Many people when is surfing the internet, most of the times trying to find a "Free version" (the full software for free) of a program, they end using "Trials/Demos" or dealing with torrents.
So if you want to get full software without paying, torrents are for you... but.... what are torrents?
Torrents or BitTorrents are files shared with the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network. Peer-to-peer means that the files are shared by individual computers on the network rather than stored on one central server. BitTorrent sharing distributes the download by downloading pieces of a file from many different sources, rather than downloading the whole thing from one computer or server. This makes it much less taxing on the individual computers involved, and it offers some protection that someone hasn't slipped malicious or corrupted files into the system.
Tracker - A tracker is a program, not located on your computer, which keeps track of everyone who is downloading the same torrent. Each torrent file comes with their own instruction to which tracker the torrent belongs to. Using the tracker, the program connects to different peers from which it gets the files.
Leecher/peer - This is the term used for a torrent downloader who is downloading the torrent. This would be you if your not 100% done with the download.
Seed - This is a torrent downloader who completely is finished downloading the files. Now he/she is only distributing.
Is this safe?
Torrents can have Virus, is the truth, but you can always get an antivirus. This is the same for Mac, but way safer.
Is this ilegal?
Torrents themselves are not illegal. They are simply small files that help a BitTorrent client connect to a tracker and find peers to download files from. Nor is downloading stuff using torrents necessarily illegal. The BitTorrent protocol is a legitimate way to distribute large files without straining a server too much. It is used for legal software like Linux distros and OpenOffice, as well as some public domain music and videos. Using torrents to download copyrighted material without permission is, of course, illegal.
Torrents are very slow...
That depends on how many seeders and leechers the file has. The more seeds, the more probabilities to get the download complete.
Tips?
- Try to download torrents with many seeders
- Get an Antivirus (Optional)
- The more time you have your Torrent Client open the better
- Set a ratio upload speed, we recommend from 10KB/s to 50KB/s (depends on your Internet speed)
- Beware of "fake" torrents, or the ones that need a password (.rar or .zip)
- And prepare yourself, if you want to get software, you may need to Crack, Patch, etc. (most of the torrents have a crack, patch or serial inside.)
If you need help, request a tutorial, or ask for help here:
How to...
Download a torrent
Open it with your torrent client
We recommend uTorrent
Wait until your download is complete
Ctrl+clic and clic show in finder to find the file and open it.
Optional: You may need unRarX to opne .rar files.
More Info:
Clic to enlarge
