Non Boaty.............BitTorrent ?

[Ocklepoint]

Must be getting senile, I've just posted this in Passages and Places.Sorry about that. (Can you delete it Nick?)

A question from a technical illiterate

Are "Bit Torrents" a good thing?

There was mention in TOP about getting audio books from some site called mininova.org which says you need a BitTorrent

All a bit of a puzzle, maybe I should just stick to reading books,

[ash]

Bit Torrent is a peer to peer file sharing system. I see the icon on my grandchildren's lappy but I've never used it myself.

I did try Limewire at one point but every attempt at a download caused my virus checkers to state that the download was contaminated by a trojan, so I now won't have it on my machine.

I don't know if Bit Torrent is any cleaner.

Wikipedia - Bit Torrent

Ash

[FullCircle]

Must be getting senile, I've just posted this in Passages and Places.Sorry about that. (Can you delete it Nick?)

A question from a technical illiterate

Are "Bit Torrents" a good thing?

There was mention in TOP about getting audio books from some site called mininova.org which says you need a BitTorrent

All a bit of a puzzle, maybe I should just stick to reading books,

No, its easy.

Get uTorrent from here

http://www.utorrent.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

freeware, so no cost. Setup is easy.

Then you go to Google and search for, lets say Jane Austen
So, put in the search term Torrent Jane Austen.

It will come up with a list of available torrents for Jane Austen. Click one.

You will see if it has seeders and leechers. You need to ensure it has seeders (people who have the file available) and not too many leechers(people who want to download the file).
Also there is usually a torrent healthcheck and some review comments from downloaders. If this looks good, and no poor comments, then click to download.

It will put a small torrent file, usually on your desktop, and will then open your copy of uTorrent to do the download for you.

This is automatic and no real issue.

Then you can see the progress in downloader.
Note, that you are also now a seeder, and you are also uploading to other people. Thats how the system works. It is good form to let the torrent stay open for people to uplaod until you reach a ratio of 1:1. This means that you have uploaded the file and downloaded the file in equal measure. You can then delete it.
The downloaded file stays where you chose to put it.

Easy Peasy.

Beware of copyright issues,ahem.

I downloaded new torrent copies of my 70s vinyl LP's rather than copy them to disc.

[Silkie]

You clearly don't have any problems with this FC but I'm instinctively unhappy with having my PC uploading on demand from elsewhere. My kids installed limewire which I have removed but perhaps I'm just a dinosaur. I'll need to investigate further.

[FullCircle]

You clearly don't have any problems with this FC but I'm instinctively unhappy with having my PC uploading on demand from elsewhere. My kids installed limewire which I have removed but perhaps I'm just a dinosaur. I'll need to investigate further.

Its a quid Pro Quo, Admiral.
and its sharing between people who want the same file, and those who will host it for a while. Provided you have decent anti-virus protection and anti spyware/malware, then the file is dormant until you click on it. Your protection should scan the file and pronounce its health or not.
I strongly recommend you do not download anything with a .exe such as games installers, as that could get messy.

I haven't had a problem in 4 years of use, but I will not use Limewire, E Mule, 360 Share, WinMx, as they have a high degree of pranksters intent on a bit of twisted fun and destruction.

[Alan_D]

... I'm instinctively unhappy with having my PC uploading on demand from elsewhere. My kids installed limewire which I have removed but perhaps I'm just a dinosaur. I'll need to investigate further.

Doesn't the BBC iPlayer thingie work the same way?

[Silkie]

It does if you want to download but not if you just stream.