Magnet links

[Ceewan]

I think adding magnet links, (at least alowing them), would be a good idea. If it is feasable at least. Update to keep up with the times.

In a month The Pirate Bay will no longer offer downloads of .torrent files. Instead, the largest torrent site on the Internet will only provide so-called magnet links to its visitors.

source:
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-will-stop-serving-torrents-120112/

Of course I realize that most traffic is through direct downloads and our torrents aren't often reposted or shared enough to keep them alive as long as most direct download links but I think this would be a good move that might offer hidden benifits. Always a good idea to keep one eye on the future and all that.

 

[chompy]

There's nothing stopping people from adding magnet links to their torrent posts, naturally.

Though there is also nothing encouraging them. Perhaps something to consider.

 

[Ceewan]

There's nothing stopping people from adding magnet links to their torrent posts, naturally.

Though there is also nothing encouraging them. Perhaps something to consider.

My fault, of course, for not being more specific. I was asking for allowing magnet in the manage attachments option, specifically. Such as is seen at great torrent sites such as eztv.it, btjunkie.org, kat.ph, 1337x.org and bitsnoop.com. I don't know if these "magnet links" are automatically posted with the torrent at these sites but I assume they are.

Magnet links are more anonymous as the majority of tracking techniques by anti-P2P groups track connections via trackers themselves, this is not being done with DHT and PEX. Magnet links also use less bandwidth, whether this affects P2P throttling or not I have no idea but I would think it concievable.

As far as being allowed to add magnet links here, I tried that before, and it did not work. I believe I asked about it in another thread in the tech section or thereabouts. I thought Rollyco said he would have to make an adjustment of some sort for it to work properly. (As a matter of fact I just tried to post a magnet link and then when I went to load it into utorrent it gave me an "unable to load" error). If you can add a magnet link chompy, tell me how you do it...... please.

 

[chompy]

If you can add a magnet link chompy, tell me how you do it...... please.

- add the torrent to your client
- create a magnet link (most clients can do this)
- add it to your post

e.g.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:WRYM2GW4YKUOT636IGIZUSB6NIAF5HZP

= http://www.akiba-online.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1066514

Edit: weird, the last 2 characters don't want to stick to the previous.

link

 

[Rollyco]

Nothing's changed since a year ago, when I posted this:
http://www.akiba-online.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1118093&postcount=7

 

[Ceewan]

That means I still cannot copy a magnet link from somewhere else and post it here?

 

[Ceewan]

Digging up old topics (out-of-sight, out-of-mind):


Now that we have a new type of board and a new techy admin I will dig this request up and ask it again. As a matter of fact it is worth considering if you host magnets instead of torrents that it will reduce space on your server and the fact that you are not directly hosting torrents might also have other benefits. While this is by no means a torrent site it is worth pointing out that all the major torrent sites either use them in addition to torrents or instead of them (TPB), so there must be some worth to considering adding it as a board feature. I haven't even tried posting one in awhile myself because the process was not board friendly, although it was possible once I learned the trick.

 

[CodeGeek]

I'm against replacing the torrent files with magnet links. If you have a torrent file, but no seeders is online at the moment, you add the torrent and simply wait. But if you only have the magnet link and no seeder, your torrent client searches and searches for someone having the torrent which matches your magnet link. So you can't add it until it was found. If you have a torrent with many seeders it's no problem at all. But if not you have a big problem. Just my 50 cents.

 

[Ceewan]

I have never had a problem and the only time I don't use magnet links is when I am downloading a torrent to share here or from one of the few torrent sites that doesn't use them yet. As long as the link is in your bittorrent client it acts just the same as a torrent file.

Since it specifies a file based on content or metadata, rather than by location, a Magnet link can be considered a kind of Uniform Resource Name, rather than the more common Uniform Resource Locators. Although it could be used for other applications, it is particularly useful in a peer-to-peer context, because it allows resources to be referred to without the need for a continuously available host.

source, the every loving Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_URI_scheme

Another advantage of Magnet URIs is their open nature and platform independence: the same Magnet link can be used to download a resource from numerous applications on almost any operating system. Because they are concise and plain-text, users can copy-and-paste them into e-mails or instant messages, a property not found in, for example, BitTorrent files.

 

[CodeGeek]

I have never had a problem and the only time I don't use magnet links is when I am downloading a torrent to share here or from one of the few torrent sites that doesn't use them yet. As long as the link is in your bittorrent client it acts just the same as a torrent file.[...]

The magnet link - means the torrent version / parameter of it - contains the Info Hash:

BTIH (BitTorrent Info Hash)

These are hex encoded SHA-1 hash sums of the "info" sections of BitTorrent metafiles as used by BitTorrent to identify downloadable files or sets of files. For backwards compatibility with existing links, clients should also support the Base32 encoded version of the hash.

xt=urn:btih:[ BitTorrent Info Hash (Hex) ]

Some clients require Base32 of info_hash (Vuze for ex.).

And that Info Hash is simply a hash over the file information in a torrent file (without e.g. the trackers, but including the file names and hashes of the content). If your torrent client gets that Info Hash it needs other clients to get the "real" torrent information and uses that Info Hash. But if there is no client having a torrent with that Info Hash your client is unable to download the file. (At least) In case of the original torrent client BitTorrent it means you even can't add the torrent to the queue.

It's another story if you use a magnet link having an Info Hash of a torrent which many other torrent clients currently have. Then - I agree - it acts the same like a torrent file.