a dependency that you will only get a good download rate if you allow the same file to be uploaded, so it's no good trying to block your uploads or anything like that, it won't work. The less you restrict your upload speed, the more you will find you can download, up to the limits of your bandwidth and available people to download from.
After you've got the file, you then are in a position to "seed" the file (ie: continue to share the file without needing to download anything further). It's up to you how long you do this for, and many torrent sites encourage you to do this for as long as you can (obviously the more people that do this, the faster other people can get the file), but I tend not to bother too much after I've got the file.
some advice from computer geek justin
(Anonymous) 2006-11-26 01:52 pm (UTC)(link)I use uTorrent, for no particular reason other than that it seems to work well, and takes less resources than other downloady things. This program will tap into the same network as all the other bittorrent clients. You can search for things using the program, though isohunt, mininova, and torrentspy seem to be the best for finding most things. I use a website called eztv to find television shows.
Downloading using these programs only allows access for other users that are downloading the same thing, as well as things that you leave on the program after you are done. Leaving the complete file accessible is called "Seeding". "Leeching" is downloading it. If you read the comment boxes on the search sites, people are always complaining about no one seeding. Anyway, they can't get at your hard drive, unless you set up some thing to share all of it yourself.
As for viruses, you won't get them if you do a few simple things:
1. Only download files ending in playable formats, like mp3, avi, wma, etc. NEVER download zipped files. The minute you unzip them, it 95% likely that you computer will go into tailspin.
2. Only download things that have been downloaded a thousand times or more. They'll usually be safe
3. Read the comments on a file before you download. Someone who has been wronged will be sure to tell the world about it.
OKAY, there's a mouthful. Hope that helps. Of course, I try not to download for free things that I should be paying for. I'm sure you do the same. But TV shows, music that I bought long ago on cassette, etc. NO PROBLEM. If you want to download music real cheap try these two sites:
Legalsounds.com
and Allofmp3.com
they sell music legally for 9-18 u.s. cents a song (I think that's 4-10 pence, yeah?)
Let us know how you're doing sometime, ok?
Love Justin and LIz
P.S. torchwood is really good, i think!!!
Re: some advice from computer geek justin
Thanks for the advice, I`ll check them out.
xx