Understanding BitTorrent
I invariably run into this word 'BitTorrent' 4/5 times on a single surfing day. Finally, I decided to trawl for an explanation. Here's what I found...highly interesting ... so I thought of sharing it with my readers.
What I have understood is that BitTorrent is just another sophisticated name for a procedure to download a "high-end" file having large amounts of data. It is a protocol (talk), meaning a way of Internet life, and was designed in 2001 by American programmer Brahm Cohen. Today, he and others run BitTorrent, Inc., from San Francisco, California. Having successfully written the protocol, Cohen obviously decided to keep it. It is his company (founded in 2004) that has been developing and maintaining peer-assisted Internet content delivery technology based on the BitTorrent protocol, not to talk of making big bucks in the process.Limewire is one example of Bittorrent client - meaning computer programmes that use the BitTorrent protocol.
A Torrent file generally has the suffix, ....torrent. Eg: whatsnew.torrent. Over 50 % of net users are already using Torrent protocol for delivering high-quality, heavy duty files over the Internet. Which means perhaps that Hanna Montena video file you downloaded last night on to your PC was one using a BitTorrent technology. There are said to be over 160 million users of the Bittorrent technology globally and every day, the figure is growing.
The way BitTorrent works is simple. In fact,I believe it is rather similar to the way that the Internet works. Very clever of Mr Cohen to have thought of this idea. See, it is like this, when you download a high-value file directly from an HTTP server, the connection is only between you and that server. You download the file (it could be music, MP3 or other such stuff) after maybe 30 minutes or so or sometimes even over an hour. It could also suffer from 'drops' in connectivity. Using the BitTorrent protocol, though, you can do this task, faster, and obviously cheaper, since the bandwidth utilised is far lesser than the first method, without bothering about whether your connection will get cut off in between.
Using BitTorrent means both - downloading and uploading. How? See, first, you need some one in cyberspace who has a file to share. He makes that file available online. This 1st file is called a 'seed'. Since it is now available on the Net, other users are now free to connect to this file and download it. These guys are called 'peers'. So you see, a connection is established between the seed and many peers. But the way the entire downloading process works is like a chain reaction or a relay race. The computer of the new peers do not recieve the whole file but different pieces of the data from the seed. Once multiple peers have the separate pieces of the seed, they must pass it on (upload). Thus, BitTorrent allows each user to become a source/seed for that portion of the file. BitTorrent then takes all these individual packages and re-assembles them into the original file, on the individual computer of each and every peer. Got it? The peers have to also start uploading their individual downloads to enable other interested peers to get that seed. If even one of them does not upload, it will mean his/her package not reaching BitTorrent and going missing in the re-assembling of the original file.
You would of course ask - why this round about way to download? There are many reasons. Like I told you before, it is faster, the bandwidth used is leaner, if one resource fails, there is always a back up, the quality of the downloaded file under this process is far superior, the process is not dependant only on one PC,and so no and so forth. Also, when Peer 1 logs into the seed, the speed of download is quite slow. Then, Peer 2 logs in and wants the same seed (file) and he, too, connects. The download speed now improves slightly. When Peer 3 - Peer 100 join in the fun, the download speed zips up.
There are Torrent search engines like ordinary search engine. You can key in a word and be able to download the stuff you want. You do not need to have any pecial software or hardware but there are some other points which you must keep in mind.
There are fake torrent files out there (which means they could be compromised in some manner, either the copyright is just not there, or there could be some virus lurking somewhere). What can help you is that many comments on communal sites tell you whether that particular torrent is good or bad.
Using BitTorrent is legal, downloading copyrighted stuff like movies is absoutely NOT. So please check that you are re-distributing copyrighted stuff.
©Ask Bob April 4, 2010 |
