Just Got Bittorrent. Why Is It Soooo Great?

[Cheese]

Originally posted by Switeck@4 October 2003 - 02:08
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&#33

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!

Well, I've posted that question on a few other forums but that has been the most useful and well thought out answer to my question. I've been using BT for about 4 weeks and it's been hard to know how long I should keep my uploads open (hours, days ,weeks&#33. It's been a really useful program to myself and I want it to be useful for others.

It sucks having a crappy upload and you're right that is no excuse not to be uploading (even in small amounts). There's a lot of bitching about leeching at BT forums but BT sites don't really help with no clear idea of how long or even why you should keep your upload open. I think a lot of leechers (for BT anyhow) are doing it more out of ignorance than being greedy (though I expect there are a lot of greedy people out there just getting what they want).

Anyhow thanks for your reply I'm off to download (and upload) some more MST3k...

[vegasguy]

Hi,

It kind of tough to set a rule to keep em open,

If its a large file, I usually leave it open til at least one full file as been uploaded, sometimes two files

If its a small file, I will leave on for a few hours

[nostalgia]

I'm using Sareaza 1.9 beta also for BitTorrent files. Just shut down Shareaza and if you start it up again after a while it will resume the BitTorrent file. Also the parts you've downloaded are uploaded again to other users. That's sharing.