Music Formats

 

BitTorrent is a free p2p (peer to peer) file sharing system developed by Brahm Cohen. It was developed as an efficient solution for sharing large files across networks reducing bandwidth and increasing reliability. As in any p2p file sharing network, (Napster, KaZaa, BearShare, Limewire,etc..) you are downloading off of other people who have the files on their computer as opposed to a central server as in FTP. With BitTorrent, the more people sharing the file, the more sources you can download from and the faster your speeds will be. BitTorrent uses client software that connects to a tracker. The tracker essentially tells the clients where to find the files they want to download. Your client software will display the name of the file you are downloading, percent complete, download speed and upload speed (see picture below). It is very important that you allow uploading while you are downloading. BitTorrent favors clients allowing data to flow in both directions. If you are behind a firewall or blocking uploads, your download speeds will suffer. If you are behind a firewall or use NAT (Network Address Translation), open or forward ports that you want to use for downloading and uploading the .torrent files. Typically you want to open 10 ports of your choice, 5 for downloading and 5 for uploading. For more information on opening your ports, please check out our FAQ. You should also allow ICMP (ping) messages to your computer. This will ensure a better overall performance.

How reliable is BitTorrent? BitTorrent is very reliable, it uses TCP (transmition control protocol) to transmit the data across the internet. TCP has built-in error checking capabilities, plus once you see “download succeeded!” on your screen, your client software has already verified the integrity of the files using cryptographic hashing (SHA1). Your files are exact duplicates of the .torrent files.