Go for Guilt-Free Content
Contrary to popular opinion, BitTorrent isn't all about snagging forbidden files and spurning copyright law. Legal Torrents serves up movies, books, and music—on the up-and-up. Also, you'll find copyright-free classic movies, TV shows, and more at Public Domain Torrents. A Google search for "legal torrents" should turn up all sorts of guilt-free goods.
More Seeders, Fewer Leechers
The BitTorrent community comprises seeders and leechers. A seeder is a person offering a complete copy of a file to download; leechers are those in the process of downloading that file. To get the best download results, always look for torrents with the highest seed-to-leech ratio—the more seeds, the better. And since BitTorrent is all about give and take, be sure to re-seed that file you just leeched.
Limit Your Upload Speed
Seeing painfully slow downloads? It might be your uploads that are holding things up. First, determine your real-world upload speed. (You can find a free upload bandwidth test at www.pcpitstop.com.) Once you have an accurate number, go to your torrent client's preferences menu and change your maximum upload speed to that figure, minus 20 percent. Decreasing your upload speed should increase your download speed.
Open Your Ports
You can use BitTorrent behind a firewall, but for the best performance, other peers need to be able to connect to you. By default, BitTorrent uses ports ranging from 6881 to 6999, starting with the lowest one and moving incrementally upward until it finds a port to which it can bind. You only need one port per client, and to allow incoming connections on one or more, you'll need to "forward" these ports on your router (if you're using one) and open them on your firewall. The procedure for opening/forwarding ports varies by device, so check your software firewall and/or router's documentation for instructions. Port-forwarding specifics for most routers can be found at www.portforward.com/routers.htm.
Don't Give Up!
It can take time to connect to all the peers out there, so be patient. If enough seeders are out there for the file you're trying to download, you'll likely find that your estimated download time will decrease in a short time. You might get an initial estimated download time of five days, walk away, come back, and see that number has dwindled to a few hours.
Contrary to popular opinion, BitTorrent isn't all about snagging forbidden files and spurning copyright law. Legal Torrents serves up movies, books, and music—on the up-and-up. Also, you'll find copyright-free classic movies, TV shows, and more at Public Domain Torrents. A Google search for "legal torrents" should turn up all sorts of guilt-free goods.
More Seeders, Fewer Leechers
The BitTorrent community comprises seeders and leechers. A seeder is a person offering a complete copy of a file to download; leechers are those in the process of downloading that file. To get the best download results, always look for torrents with the highest seed-to-leech ratio—the more seeds, the better. And since BitTorrent is all about give and take, be sure to re-seed that file you just leeched.
Limit Your Upload Speed
Seeing painfully slow downloads? It might be your uploads that are holding things up. First, determine your real-world upload speed. (You can find a free upload bandwidth test at www.pcpitstop.com.) Once you have an accurate number, go to your torrent client's preferences menu and change your maximum upload speed to that figure, minus 20 percent. Decreasing your upload speed should increase your download speed.
Open Your Ports
You can use BitTorrent behind a firewall, but for the best performance, other peers need to be able to connect to you. By default, BitTorrent uses ports ranging from 6881 to 6999, starting with the lowest one and moving incrementally upward until it finds a port to which it can bind. You only need one port per client, and to allow incoming connections on one or more, you'll need to "forward" these ports on your router (if you're using one) and open them on your firewall. The procedure for opening/forwarding ports varies by device, so check your software firewall and/or router's documentation for instructions. Port-forwarding specifics for most routers can be found at www.portforward.com/routers.htm.
Don't Give Up!
It can take time to connect to all the peers out there, so be patient. If enough seeders are out there for the file you're trying to download, you'll likely find that your estimated download time will decrease in a short time. You might get an initial estimated download time of five days, walk away, come back, and see that number has dwindled to a few hours.
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