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So, wossis BitTorrent nonsense then?

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Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:38 / 06.10.04

So, all the cool kids in the class seem to be talking about BitTorrent, what does one need to use it, what's the best program if you don't have any idea about matters of technical faffingaroundedness and where do you go to get the good stuff?

10:42 / 06.10.04

BitTorrent saved my life.

Well not really but it is very good, you download for multiple users using a download program I use ABC which you can find by googling ABC Torrent, once you have it downloaded you click on the torrent you want and it's added to your queue.

I can't really give links for sites offering torrent as I'm at work but www.supranova.org is probably one of the biggest, I hope that's the right URL there are a couple of fake sites like supranova.com that try and get you to pay... another is www.phoenix-torrent.com which has a little bit of everything... I think another is www.torrentz.com but this is all from memory.

Easy, hassle free downloading.

12:43 / 06.10.04

A pretty good site for torrents is torrentreactor

For anime fans, check mirkx.com, anime-xtreme.com, and anime-supreme.com (if they ever get the damn tracker back up!)
Sorry I didn't do all the links, I'm late for class...

Have fun filling your harddrive!

12:53 / 06.10.04

torrentreactor was the one I meant by torrentz, um yeah.

Sorry I should have put in hyperlinks too, I have no excuses!

One thing to remember when using these is continuing to seed, meaning when your download finishes leave it open so others can nab it from you. Please get understandably pissed if you clear it the minute you get your copy.

I lost my bookmarks awhile back but there was a nice site that gave some nice UK based documentaries wish I could remember what it was called.

A nice site for all your wrestling needs is - Wrestle! Because I know deep down that's what you were looking for, right??

13:34 / 06.10.04

The actual URL is www.suprnova.org. Some decent sites for UK stuff are UK Torrents, UK Nova and this place holds a useful list of worldwide stuff. One of the downsides to BT compared to other P2P networks is the inability to search through what's available which is relieved somewhat due to the existence of ISO Hunt and Yotoshi (previously 'Bitoogle'). Bear in mind, quite a lot of BT sites these days require you to sign up for an account and login before getting torrents. While this is free and no real hassle, some of them keep track of all your uploads and downloads so that if you take the piss by grabbing stuff then ditching out of the swarm without uploading a decent amount of data back then you'll get banned. Also, my weapon of choice is the lovely Azureus

Foust is SO authentic

14:43 / 06.10.04

I recently download a file sharing program called Sharaza, just for the heck of it.

A friend of mine then intro'd me to BitTorrent. I've tried downloaded from Supranova, but everytime I do, the torrent file insists that it has to be opened using Sharaza. And Sharaza will do no such thing.

Am I a bad person?

15:15 / 06.10.04

I ran into this before the last hurricane, and it frustrated me -- kept showing a link for Noel Coward's "Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans" but wouldn't download it. Or when it did download, it was something that I couldn't get the torrent reader to open.
I was on torrent reactor, I think.

15:55 / 06.10.04

torrent reader?
i use the original BT program and then use whatever application is appropriate to listen/watch...

the process goes

go to suprnva
find file
click
assign file to DL into(usually on the desktop for visibility)
wait for torrent to finish
play film/album

occasionally after that i move the file around or just delete it, but i never have to deal with any kind of conversion or BT specific readers.
go to destination folder

17:13 / 06.10.04

Here's a slightly expanded version of toksik's post:

- Go to Suprnova (or whatever), download the file you want, this will have a .torrent file extension.
- Opening the torrent file as normal will launch it into whatever your default Bittorrent client (Shareza in this case) is in the same way as any other file type works.
- You client should then connect to the swarm and being downloading.
- Once the download reaches 100% then you've got your file and can open it in whatever application is relevant.

As with any other file of any other kind you can open the original .torrent into any client you want, the default client is simply, well, the default. I can't speak for Shareza but if there is an actual real problem with the file you're trying to download --host is offline, no people in the swarm, etc-- Azureus will inform you of this and you know it's a lost cause from the start. There are other subtleties to BT but it's pretty much that straight forward, if you're getting any hassle then I'd advise switching to one of the more commonly used clients (Azureus, Bittornado, ABC) to at least rule that possiblity out.

18:12 / 06.10.04

And remember kids, when commiting acts of internet piracy, always remember to wear a rubber.

18:52 / 06.10.04

Another benefit of Azureus, built-in RIAA IP address blocking. Well, when I say 'built in' what I really mean is that there's a plugin that does it which is pretty sweet.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:07 / 07.10.04

So, do you have to 'give back' stuff when you're downloading stuff? Because looking at the contents of my hard-disk I doubt I've got anything that exclusive, other than the Gollum MTV award thing, and the history of the cut-up MP3, so I doubt I've got anything worth trading...

06:33 / 07.10.04

The whole "give back" aspect comes in leaving your torrent downloader up after you've completed your file transfer so that other people can download from you. The whole concept revolves around making the files and the network distributed. When you download you're downloading from everyone that has that file, so it's only fair to share your connection too.

nedrichards is confused

14:53 / 07.10.04

Much of the giving back is built into the protocol, essentially to get a good speed download you've got to be doing an upload. It doesn't have to be loads but you must be giving something.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:30 / 27.10.04

And to clarify because I'm thick, this 'upload' can just be keeping open the thing you've just downloaded for a while right?

Any good music sites? I'm thinking for electronica, stuff like Godspeed/Silver Mt. Zion stuff, that 'Punk Grammar' that Fluz had on his blog earlier in the year...

nedrichards is confused

21:38 / 27.10.04

That's exactly it. This isn't like Gnutella or Kazaa where you share a directory or more of files. The only file you share is the one you're downloading or have downloaded by keeping the app open.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:49 / 28.10.04

Having a few problems, got bittorent from bitconjurer.org. I've had some luck downloading some stuff from suprnova but some of the time it's crashing my computer making me restart. Now the FAQ says I need to update my modem drivers but I can't seem to do that right now. Anyone got a suggestion for alternatives, or am I going to have to give up on this when I've just discovered it?

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

01:38 / 01.11.04

Azureus (also liked to above) is pretty much the best BT client there is.

You'll need to have the latest Java Runtime Environment installed (linked to on the azureus page), but in my experience at least it runs as stable as a really sturdy thing with weights on top, and everything.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:51 / 13.12.04

Is anyone else having difficulties finding ANYTHING to download off of UKtorrents these days, in a 'is there anything there at all?' kind of way?

15:35 / 06.01.05

Just wonderin': Since suprnova died, have its users begun to flock to anywhere else in particular?
Are the torrent serach engines de rigueur these days? Anyone got any new recommendations?
Anyone excited about exeem?

16:09 / 06.01.05

Exeem?

That was some shake down eh! Supernova gone, phoenix gone torrent reactor still works but it's a little bit shit. btefnet is good for TV shows (thanks to Gridley for that one).

I'm lost without Nova it had a great selection, you could just pick things up at random.

I was using a P2P program called ARES for awhile, free from Spyware and no dud files but there wasn't that much on it.

PWTorrents is still running for all your wrestling needs

16:49 / 06.01.05

Exeem is Sloncek's latest project. As far as I understand, it uses Bittorrent protocol on a distributed network. There's a beta in testing and a fair bit of talk about it if you google. Mostly goes over my head though. According to the interview posted on the defunct suprnova site, it should be released in the next week or so.

I do miss suprnova, but I'm finding a reasonable range of well seeded torrents through torrentsearch. And I continue to be impressed by the approach at UKNova.
Thanks for the tip-off on btefnet.

16:58 / 06.01.05

Yeah I had a little search after I posted that, I remember them asking for beta testers.

Like some people are saying they need somewhere to host the torrents and keep the trackers off the main sites, would make it very hard for them to shut them all down.

Will see what happens something else will appear soon enough I'm sure.

22:28 / 06.01.05

UKNova. I think they may have stopped new memberships, though.

pointless and uncalled for

10:26 / 07.01.05

An interesting development.

10:57 / 07.01.05

There's an article on Exeem on the bbc website today -

Exeem

Sounds like there's a high chance of bad files appearing but it can't be any worse than kazaa.

Disco is My Class War

15:47 / 23.05.05

Just an update and a request for more updating on what's hot around Bittorrent these days...

I've just started using TorrentReactor as a search engine in combo with Azureus... seems to be working quite well and they have lots of stuff, if mostly 'mainstream'.

17:14 / 23.05.05

torrentspy - search engine

piratebay - downloads

17:48 / 23.05.05

I mostly use Demonoid now. It's pretty good. Unlike SuprNova they log your share ratio, so leechers are less of a problem.

I keep wanting to return to MacTorrentsKickAss too, but I can't get myself to perform the requisite amount of sucking up to get an invite :/

18:20 / 23.05.05

Torrentspy is the best search engine because you can check user comments to see whether a film's of decent quality, a newly released album does what it say on the tin, etc but Isohunt's very useful as well. It's perhaps worth pointing out that a lot of people (myself included) seem to be having trouble with Azureus for some reason at the moment and I'm getting nowhere near my full download speed with it even in larger swarm. It's a shame because it's definitely the 'nicest' and most fully featured client in terms of queueing functionality and you've got to love the blue frog but I think I'm going to switch away from it and I'd suggest others give something like BitComet a shot as well if you suspect Azureus isn't doing justice to your net connection.

Disco is My Class War

15:43 / 01.09.06

I was using eztv for just about everything tv-related until I stopped downloading three months ago due to going overseas. Now I'm back downloading and it seems like the terrain has totally changed again. HBO started getting ISPs in the US to send their downloading users legal threats -- now it's almost impossible to find a reliable HBO show at all. (I'm jonesing for Deadwood Season Three...)

It also seems that most tv and movie torrent sources have gone underground over the last six months -- either to usenet (paid), or to private tracker sites like Demonoid and Bitme, also Bitmetv. It's all invite only... Anyone know what are the best private tracker sites to use, and how to go about getting invites?

I've just installed PeerGuardian, which blocks IP access from anti-P2P orgs, spyware, adware and government facilities if you want it. (Meaning they can't collect evidence that users have downloaded copyrighted files.) PeerGuardian also prevent fake downloads on any file-sharing program -- if known fake spreader IP addresses can't acces your computer, you won't be able to download the file.

Aside from Bit Torrent, what programs are people using to share files?

16:18 / 01.09.06

I still swear by emule for sheer selection and ease of use.It saves a lot of time you would normally spent trawling through torrent sites. The only problem is you have to leave it on for a good few hours before it starts to pick up speed. If you use it I would recommend downloading the speed up emule guide before you get started.The are also some sites with ed2k links which work like torrents, I think.

For torrents azureus has served me well, especially if you're going for multiple torrents.

09:07 / 02.09.06

I dunno, I'm still having no hassle getting anything I want from TorrentSpy/IsoHunt/Mininova/Pirate Bay, I haven't really noticed things going underground or whatever and generally use BT daily.

Even HBO stuff (like Entourage which I'm currently watching) turns up a few hours after it's shown in the states and has massive swarms for quick downloads. I also just had a quick look at TorrentSpy and there are a good few season 3 eps of Deadwood with healthy swarms sitting there. Obviously it's the more recent episodes that are available there but that's just the nature of torrents, the inbuilt 'expiry date' that is reached when everyone who wants something has grabbed it means older torrents will always die, I wouldn't attribute that to any legal threats. Someone is bound to put up a full torrent when season 3 finishes so you can grab it then.

I do use the odd private tracker in the form of Demonoid for general stuff and Oink for music but generally I only go there if TorrentSpy fails me. Although I do use Demonoid exclusively for comics because it's excellent. As for getting invites, the only way really is to know someone who's got an account there. Oink are pretty generous with invites to their members these days and Demonoid's invite system is up and running as well.

ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!

09:59 / 02.09.06

I used to use azureus, but it's a bit bloaty on my machine, because it opens the java machine to run it, which grinds and grinds and kills my ability to do more than one thing at once.

I now use bitlord, which has its own torrent search built in (which is useless), in combination with torrentspy or demonoid. I'm using demonoid more lately, because everything I have ever wanted is there (I am currently getting my hands on Naked Lunch, which has been impossible to find in the 'real world' near me for as long as I've wanted it).

I somehow managed to join demonoid when it was open memebership for about ten minutes a couple months ago, without being aware that it'd close.

I can, apparently, invite people. Let me know. I don't know if there's a limit to the number I can invite, either.

ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!

10:03 / 02.09.06

Yes, there is a limit. I have at least two, though. PM if you want one.

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