Jun 20, 2006 04:03 PM
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This is about the now controversial concept of torrents and the use of them to get anything you want of the net(within reasonable limits)
History
As far as the mid 90's P2P file sharing clients were in vogue. The revolution was started off by Shawn Fanning and his program called Napster, which allowed users of the Napster software to share and download MP3 files from around the world for free. He was also called upon as a guest to award a Grammy by the American Music industry, the same industry then performed a complete turnaround and sued Napster for inducing copyright violations of music and sought its shut down, which eventually happened but not before spawning new P2P clients and networks-mainly speaking off was the Gnutella Network and its clients like Gnute, Limewire,Bear Share and Kaaza.
The main issue with this network or working of the software clients was that it shared and distributed the files(MP3, Movies and Programs) as a whole and thus failed when it came to downloading big movie files around 700MB+.
Then came along Bram Cohen in the early part of 2003. He wrote a simple and small piece of code which when executed on your PC got your PC online with all other PCs running the same software.
The application needed a file called the Torrent containing all information regarding the file it was downloading, the number of clients distributing the file and the number of pieces the file was broken up into.
Torrents:
The main working principle of the Torrent Network is of Peers and Seeds...also the huge file is broken up into large number of pieces. So the peers are downloading comapritively smaller files from other peers or seeds, thus facilitating faster and more efficient downloads. When you have completely downloaded the file you become a seed and you start distributing the file for other peers to download.
How to use???
What you need to do is download a Bit Torrent Client. Then you need to download a torrent file for the file you need, and use the Bit Torrent Client to open the .torrent file you downloaded.
There are a lot of clients running the torrent networks few of them are Azerus,Bit Tornado, the original Bit Torrent client. Also there are a host wof websites hosting torrents like piratebay.org torrentspy.com minova.org desitorrents.com.
Pros:
Almost anything is now available as a torrent. There are a multitude of webisted hosting torrents and a huge number of clients running the torrent network. Also the downloads are faster and more reliable and virus free.
Cons:
The problem with torrents is for the downloaded file to work properly you need the entire file to be downloaded. Unlike Kaaza or Limewire where partially downloaded files also work to a certain extent, the download has to be completed for the file to have functionality.Also there is the problem of ports and firewalls- there are a few ports- TCP and UDP which need to be open for full functionality of the software Also the concept of torrents get some used to use effectively.
The Future:
In a recent survery it has been found that Torrents and the bandwidth used by them account for nearly 67% of all internet bandwidth presently and the MPAA doesnt like it
With crackdowns on piratebay.org the future of this P2P file sharing is uncertian. While some preach for the freedom to information some others think this is a blatant violation of copyright laws. Well I leave it upto you to decide as to which side of the wall you want to stand... as for me...i think we should use a good thing while it lasts...and finally cheers to Bram Cohen who believes in the policy...share and let share...and to hell with the government...a man after my own heart...
