Well seeing as most people no or use Bittorrent , bit torrent , torants , torrants , torrents , BT or what ever you call it a guide might be handy for those little tweaks or problems.

What is a .torrent file its a small file 2 or 3 k in size this file contains the tracker and hash information on the file you wish to download.

Unlike kazza , winmx, Gnutella , Emule where you have a programme on the computer and open it up and enter the file you are looking for in the search box and the files are shown, The bit torrent network is different.

You have a tracker and to get these trackers you have to visit websites that host them, no files are on these sites just trackers or links.

To make these trackers work you need a bit torrent client there are plenty around but I use azurues a java based client as it good and does the job plus it only uses 1 port more info on this later.

That’s the basics so you need

1. A client
2. Java installed
3. A torrent site or forum
4. Ports open on your firewall (if you use one)
5. Adsl or cable connection it’s not really a dial up system

Azureus client download

Java Download

Once you have downloaded and installed get the safepeer plug in and install this (its on the same site) this will block and filter certain ips bit like peer guardian it will autoupdate each time you start azureus.

We will now change the default port azureus only uses 1 port unlike some other clients, the default bit torrent ports are (6881-6889) why change the ports simple its blocked by some trackers and isps you may get a speed increase as well.

You may get a message like "rejected by tracker - Port xxxx is blacklisted" error?

So open azureus and click View / Config / server and change the number in the incoming tcp port use any number between 49152 through 65535 say you pick 50321 enter it in the box and click the save button, you now want to add this port to your firewall for forwarding to your computers ip.



While you are in the config area if you click the transfer section you can set your max upload speed and max download i have my download on 0 this is unlimited or max, upload i have on 10 - 25 depending on what im doing if im using the net i will drop it down to 10-15 if im out i may increase to 25.

Im on 512/256 adsl but if you are on a slower or faster connection your speeds will be different but don't set it to max upload as this will cause problems always leave it lower.

Due to the way TCP works, when A is downloading something from B it has to keep telling B that it received the data sent to him. (These are called acknowledgements - ACKs -, a sort of "got it!" messages). If A fails to do this then B will stop sending data and wait. If A is uploading at full speed there may be no bandwidth left for the ACKs and they will be delayed. So due to this effect excessively high upload speeds lead to low download speeds.



You can also set things like the default download folder and where you want the .torrent files to be saved till you have finished the download.

Don’t be mean and not seed a lot of sites use a ratio system i.e. if you leech files all the time they will ban you so try to keep your ratio up above 1.0

Ok so you have gone to a site clicked the .torrent file and nothing has happened this does happen on some sites use the right click and 'save as' save the torrent file to your desktop or where you can find it then you can double click and azureus will start the download.

Speed we all want it faster.

If its a new file with 1 seeder and 50 leechers it will be slow either wait a few hours for the seeders to increase or look on a different site they normally always show the seeders/leechers so a file with 130 seeders and 40 leechers will download fast, as a rough guide 700mb will download in around 4 hours if its got plenty of seeders.

Think that covers the basics for now.

Zone Alarm firewall and Azureus

The Zone Labs firewall products Zone Alarm 5.0, Zone Alarm Pro 5.0, and Zone Alarm Security Suite 5.0 are not compatible with Azureus due to an issue with their TCP filter, TrueVector (vsmon.exe) Usual symptoms of this issue include but are not limited to 100% CPU usage, slow transfer speeds, corrupted files, trouble establishing incoming and outgoing transfers, complete network outages, complete system freezes, random reboots, and blue screens of death.

Disabling Zone Alarm's firewall protection will not solve the problem as its filter will still be running in the background. A complete uninstallation is required. This issue is not limited to Azureus, and has been confirmed by users of many other filesharing clients including BitTornado, ABC, Shad0w's Experimental, EMule/Gnutella, and Shareaza.

So you're left with two options

Downgrade to Zone Alarm 4.5 or Get a different firewall if you have a spare pc you could make your own using IPCop

For more information on bittorent tweak tips help have at look at the scream forum

Handy site for telling you how to open router / firewall ports

And if you have a old spare computer make your own router firewall with it using IPCop its free and simple check out this guide for more info

Use Google search to find more guides or tracker sites 

Heres a few links to torrent sites to get you on your way some sites will require you register first

SuprNova.org
uknova
tvtorrents
Torrentreactor.net
Filelist
btenfnet
Torrentbits
UK-Fileshare
ISOHunt

Should keep you going for a while google will also have plenty listed, but as always make sure you do a anti virus scan on anything you download before you do anything else.

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