BitTorrent

What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is a Peer-to-Peer information transfer protocol. It distinguishes itself from other P2P? clients, such as kazaa and eMule, through the use of .torrent files. .torrent files organize the data to be downloaded and allow clients to look for missing file chunks as well as check existing file chunks for integrity.

What are the advantages of BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is very fast and operates on a Tit-for-Tat system, by which you receive more data relative to how much data you upload. For people with fast connections, BitTorrent can frequently acquire files faster than direct downloads. Further, BitTorrent has greater privacy than other clients. With many other clients, users connect to a server and upload, along with their IP address and other identifiers, a list of all of the files that they are sharing. BitTorrent only uploads/downloads files that the user has active .torrents of.

What are the disadvantages of BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is not a tool used for browsing files available on a P2P? network. BitTorrent is used to rapidly download files you are already aware of and have a .torrent for. For this reason, you must find a server (such as the servers of many Linux distros) that distributes .torrents before you can acquire and use them.

What would I use BitTorrent for?

BitTorrent is a very efficient way to distribute large ( > 1GB) files or sets of files. For this reason, downloading CD images is frequently done through BitTorrent. Most Linux distributions make their CDs available through BitTorrent and a number of other producers distribute large files through this protocol.

Where can I get BitTorrent?

In a strictly literal sense, you can get "it" from http://www.bittorrent.com. However, "it" is the protocol only. In order to use it effectively, most people also want a front end. One popular java-enabled front end is Azureus, available at http://azureus.sourceforge.net