Bittorrent newbie

Running Bing

Could anyone point me in the direction of a good online tutorial/guide on how to get started using torrents. Im pretty lost.

DOLEMAN

http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/1.html

ntlbell

Start of with downloading a client utorrent is nice.

Rollo Tamasi

and then find as much copyrighted material as you get your hands on and download them. Burn all the porn you download to DVD's and sell them onto your friends for €20 a pop, keep doing this till you get caught.... Thats my advice anyway. Best of Luck, and i second the Utorrent program

www.utorrent.com

Sam Vimes

Rollo Tamasi wrote:

and then find as much copyrighted material as you get your hands on and download them. Burn all the porn you download to DVD's and sell them onto your friends for €20 a pop, keep doing this till you get caught.... Thats my advice anyway. Best of Luck, and i second the Utorrent program

www.utorrent.com

and advertise around the area that you can get pirated stuff for people. be sure to put your name, address, phone number and shoe size on the poster too

Running Bing

Thanks all. And shame on you Rollo, I wouldnt dream of downloading copyrighted material;)

Running Bing

Ok I installed the client and all did what the guide said. But nothing is happening. Basically when I click to download something it appears in the utorrent client but doesnt download. The download rate is 0kb/s. Is this because its not configured properly?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

emmmm port forwarding...google...

mewso

Port forwarding or lack of it is unlikely to be the problem that would just affect speed and requires a fixed IP too if I'm not mistaken (not something many of us would have). The file you are trying to download may just have no seeds. When picking a file to download make sure it has a large amount of seeders. Most sites will have this info listed with the file. As for configuration that very much depends on how you access the interweb.

aidan_walsh

musician wrote:

[Port forwarding] requires a fixed IP too if I'm not mistaken (not something many of us would have)

Your half right. It requires the computer with the torrent client running to have a fixed IP address, but not the router to have a fixed IP from the ISP*. This is configured from within your operating system.

The port forwarded can be basically analogised as a hole in your firewall with a pipe that carries the data that comes through it to one computer only.

*tla, ftw!

Rollo Tamasi

the torrent could also be using a private tracker which requires you to register to be accepted to download it. If your using UTorrent then the availability bar will turn red if the torrent is unavialble for reasons such as private tracker or no seeds available. If you have a yellow icon down on the bottom on the client in the centre area then you have a problem with your port forward/router settings. Once it turns to green then its A-OK.

mewso

aidan_walsh wrote:

Your half right. It requires the computer with the torrent client running to have a fixed IP address, but not the router to have a fixed IP from the ISP*. This is configured from within your operating system.

I've always wondered about this. Does this mean I can just make up an IP for my PC and work away?

Running Bing

sean_keevey wrote:

emmmm port forwarding...google...

Its kinda hard to search for something when you dont know what to search for! I am aware google exists and now I am aware of port forwarding and I will check it out.

Baldie

I am new to this torrent thing myself. I am currently downloading a file. The average speed is about 30kB/s. I am using Eircom Broadband 1MB, with a netopia router. Can I speed up the download speed?

aidan_walsh

musician wrote:

I've always wondered about this. Does this mean I can just make up an IP for my PC and work away?

As long as you keep it in the private address range serviced by your router (usually in the 192.168.x.y range), then yes you can.

aidan_walsh

Baldie wrote:

I am new to this torrent thing myself. I am currently downloading a file. The average speed is about 30kB/s. I am using Eircom Broadband 1MB, with a netopia router. Can I speed up the download speed?

Again, port forwarding, the number of seeders, the amount they are putting out, etc are all factors in this. There may or may not be anything you can do.

Running Bing

Baldie wrote:

I am new to this torrent thing myself. I am currently downloading a file. The average speed is about 30kB/s. I am using Eircom Broadband 1MB, with a netopia router. Can I speed up the download speed?

I have the same set up. Did you have to do all that port forwarding stuff?

Baldie

Babybing wrote:

I have the same set up. Did you have to do all that port forwarding stuff?

Didn't go near it....

L31mr0d

yeah you need to port forward. You need to set a static IP (most new routers have the facility in their NAT settings) set up a port to forward, preferably a random one, as word on the grapevine is that eircom like to limit certain ports that get the most traffic (i.e 6881 for bittorrent & 6346 for Shareaza afaik). Try something like 17015.

So to maximise as your download speed:
1. Forward the port (or port range depending on app) on your router
2. Forward the port on your Firewall
3. Enable static IP in your nat settings
4. when choosing a torrent, make sure the seeds to peer ratio is around the same (i won't get into it in detail but a torrent with 1000 seeds and 2 peers is worse than a torrent with 10seeds and 10peers)
5. Get utorrent, its very simple and great for beginners, plus there is a connection test in the configuration settings to let you know if the port is open. It doesn't work with nvidia firewall though, although why anyone in there right mind would use nvidia firewall is beyond me.

Check here as well, pretty good general faq:
http://forums.torrentspy.com/showthread.php?t=25437

Also if you are getting into torrents, know what files with ".bin" ".iso" & ".mdf" extensions are for, you'll see a lot of them.

Confused yet? Are you with eircom? If so, and you have their wireless router, i can step you through getting everything set up for portforwarding.

Running Bing

L31mr0d wrote:

5. Get utorrent, its very simple and great for beginners, plus there is a connection test in the configuration settings to let you know if the port is open. It doesn't work with nvidia firewall though, although why anyone in there right mind would use nvidia firewall is beyond me.

I would definately agree with this. After installing(and subsequently uninstalling:mad: ) a ****load of clients I found utorrent by far the nicest and easiest to use. Thats a very handy link also L31mr0d. I think im finally getting the hang of it all though, I finally got it working:) It is a complicated thing to get your head around if your not well versed in computers and the jargon can be scary(seeders, leechers etc ) but it should be worth the effort. Thanks for the help all.:)

BadCharlie

L31mr0d wrote:

Confused yet? Are you with eircom? If so, and you have their wireless router, i can step you through getting everything set up for portforwarding.

Have this and im on the eircom 2meg wireless line. My DL speed off the utorrent is pants. Can you tell me what i need to do ?

easy_as_easy

Cilent doesnt really matter, BitComet is as good as any of them. Its the tracker thats key. Once you've got port forwarding static ips and remote conncetions sorted

Eircom users! Dont forget to lower your firewall to at least low! and turn off an other firewall, including XP's.

aidan_walsh

Eircom users! Dont forget to lower your firewall to at least low! and turn off an other firewall, including XP's.

Stop giving advice now.

easy_as_easy

erm....what?

this has to be done. firewalls are over-rated anyways, a good anti-spyware prog and a decent virus prog is more than enough

oh and im sure you know you shouldnt run two firewalls, right?

zAbbo

easy_as_easy wrote:

erm....what?

this has to be done. firewalls are over-rated anyways, a good anti-spyware prog and a decent virus prog is more than enough

oh and im sure you know you shouldnt run two firewalls, right?

Thats just silly, one firewall applies to the gateway, the other to the client. It's easier to setup rules than just turn the thing off because you don't understand how networks work

Iptables ftw!

secret_squirrel

easy_as_easy wrote:

firewalls are over-rated anyways

You havent a clue - get back in your hole.

Everyone else ignore his advice. Even the accurate bit wasnt specific enough. What should have been said is that multiple software firewalls on the same PC is a bad idea since they might conflict.

There is a good case however for having multiple layers of firewalls. Eg 1 on the router and another on your pc.

easy_as_easy

jeez man, chill.

nerds, pah!

Peace

I found www.portforward.com helpful when configuring my NAT.