Table of contents
What is BitTorrent? What are BitTorrent Clients?
A Brief History
Popular BitTorrent Clients
A Mini How to on using a BitTorrent Client
Comment Section

What is BitTorrent? What are BitTorrent Clients?

BitTorrent is a protocol, and the programs that use this protocol, are known as BitTorrent Clients. The BitTorrent protocol uses a different method of transferring files, than the traditional Client Server model. BitTorrent uses a method of file transfer called Peer to Peer (P2P). P2P Networks, as they are commonly called, promise faster download speeds and less overhead cost than the old Client Server model which uses centralized networking (one to many), meaning you need a central server. BitTorrent uses a decentralized network (many to many), hence the name Peer to Peer (P2P). Often times P2P is referred to as File Sharing. http://www.vuze.com/corp/technology.php

BitTorrent is different from other so called File Sharing programs because there is a lot of free legal content on the BitTorrent Network. Unlike programs like KaZaA or Limewire, which for the most part only have pirated material, users of BitTorrent can use the program without getting into any legal trouble so long as they respect copyright law.http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html?pg=3&topic=bittorrent&topic_set=

BitTorrent also has paid content available that you can download. Another thing that makes BitTorrent different from other File Sharing programs is the fact that you must upload and download at the same time in order to download files. This means that the more people that download a file at one time, the faster the download will become. This is referred to as a Swarm. Programs like KaZaA cannot benefit from a Swarm because, unlike BitTorrent which is a many to many P2P network, KaZaA is a one peer to one peer network. This means that KaZaA users can only download from one other user at a time. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html?pg=5&topic=bittorrent&topic_set=

A Brief History

BitTorrent is a networking protocol invented by Bram Cohen. At the time he was working for MojoNation. MojoNation had a product for encryption that would take an encrypted file and break it into smaller pieces. These pieces would then be distributed to other computers. If someone wanted to decrypt the file they would have to simultaneously download all the pieces from many computers. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/python/2003/7/17/pythonnews.html Bram Cohan quit his job in 2001 to work on BitTorrent full time.http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/bittorrent.html?pg=1&topic=bittorrent&topic_set= At this time he wanted to help distribute large files over the internet like Linux distros. He got bata testers for BitTorrent program in the summer of 2002 by distributing free pornography on the network. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_CohenAt this time the only method of internet distribution was direct download or the Client Server model. This was very slow and costly. In 2004 BitTorrent the Company was founded.http://kepler.ss.ca.gov/corpdata/ShowAllList?QueryCorpNumber=C2676150

BitTorrent
BitTorrent mainpage | Download Link
The Original BitTorrent client.

uTorrent
Known for being small in size and fast.

Vuze
Vuze mainpage | Vuze mainpage Download Link | Support Operating Systems: Cross Platform
Vuze is a full featured client. Features include DHT, Friend Boot, a Media player, a Media Server, and encoder. The Media player downloads any cedes needed for play back. The Media Server can load, stream, or re-encode for these devices PSP, iTunes, iPod touch, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox 360, and TiVo. http://www.vuze.com/ More info here

KTorrent
Popular BitTorrent client for Linux.

Transmission
Popular client for Mac, BSD, and Linux

Halite
Halite mainpage | Download Link
Still in early state of development. A light open source client.

1. First you need to download a BitTorrent Client. If you don't have one. Vuze, uTorrent, BitTornado, and Transmittion are popular choices.

2. Search for the file you want with a search engine. Some BitTorrent Clients have this feature built in.

3. Download the .torrent file for the thing you want to download.

4. Load the torrent file into your client. This usually happens automatically or by double clicking on it.

5. The client may ask for a download directory. Your download will start after you confirm. That is all there is to it.

For a more in depth explanation on how to use BitTorrent go to the Mahalo's How to use BitTorrent Page.

Information on this page is to show the features of BitTorrent. While BitTorrent Cients can be used to illegally distribute copyrighted material. This is not the intention of this web page. It is possible to use a BitTorrent client for P2P (Peer to Peer) networking or File Sharing without breaking any laws on copyright.

• P2P:
• Peer-to-Peerhttp://www.vuze.com/corp/Technology.html

• Seeding:
• Seeding is where you make content you lave already downloaded available to download.

• Share Ratio:
• Share ratio is the comparison between seeding vs downloading.

• Swarm
• Users are benefiting from the distributed computing capacity of all the seeds on the network. http://www.vuze.com/corp/technology.php

• Bata Testers
• People test software that is not yet finished.

• Bata
• This a program that is almost finished. It has a few bugs to work out.