How to torrent/What is torrenting? (updated)

For those who do not know.

First off let me say that Hellboundhackers does not endorse, condone, or support torrent-hosting sites or the people who use these sites. Mainly because most torrents are illegal copy's of copy-righted material. With that being said lets begin.

Now nearly everyone here will know exactly what a torrent is but I thought an article will educate those who keep assaulting me with idiotic questions about such a simple procedure.

What is torrenting?
Torrenting is the act of downloading programs, books, movies, music, etc. from a certain type of site with a certain type of program. Torrent is the most popular way of downloading large files. The reason its so popular is when you download a certain popular file many people will be uploading the file so it will download much faster. The people uploading are called seeders, the people downloading are leechers. If your a leecher once you finish downloading the file most torrent programs will automatically start to upload it. This way everyone shares and helps out. However if your downloading an old file and theres no one seeding you wont get anywhere or if theres only one person seeding it will be very slow. It has its ups and downs but its mostly popular for the fact that most of the torrents being uploaded are copyrighted material.

Now Ive heard a thousand questions from teens as to how exactly would someone go about committing piracy. This is in fact a crime. So if you suspect that your being traced or have tabs kept on you than I suggest you trash your own computer or have someone more knowledgeable in the subject erase everything and all traces off your hard drive. Torrenting is never 100% safe so if you need to positively know your safe than dont even consider it.

First off, no site actually puts up illegal music/movies/games. If they did they wouldnt last but a day before being shut down. They simply set up a site where others can upload their personal collections. These are called Torrents. So instead of saying I' am committing piracy, you would say I' am torrenting. There are hundreds of sites out there that host torrent files and therefore you can get anything you could want off the net. These are not regular downloads and therefore you can not just download them onto a computer without another program. These are called Torrent Clients.
These are free and I have listed sites where you can get one at the bottom. I suggest you try different ones and find one that suits you. So basically you download the torrent client, then you can download as many torrents as you like. Some sites that are out for profit only will charge you to use their services, thats why I' am glad to say that almost all torrent sites are absolutely free.


Torrent Clients.
www.utorrent.com (Utorrent)
www.bitcomet.com (My personal fav. BitComet)
www.bitlord.com (BitLord)
Theres just way too many to list them all here but those are the current most popular. You can google torrents and you'll find tons of different toys for you to play with.

Torrent Hosting Sites
www.Thepiratebay.org (The most popular on the market and therefore has a lot of torrents)
www.Isohunt.com
www.snarf-it.org
www.torrentportal.com
www.bitenova.com
www.legaltorrents.com
www.mininova.org
Programs for torrents are many but torrent hosting sites come in the thousands. Google torrents and you'll find yourself almost overwhelmed with sites.

There is a commonly used program out there called Limewire and you'll most likely hear of it but DO NOT DOWNLOAD LIMEWIRE. Limewire does host music/videos/documents but the main thing you'll find are viruses/Trojans/backdoors and pretty much everything you don't want.
NOTE: Another reason limewire is'nt something you'd want too use is if you want a video or something like that you would have to sift through the porn. This is NOT a FRIENDLY program. (or perhaps a bit too friendly haha).

So download your Torrent Client, then go to a torrent hosting site and download your torrents. Simple as that.

Comments, suggestions, etc?


A note from Uber0n:
Don't forget about PeerGuardian, the pirate's best friend ;) it blocks all government and anti-piracy IP addresses. http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/