How to use Torrent

If you have been living under a rock since God knows when, then please take the time to read this very important piece of lecture. It won't hurt, promise.

What is a torrent anyway?

Simply put, "It is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data over the Internet (from Wikipedia)". What that essentially means is that it makes file sharing over the internet a breeze, so that you can download large files such as movies and application software with the help of other people using the same service. The best part about it is that your download need not be completed in one shot, unlike how it is done in the past. No need to worry anymore about power outages and connection disruptions!

Basically, that's all you need to know. No further details, save those for the geeks.

So how do we get started? Easy. Just follow the steps below (and click on the buttons highlighted in red as shown in the pictures).

1  Download a torrent client program.

This program will manage all of your active torrents (or downloads, in layman speak). The most popular ones are uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/), BitTorrent (http://www.bittorrent.com/), and Vuze (http://www.vuze.com/).

uTorrent Homepage

2  Follow instructions on downloading.

Just click on Run and Next on the following dialog boxes that will appear. Installation of the client program shouldn't take long as it's file size is just small.

After installation, you can leave it for now as the client program automatically opens every time you download a new torrent!

3  Search for a file you want to download on a torrent site.

Similar to Google and Yahoo!, there are search engines dedicated to finding torrents in the web. The most popular ones are Mininova (http://www.mininova.org/), isoHunt (http://isohunt.com/), and The Pirate Bay (http://thepiratebay.org/). Main categories of torrent include audio, video, applications, and games.

The Pirate Bay Homepage

As a tip, you might want to select the torrent with the most "seeders" as this is the number of people effectively sharing the file, so you're download will be completed faster!

4  Again, just follow instructions on downloading.

After successfully searching for the file that you want, the following screen below will appear. Again, just keep on clicking the buttons highlighted in red.

The client program should then automatically open once you are done downloading the torrent. The torrent is a very small file which just initializes your main download and it's over in a snap.

5  Your download should start automatically.

Once you are in this part, the formal downloading of your file begins. The time it would take depends of course on the size of the file, your connection speed, and the number of seeders. Usually, it would take around an hour or two to download a complete movie file (700Mb in .avi format).


The client program has a status bar showing the progress of your download so far in percentage.

6  Once done, the file is yours to open!

You can now open the file you have just downloaded either directly through the client program, or by opening it from the "Downloads" folder found in "My Documents". Enjoy!