New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I know there are a lot of computer techies on here

So I was wondering whether anyone could give me a layman's description of how Bittorent (Sp?) works and whether its easy and safe to set up when you have Norton Security suit

Any help appreciated.

NS04

Nicks VR4

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

IMO its not safe to much Malware and exploits

lightning101

Someone called jack on here says you can get a free copy of mcaffee 2006 for free off of it. But only after the new year

ScoobyDoo555

Scooby Dooby Blue

About Bit Torrent
Bittorrent is just about the fastest peer to peer network available. The number of sites offering downloads using bittorrent is truely amazing. Anything you want is available via bittorrent at stunning download speeds.

When you click on a bittorrent file link a very small file gets transferred to your PC with a name "something.torrent" Your PC will not know how to open or use this file unless you have previously installed a bittorrent client programme (a little like .zip or .rar files) The small .torrent file will tell your PC how to access a TRACKER. The tracker is a server on the internet (similar to a FTP server) that does not actually store any data about the file you are trying to download, but rather keeps a list of IP addresses of everyone who is currently sharing that file, and allows you to access their shared file.

Why use Bittorrent
With FTP you are limited by the speed of the FTP server, and thisspeed may be shared among many users. With bittorrent you are limited by YOUR download speed. Downloading from 50 seeds/peers at a rate of 2kB/s will give you a download speed of 100kB/s, an insignificant upload speed for them, but a fantastic download speed for you. Azureus also includes a safepeer element, blocking all known investigators from the system. All segmants of your downloads are also extensively tested for errors, and faulty parts automatically replaced.

How it works
It all starts off with one person sharing a file by telling (annoucing) a tracker this file is available. He is called a SEED, as he is seeding the file for everyone to download. If 50 other people want to download this file they all get connected to his PC via the tracker, and the tracker will allow each peer to download a DIFFERENT part of the original seed file. At this point the torrent will be quite slow. Once the 50 peers have all downloaded a bit of the file, the tracker will direct all the peers to swap those parts amongst each other and the download speed quickly becomes very fast. Eventually the peers download all the file and then become seeds. It is considered very rude to not leave your torrents open until you have uploaded at least as much as you downloaded. Most trackers will ban IP addresses of users who appear "rude"

Getting Started
First goto this site http://azureus.sourceforge.net/download.php
and download/install the windows file near the top of the page Azureus_2.2.0.0_Win32.setup.exe
You may need the Java files too, if you're running an old version of windoze

Once this is installed, you can click on any torrent links you find on the web, and choose the OPEN option if asked what to do with the torrent link file. Azureus will open itself and start downloading the main file.

Public Tracker
Anyone can download files from these, but they tend to be slow as there will be lots of LEECHes (people who download more than they upload) and HIT AND RUN artists (download a file and immediately stop their torrents)

Private Tracker
These are more regulated, when you find a torrent link you like and the "health" icon stays red,you are most likely trying to download from a private tracker without permission. Right click on your torrent and select "show details". Bottom left of the general details will show the tracker URL. Open up an internet window and type in the url (forget the port number and announce) you will then get to the trackers host site, where you will be asked to join and get a membership ID and login. Most private trackers will give access to their torrents if you have their web site opened and you are logged in while first opening the torrent. Some restrict access to new files for 24hrs to newbies. ALL will ban your IP if you hit and run or leech.

How to get top speed downloads
First you have to know what your maxamum upload rate is, most peeps on broadband get a max upload of 256kb/s = 25kB/s. Bit torrent need some free upload bandwidth to tell the tracker to send the next bit of data, if you don't set your max upload speed, your PC will get raped, and you will be uploading fast and downloading very slow. So click tools/options/transfer and enter a MAX upload of 20kB/s (assuming you have 256kb/s available) Next please be aware that a torrent may take an hour before it reaches full speed. The trackers seem to divide people into 2 groups, HIGH speed and LOW speed peers. Preference is given to HIGH speed peers so you want to get into that group. The switch seems to occure at 10-15 kB/s, so ideally only have 1 torrent downloading at a time enabling it to upload at 20kB/s and have you firmly in the HIGH speed peer group. Alternatively adjust the max upload speeds of upto 4 torrents individually, using show details, general and the MAX upload setting for each torrent. I always stop finished torrents while downloading, then resume them later so I always get top speeds on the downloading files.

Port Settings
Many Torrent sites do not allow clients to use ports commonly associated with p2p protocols. The reason for this is that it is a common practice for ISPs to throttle those ports (that is, limit the bandwidth, hence the speed).
The blocked ports list often include, but is not neccessarily limited to, the following:

Direct Connect 411 - 413 ,Kazaa 1214 ,eDonkey 4662 ,Gnutella 6346 - 6347 ,WinMX 6699, BitTorrent 6881 - 6889

So there are a number of settings you need to change in Asureus. Options connection should have 6762 as the incoming TCP listen port, tick enable UDP tracker. Next in Options tracker server enable tracker on HTTP port 6801, this is vital for using private trackers.

Working Through a hardware firewall
For a Netgear 834DG router/firewall, open up your config window and add to the services. Add service,name TORRENT, type TCP, start port 6800 end port 6819. Then open up the firewall rules enable the TORRENT service, allow ALWAYS, and add the addy of your PC (for example 192.168.0.2) This allows Azureus on your PC to access the ports 6800-6819 throught the firewall (assuming those ports include the tracker server you specified for it to use)

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Good Guide there Scooby Dooby Blue. But also bare in mind that some Bitorrent connections (Bittornado Client) require ports 49152 - 65535 to be opened for it to function correctly.