How to use Torrents Time?

Step 3: Find a ‘Healthy’ Torrent File

Once you’ve found a P2P website, you need to know how to pick a torrent file that’s “good” for downloading. Not all torrent files are created equal, and there’s a specific mechanism involved. This is where you need to be acquainted with two terms: seeders and leechers.

Seeders are people who have downloaded 100% of the data that comes with torrents. In other words, their machines start to seed that data, so other people can access and download parts of it.
Leechers are people who are in the process of downloading torrents. Their torrent clients take bits of data from other computers and copy them to your computer. Once you finish downloading a torrent, you automatically become a seeder.

Why is this important to know? Well, you can imagine what happens if you find one user with a fully available file, while ten other users are downloading it – your download speed will be minimal. Healthy torrent files have more seeders than leechers, which allows you to computer to create more connections and download files as fast as possible.

Further Reading: The No-Nonsense Guide to BitTorrent / Ultimate Torrent Guide / How to Spot Fake Torrents.

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Configuration

The next step is to complete the configuration. Follow these steps:

Update the existing nodes or create the new ones with the new deployment images:
Add the Torrent tracker URLs to the ironic conductor config file in the [deploy]torrent_trackers option.
Restart the conductor.

At this point the nodes will be able to download images from object storage via torrents.

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Automatic Peer Discovery Mechanisms

Automatic discovery mechanisms help you find more peers in a swarm without manually adding trackers. Ensure the following tools are enabled, as they will help when trackers are challenging to find.

Peer Exchange “PEX”: It uses a single peer to share information needed to find and connect with other peers.
Distributed Hash Table “DHT”: It is also known as “Bootstrapping.” DHT uses a decentralized system to find peers, which reduces the load on central trackers. DHT is a mandatory feature if you are using magnet Links with uTorrent.
Local Peer Discovery: It supports the discovery of peers in local networks like LANs. To improve security, Local Peer Discovery avoids using ISP channels.

To change the BitTorrent protocol uTorrent setting:

Go to Options > Preferences > BitTorrent. By default, uTorrent enables DHT, Local Peer Discovery, and Peer Exchange. If you are downloading from public trackers, leave the boxes checked.

BitTorrent is the only method used by uTorrent to distribute data over the Internet. If this protocol is limited, the connection with other peers becomes slow or impossible.

HOW TO FIX SLOW TORRENTS MANUALLY

Ok, so you don’t like doing things the easy way. That’s cool. Let’s try and fix your slow torrents by troubleshooting the issues one at a time.

It’s important to note, that if your ISP is throttling/blocking your torrent traffic, a VPN (or encrypted proxy) may be the only solution. For the rest of the issues, we can deal with them ourselves.

Make sure you’re calculating speeds correcly

How to measure Torrent Speed Correctly It’s a little known fact that most torrent clients report speeds differently than web-based speed tests. In fact, they’re usually off by a factor of 8. That’s because torrent clients like uTorrent report speed as Mega Bytes per second, whereas speedtests like report Mega bits. Since 1 Byte = 8 Bits, then 1 Megabyte per second is equivalent to 8 Megabits/s uTorrent shows download/upload speed in Megabytes per second If you have a 200 Mbps internet connection, and you saw the 23.4 MB/s speeds reported by uTorrent…you might be disappointed. But in reality, 23.4 MB/s = 187.2 Megabits per second (multiply by 8) That’s over 90% of your maximum speed (quite good).

Bandwidth Settings in your torrent client

Check your bandwidth & queue limits in your torrent client Check your download speed: Most torrent clients allow you to set a maximum download/upload speed per active torrent. You’ll either want to set these to ‘0’ (unlimited) or a really high number. Too many Torrents: Try limiting the number of active torrents and queue the rest. Anything over 6-8 active torrents is overkill and will hurt overall speeds (and tax your processor and hard drive). Turn off uTP Bandwidth Limiting (uTorrent only): In Preferences > Bandwidth, make sure to uncheck the box that says ‘Apply rate limit to uTP connections.’ This artificially limits your speeds. uTorrent Bandwidth Settings (Menu > Options > Preferences > Bandwidth).

Fix Port Forwarding & Connection Issues

Connection Status & Incoming Connections Most torrent client have an indicator of your connection health (which can alert you to port forwarding or throttling issues). The indicator is usually in the bottom right corner of the software. Utorrent displays a little alert triangle with an exclamation if there are issues. Vuze displays torrent health as a color-coded smiley. Green is good, yellow shows issues, red is bad. If you don’t have a healthy connection status, here are some tips: Turn on uPnP: Universal Plug n Play can usually fix most port-forwarding issues for torrent downloads, without having to screw around with your router firmware (a pain). It does need to be enabled both in your torrent client (shown below) as well as your router settings. Whitelist in your Firewall: If you’re using Windows Firewall (on by default) you should manually add an exception for your torrent client. uTorrent can do this automatically (shown below). If using a 3rd-party firewall software (like an Antivirus) you will have to do this manually. Remember, a VPN can fix most port forwarding problems, even if your router doesn’t support uPnP. If you really want to draw doing it manually, you can follow the guides from PortForward.com Turn on UPnP & Add firewall support in Options > Preferences > Connection (uTorrent)

Encryption Settings that limit peersIs Encryption causing slow torrents? Most torrent clients have built-in encryption. This lite-weight obfuscation (not unbreakable like a VPN) is designed to fool simple throttling algorithms. That’s it. But the downside of forcing encrypted connections in your torrent client is that non-encrypted peers can’t connect. This limits your peer availability and thus your speeds. Note: A VPN doesn’t limit your peer availability because it encrypts your connection whether the peers support encryption or not. So what’s the fix? Switch from forced encryption to optional encryption, which won’t limit your peer selection.

How to Torrent Safely

The risks of browsing torrent sites aren’t just about privacy. You risk downloading malware, viruses, and even losing your information to phishing campaigns, which are very common scenarios for torrent users.

The first thing you’ll want to do is install a VPN. Again, check our best VPN section for the best options out there, safety tips, and news. It’s important to install a VPN because it will route your connection through a secure server, allow you to access blocked torrent sites, and help you remain anonymous.

After that, tick all the VPN safety settings you can. Make sure you enable connection encryption, leak protection, and a kill switch for when your network is at risk of getting infected. Most VPNs will feature these options (just maybe under different names).

The kill switch is important, as it will prevent your identity from being exposed when your VPN connection suddenly drops.

Third, install an ad blocker and other safety-enhancing extensions. You can read all about them in our article detailing the best browser extensions for safety and privacy, as well as our guide with 8 steps to stay safe online.

Torrent Sites to Avoid

There are a few popular torrenting sites that still get a lot of traffic, and you’ll find some roundups recommending them.

While you don’t risk anything per se when using those sites, you should stray away from the following platforms.

TorrentGalaxy

TorrentGalaxy is like a downgraded version of 1337X. While it does have almost 8 million visitors each month, and the library it boasts is decent, the ad intrusion level is too much to warrant praise, especially when compared to all the alternatives you have.

KickAss Torrents

Yes, a version of this website is still available online. Unfortunately, this is the KickAss Torrents you’re used to only in name and appearance — the service has changed a lot since the original site was taken down.

If you want to download anything using the current version of the site, you’ll have to install an obscure browser extension first. We don’t know what it may contain, but we do not recommend installing it under any circumstance, as it may pose serious privacy and security risks. It’s better to use one of the many KickAss Torrents alternatives.

TorrentFunk

While TorrentFunk has the trappings of a decent torrent site, it’s riddled with all the possible types of ads you can imagine. Moreover, it’s got a smaller library than The Pirate Bay or RARBG, so there’s no real reason to choose it.

TorLock

While it’s pretty popular, Torlock takes ad intrusion to the extreme. There are a lot of ads popping in your face, and the “price” isn’t warranted. As you’ll notice when you visit TorLock, most of their torrents — even the popular ones — have no seeders.

Encrypting uTorrent Traffic

To recognize torrent traffic patterns and shape them, ISPs use sophisticated application-layer firewalls. Encrypting uTorrent can help evade traffic shaping from those devices. But just enabling “protocol encryption” will not help you become anonymous.

In an interview, the inventor of BitTorrent, Bram Cohen, stated that “The so-called “encryption” of BitTorrent traffic isn’t really encryption, it’s obfuscation. It provides no anonymity whatsoever and only temporarily evades traffic shaping.”

But if your BitTorrent traffic is encrypted while using a VPN, there is little that a sophisticated device can do to identify and shape your traffic. One of the best uTorrent settings is to use a combination of VPN and BitTorrent traffic encryption.

Encrypting BitTorrent protocol gives you privacy: “The traffic is hidden.” Using a VPN gives you anonymity: “your IP is hidden.”

To encrypt your protocol: Go to Options > Preferences > BitTorrent. Under the “Protocol Encryption” and Outgoing box, select “Enabled.” Check the box “Allow incoming legacy connections.”

Deluge

1. Click the Preferences button on the toolbar or go to Edit > Preferences.

2. The scheduler plugin is not enabled by default so it needs switching on before you can use it. Click on Plugins down the left and in the window put a check next to the Scheduler plugin, then press Apply.

3. A Scheduler option will now appear at the bottom on the left of the Preferences window for you to select and make changes.

There are no label descriptions but the one hour blocks and colors are easy to understand. Green is normal transfer conditions, orange is the limited mode for which you can alter the settings below for upload/download limits in addition to the number of active torrents. Red will stop transfer activity completely.

Download Deluge

Transmission

The scheduling feature in Transmission is virtually identical to the one found in qBittorrent. That means you can set a download/upload speed for every day of the week, weekdays only, weekends only, or for one individual day.

1. Go to the Edit menu > Preferences, the options are on the initial Speed tab under “Alternative Speed Limits”.

2. Choose the download/upload speeds, check the “Scheduled times” box, set the time, and select the day schedule from the drop down box.

There appears to be no unlimited transfer option in this mode. The workaround is to set the limits to exceed your internet connection speed.

Download Transmission

Step 5: Keep Seeding P2P Files

Once you’ve fully downloaded the torrent, you can keep it open in the torrent client. This would mean that you’ll become a seeder – helping other users download the file without any problems. You can learn more about this process’s background in our article on how to seed torrent files.

It is up to you to decide if you’d like to be a seeder for a few hours – or even a few days or weeks. To help you avoid any confusion, here are a few additional tips:

You automatically become a seeder after the torrent is fully downloaded to your computer. It means that you don’t have to make any changes;
In case you move or delete the downloaded file from your computer, you will lose the ability to seed. In other words – you can, for example, watch the movie you’ve downloaded, but you shouldn’t move or delete it if you want to continue seeding it.

We hope that you now know the basics of how to use torrents safely in 2021. Stick to TechNadu since numerous helpful torrent-oriented tutorials are on the way. As always, you can post a comment if you have any questions and we’ll try to respond as quickly as we can.