Just Got Bittorrent. Why Is It Soooo Great?

Ok, bt, bt, bt. that's all the talk i hear. so i go and download it. I follow peoples instructions on saveing the torrent on my drive. but it still won't let me resume downloads. so i download a GUI. and it only lets me pause them, but if my connection breaks, i have to start over. And i need to know this. you guys are saying that after i download the file i have to LEAVE the window open? and someone has to be passing by and downloading it from me, in order for me to get a speed faster than 3kbps??? so in order to make bittorent fast, i have to leave tons of little download windows open and floating around on my computer? no one on the internet explains this any better than just plain vague. even the BT faq on this site only tells you what to do, not WHY you are doing it. So help me here, what can i do to make BT worth my while. All i want is real files at a fast speed. I have a 2Mbps connection, so i am willing to share.

no you can share while you download but you should keep the window open though

the reason u should leave the window open after you have finished downloading is so other can use your connection to download off. you see thats how the cycle works.

you download of people with their windows left open, then others can do the same from you. simple

cheers

Resuming should be easy, just reopen the torrent file and point it at the same place you were downloading it before and it should scan whay you've got (may take a while) and then resume where it left off. Unless for some reason your version is screwed.
yeah if you want to download lots of stuff at once with bittorrent you are going to have an equal number of download windows open. Bittorrent is a different concept to other p2p networks, its a limited time release and the versions are still in their early stages. Speeds vary greatly depending on how much you upload, the number of seeders/peers and a whole bunch of other stuff.

There was one bittorrent version that grouped them all in one window but imo it was a bit crap. If youve got xp you could turn on the 'group together similar programs in taskbar' option and that'll save taskbar space.

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Originally posted by Cypher@3 October 2003 - 11:09
the reason u should leave the window open after you have finished downloading is so other can use your connection to download off. you see thats how the cycle works.

you download of people with their windows left open, then others can do the same from you. simple

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how long do you leave yor window open for?

I've got mixed messages from the forums/sites some say keep the torrent open for a couple of hours; some say keep it open until you've uploaded as much as youv'e downloaded (which can be impractical if you've got a crappy upload) and some say to make sure there are other seeds for the peers to download off before you even think of closing the torrent...

well there is no real set time that you should leave it open. but hey you've got a fast connection why not just leave it open till the next time you shutdown or restart??

just give them enough time to get the file

Patince is all it takes

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Originally posted by Adster@3 October 2003 - 11:44
Patince is all it takes

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yes. B)

If you're using the experimental BitTorrent, you can not only see the numbers of seeds and peers but also the number of 'virtual copies' of the file spread among the OTHER peers.

If there's no seeds left and the number of 'virtual copies' between the other peers is less than 1 and you just finished the file... if you leave, you make it *impossible* for ANYONE else to finish downloading that file! (The only exception of this is if someone who ALREADY downloaded the file reconnects and seeds it again for awhile -- but this is RARE!)

Basically EVERYONE has horrible upload speeds relative to their download speeds, so don't feel you deserve special treatment just because you can only upload at 4-8 KB/sec but were able to download the file at 100+ KB/sec. Sure, go ahead and leave if you have to IF the torrent still has at least 2+ other seeds and 1 seed per every 2-3 peers and is going fast to others.

Slow your uploading on each torrent down to 3 KB/sec and only 2 uploads at once if you want. Better to be uploading the file at 3 KB/sec than not at all especially if there's no other seeds.

I'm sure you'd probably feel the SAME way if you connected to a torrent and there was only 1 seed there!