TORRENTS - FAQs, speed issues, whatever.

[rubiks6]

There were a lot of issues and confusion, as well as some good resolutions to problematic torrents in the "Riko Kawanishi - Summer Vacation" thread. Whenever I see things like that going on, I will make reference to them and discuss them in this thread, so that folks have a single thread where they can read about torrent problems, and get a feel for the kinds of solutions we come up with, and for how torrents work.

I wish I could copy the entire discussion over to here, but a wise person reads a thread from beginning to end, including links, when they are trying to learn something or to resolve a problem. Anyone who got less than 100% of that ISO is silly.
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Thank you princetobe12005, for you determination to find answers.
And thank you bfvogel (the original poster), Rollyco, wotaku, and snakeboy, for providing those answers.
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I still like loginname's suggestion in post #2.

[pixeldeath5]

or, another way to do basically the same thing when you want to reseed is

1. open the torrent file in utorrent as if youre going to download it.
2. wait for any amount to download, even 0.1%, right click it and press stop, make note of the folder its downloading to, close utorrent.
3. Replace the partially downloaded file with the 100% downloaded file
4. reopen utorrent, right click the file and select "recheck".
5. Wait for it to recheck and then right click and hit start. You are now seeding.


also, for anyone that isnt able to get 100% of a file, check out vlc media player. A lot of times even if you dont have 100% of the file downloaded, it will still let you watch it (i'm assuming most of you already know this).

[rubiks6]

In this thread, [PB-001] Aira Takami - Slug Shot [MP4], are the beginnings of a discussion in which people are annoyed by newbies not knowing why the torrent is not downloading fast enough for their liking.

Originally Posted by scrantease

Since these sort of questions keep appearing, in many cases just due to unfamiliarity ... I suggest the mods make a sticky thread ...

Bolding and underlining by rubiks6.
(Sorry, scrantease, I dot-dot-dotted some of the angrier parts out of the quote.)

Well, here it is. The thread has been around for several months, now. It is one of the earliest threads I created. It was suggested in the very second post that it be made a sticky.

Bump to have it made a sticky.

Momentarily, I will edit post #1, with a new title and additional comments. See you there.

[handyman]

Stickied

[bfvogel]

The acceptable policy is to upload at least 1:1. In Utorrent as long as your ratio is 1.0 or high on that specific torrent your are doing right by the community.

Note: Limiting your upload rate while you are downloading only hurts you. By throttling back your upload bandwidth it gives your system a lower priority within the torrent swarm. ie. the faster you are uploading the more seeders try to send you information.

[rubiks6]

... How much do you give back? ...

Originally Posted by bfvogel

The acceptable policy is to upload at least 1:1. In Utorrent as long as your ratio is 1.0 or high on that specific torrent your are doing right by the community. ...

I leave torrents in my client (uTorrent) until I have a reason to remove them. I usually have only one or two torrents actually downloading at any particular time. I leave around 10 completed torrents sitting in the client seeding. This costs me nothing. It is quite transparent. I frequently achieve share ratios of 50:1. Hey - why not? As I said ... It doesn't cost me anything. I have a lot of bandwidth, and my machine stays on 24 hours a day (except when the stinking power goes out in the middle of the night).

Some of you out there have slow (dail-up) internet connections. I understand.

However, for the vast majority of you folks (this is 2009, yes?) ...
reseeding torrents costs you absolutely nothing, and is quite transparent.
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Now, for all my ranting, I must say ... there has been a noticable improvement in folks reseeding in the last couple of months. Whoever you are out there trying to make things better - you are appreciated. Thank you.

[handyman]

Torrent Creation Tutorial

[lolzzz]

Hi, Thank for the awesome community!

sorry, I'm not sure if I posted in the right area.
I am relatively new here and at downloading torrents.
I am a little be concerned as was wondering if you can clear some things up.
How safe is it to download these torrents in the States?
Can I be tracked? Would anyone be tacking them?
The material is clearly legal but I am slightly concerned.
I have been called by my ISP before for copyright infrindgement and they told me do delete the file I downloaded and they told me what file it was (some movie). I would ideally not want that person to know that I am downloading this material. I'm worried that some may think this is child porn when it is clearly not and report me.

any opinions, suggestions or anything?

Thanks!

[rubiks6]

I've been uploading and downloading junior idol material for years with torrents. It is my prefered method of exchanging materials with others.

Torrents are 'peer to peer', which means you are exchanging information directly with another computer. As far as I know, the only thing that any intermediate computers (servers, isp's, etc.) see are meaningless packets of data.

That's my short answer.

[Ceewan]

Originally Posted by rubiks6

Torrents are 'peer to peer', which means you are exchanging information directly with another computer. As far as I know, the only thing that any intermediate computers (servers, isp's, etc.) see are meaningless packets of data.

That's my short answer.

rubiks6 you can teach me a lot and I mean a lot, about how to upload and download torrents, torrent courtesy, and I am sure a whole lot else.

But here you made a mistake IMO.
Peer to peer sharing is a security nightmare and far from anonymous.
Do not, I repeat do not, download illegal material via P2P.
Utorrent uses a weak encryption program which main purpose, if I remember right, is to thwart bandwidth throttling which many ISPs employ. However Utorrent also resolves hostnames and this is a dead giveaway as to your IP.
You can load a proxy in utorrent to resolve hostnames and if you wish any anonymity this is one of the reasons that option is available. (If you wish to attempt to hide your IP from your peers a proxy option has been made available there as well).

If you are new to p2p sharing I would suggest you look into some basic security measures. A resident antivirus program is a must. I would suggest a firewall as well, COMODO can provide both and is free, (it is much, much better than windows firewall). If you are using a home computer it would be advised to setup a user account specifically for p2p sharing, this way an invader, (lets face it with p2p you open the door from your computer to others), will not have administrator rights and any damage is more likely to be limited. Although this may possibly slow your connection speeds or I have heard it accused of such, Peerguardian is another type of security software to prevent known unwanted URLs from contacting your computer, (like antiP2P groups), while its' true effectiveness is argumentative it deserved to be mentioned. The point is you never know exactly who the peer is that is connected to your computer, some selfprotection in this instance is warranted.

Proxysite: http://nntime.com/proxy-country/
Comodo: http://www.comodo.com/
Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_Group
PeerGuardian: http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
Info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian