How To Use Bittorrent

How To Use BitTorrent

1. First you need to get a copy of the BitTorrent client, you can get Shadow's Client (recommended) here.

2. Once you have got it run the installer, you will get a popup saying “BitTorrent has been successfully installed”, click OK.

3. Now you may have noticed that BT has made itself a folder in your Program Files, leave it alone, you don’t need to go in there and click on the btdownloadgui.exe like some people do. The reason for this is that BT integrates with your browser, it will run automatically when you click on a link.

4. This isn’t compulsory but it makes it easier to keep all your BT files in 1 bag, make a folder somewhere and call it Torrent Files or something like this. This is where (yes you guessed it) your BT downloads are going.

5. Now to start downloading the file(s). When you find the file that you want on whichever site that you are on click on the link, it will now ask you where you want to Save the file to, choose your Torrent Files folder (or whatever) and BT will open up like this:

http://www.torialtown.co.uk/images/B...itTorrent1.gif

It will check to see how much of the file you have (if any) and start off from the beginning if it’s a new download or from the last point that the download stopped at if you shut down BT mid-download previously. Whilst it is checking your file it is matching the digital signature (torrent)of the file with the original to make sure that the file is exact, this is why it is virtually impossible to get a corrupt file off BT unless the original source was corrupt.

Once BT has finished checking the file it should start downloading and look something like this:

http://www.torialtown.co.uk/images/B...tTorrent_2.gif

From left to right, top to bottom:

Download/Upload Rate
The speed at which you get your download is proportionate to your upload rate, in other words if you set a low upload speed because your feeling stingy don't expect to get a high download speed. This is an integral feature of BT that is designed to bring equality to filesharing, ever heard the words "what you give you shall receive" ?

Downloaded/Uploaded
This speaks for itself, tells you how much you have uploaded & downloaded.

Peers & Seeders
Peers are people with only part of the file and Seeders are people with the whole file and have kept there window open so that other people can download. Leaving your BT uploading to other people after you have completed your download is extremely important, if nobody did this you wouldn't be able to download any files as there would be no sources.

Settings
This is where you set your upload speed, select the connection type that applies to you and then choose your speed etc. If your on the net whilst running BT you may not want to set it at your limit as it will slow your browsing down to a snail's pace, if your going to bed or out etc set it to your maximum.

Sometimes whilst running BT you may get error messages like this:

http://www.torialtown.co.uk/images/B...itTorrent3.gif

There are many reasons why these errors come up, most of them to do with tracker problems. I would say as long as you are getting the file just ignore it, if you've gone down to 0kb/s I would restart BT and try again.

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR BT RUNNING FOR AT LEAST 24 HOURS AFTER COMPLETING YOUR DOWNLOAD, TO NOT DO SO COULD CONTRIBUTE TO THE DEATH OF BITTORRENT

Guide created by: tutorialtown.co.uk