NationStates Jolt Archive

Can someone please explain BITclients, torrents, etc. to me? Is it similar to p2p? Are there viruses and spyware on the sites and/or in the files? I've heard that BITtorrent has malware, so I'm afraid to go to the site and read about it.

Can someone please explain BITclients, torrents, etc. to me? Is it similar to p2p? Are there viruses and spyware on the sites and/or in the files? I've heard that BITtorrent has malware, so I'm afraid to go to the site and read about it.Bittorrent is nothing more than a distributed way of filesharing. A person downloads the file from other users and not as much from the actual server, and thus makes it much easier on the bandwidth use for the host.

A .torrent is an info file that a bittorrent client uses to start the download.

There are no viruses in the original bittorrent software (http://www.bittorrent.com/), nor is there malware on his site. There's no guarantee for other clients though. The files you download with bittorrent are also not guaranteed virus free - you'll have to judge that yourself, and you should always scan them with antivirus software first anyway.

Bittorrent makes up around 30% of all internet traffic right now.

Remember kids, filesharing is bad. :p

Remember kids, filesharing is bad. :pCorrection. Illegal filesharing is bad.

Thanks.
*downloads uncopyrighted files*

Correction. Illegal filesharing is bad.Er, that's what I meant. I use Azereus to get bigger legal files if they've got a torrent available, but I don't use thepiratebay or anything else like that.

I use bittorrent (the curses version) to download legal music.




yes, really: www.jamendo.com

I've always found IRCSpy fun. Of course, that's just because it's a bitch to track if your bandwidth use is being monitored (i.e. you're on my campus).

That's how I've gotten a couple of fan-subbed episodes of random anime. Hehe.