Using µtorrent

Utorrent is one of the many client programs that can be used to access the bittorrent network. This particular client program is my preferredchoice- it is very small and doesn't hog as many resources as some others. From time to time though if you are downloading a lot of files it may slow down your broadband.

http://download.utorrent.com/1.6/uTorrent-1.6-install.exe (windows only)

Create a new folder on your hard drive for the files to download to (and upload from)- eg c:\torrentsloading

You will need to remember the path as utorrent has to be told where you want to put the files. To tell it go to "options-preferences-downloads". Here you can also opt to tell it where to put the files when finished. Whilst utorrent is downloading a file you cannot open the file.

Once you have started to download a file (leeching) others are able to download the partial file from you. Thus making everything faster for everybody. Once you have finished downloading the file it will become a seed- the more seeds the faster the download for others. I tend to let files seed for a while and then remove them from utorrent. That way you can give something back to the community (right click on the listing in utorrent and select remove- this will remove the torrent but not the filefrom your download directory).

If you find that too many people are uploading from you then throttle the upload bandwidth ("options-preferences-connections" enter 100 in the global upload box).

Utorrent uses a port to communicate with the bittorrent network. To optimise speeds you may need to open the port in your router (To check if the port is being forwarded correctly "options-speed guide-test if port is forwarded correctly". If it is not then follow the links- given the amount of routers in existence I don't have the time/patience/inclination to deal with this here).

Searching the network for files

There are numerous ways of searching the bittorrent network. I tend to stick to one: www.torrentspy.com

To search for a file, for example linux, enter linux into the search box and hit return. Once the results have been returned, scroll down the page till you find what you are looking for.

Here you can see the size of each of the files, the amount of seeds (generally the more the better) and the amount of lechers (downloaders). I tend to be more interested in thestatusbar on the right. dark green equals good- red equals bad.

In this example i want to download the psx emulator file so I click on the link and the page changes. On this page, if you scroll down, you can read reviews from other users- i strongly recommend that you do this. Sometimes files are not what they claim to be!!!

The only button that interests me on this page is the large "download torrent" button. When you click on this a new dialogue box will popup.

Select the open (not save) button. Utorrent will now fire up and confirm that you want to download the file. Click ok and it will start downloading.

The status bar in utorrent will tell you when it has finished downloading. once finished it will move the file into the directory that you created earlier. And...err that's it.