torrent posts

While exciting progress is being made in the realm of high-speed mobile data, it will be a long time indeed before wireless operators can catch up with wired bandwidth and ubiquity. For the time being, mass data transfer will be one of the few things that will stay within the realm of home and office computing, on DSL and Cable connections.

Still, just because you run your BitTorrent client on your desktop, laptop, or NAS, doesn't mean that you can't manage your torrents while on the move! If you see a poster for Pioneer One during your daily commute, you can whip out your smartphone and add the latest episode to your at-home torrent client.

And again, while it isn't wise to torrent on your smartphone, you can send a file from your PC to your phone; you can even stream a TV show, movie or song from home to your mobile device.

In this guide we'll cover Windows, Mac and Linux on the PC side of things, and Android, iOS, Symbian, BlackBerry, and Web apps on the mobile side. Let's jump in!

Paramount, with its upcoming horror/thriller movie The Tunnel, is hoping to turn movie distribution on its head by offering it as a legal BitTorrent download.

This will be the first movie to be released simultaneously on DVD and BitTorrent -- legally, that is. But wait, there's more! The film's producers are "selling off" frames one by one, for $1 each, a la Million Dollar Homepage (although there are only 135,000 individual frames here) -- in the hope that they'll cover the movie's funding. There's also an online store selling Tunnel-themed apparel and posters, for those willing to buy such items.

The DVD will contain more material than what will be officially released through BitTorrent, which is how the producers hope they'll convince people to buy the DVD. Extra content and alternative endings will be on the disc, but there's absolutely no stopping the Internet's 'pirates' from making those available on BitTorrent as well.

The Tunnel's distribution mechanism is quite risky from a financial standpoint, but it will be interesting to see how it will all pan out in the end. Bankrupt producers? Or perhaps a happy end that will entice more film makers to try such alternative distribution methods? Until we find out, you can watch a video teaser for the movie (as the word "trailer" seems to have become uncool) after the break.

Opera made waves when it successfully launched its Opera Mini browser for the iPhone. Now company has made its way into Apple's Mac App Store, which makes Opera 11.01 the first Web browser in the Mac App Store that isn't built around Safari's Webkit core.

Its description in the store is fairly tame, trumpeting Opera's speed and security along with gesture support and its trademark speed dial page. There's no mention of extension support or the built-in email client, though both are shown in the screenshots.

Something else which isn't called out is the fact that Opera can also download torrents -- and that's not something Apple has ever looked too kindly upon. Opera's BitTorrent support is rarely discussed, and it isn't depicted in the App Store description or images, either. Still, with built-in support for a technology that Apple has historically linked to illegal use, it will be interesting to see just how long Opera is welcome to stay at Apple's party.

Magnet URIs, which are a way of downloading torrents without actually downloading a .torrent file, are a fantastic idea, but a bit... long-winded. They're regularly over 200 characters long, making them too long to share with Twitter. Email clients can break them by inserting line breaks, and most annoyingly, very few IM clients make magnet links 'clickable.'

Mgnet.me, as you can tell from its ruthlessly eviscerated noun, shortens magnet URIs into something a lot more manageable. The Pioneer One episode 1 magnet URI goes from 148 characters, down to just 20: http://mgnet.me/ZQx. The best bit, though, is that you can assign an 'alias,' which nicely cuts through the magnet URI obfusctation -- for example: http://mgnet.me/.pioneer.

Of course, the main problem is that you have to head over to Mgnet.me to shorten URIs -- but don't worry, there's a Mgnet.me API! As you can see on Sailr, a magnet-only torrent search engine, shortened URLs are now easily available. Now we just need integration with a big-name BitTorrent client, like uTorrent, and magnet shortening will really take off.

DHT is a decentralized and distributed technology that enables users to download files from nearby peers without contacting a central tracker. BTDigg crawls the massive DHT network, hopping from peer to peer, and slowly builds up an index of every torrent in existence -- in theory, anyway.

The exciting thing about BTDigg is that you now don't have to upload a torrent to a tracker or indexer to share something. BTDigg will eventually stumble across your shared files and index them. Of course, the irony is that BTDigg centralizes the decentralized DHT network, defeating any of its privacy and security benefits.

The main thing holding BTDigg back, though, is a truly atrocious interface and almost complete lack of functionality. It's green and orange, presumably in an attempt to look like old monochrome monitors. The search algorithm itself is awful -- and there's absolutely no way to refine your search, either. A search for "Glee EZTV" brought up a seemingly random and unchronological listing of episodes -- with lots of multiple results, too!

Still, it's a fun proof of concept. We're sure that future versions will be better...

Each year in the months leading up to the SXSW music festival, a massive collection of songs from participating performers gets assembled. The collection gets rolled up into a jumbo-sized torrent, and then given to the masses for free. The 2011 SXSW torrent packs almost four and a half gigs of musical goodness -- nearly 800 songs! The best part is that this is all guilt-free, legal-to-download-and-enjoy music.

If you're not keen on downloading the whole shebang, you can also listen to the included songs via Shoutcast -- all you need is a compatible player, like Winamp.

uTorrent 3 beta [download link], which has been publicly available since the end of 2010, is now stable enough and juicy enough for you to sink your teeth into.

As far as actual torrenting goes, uTorrent 3 is very similar to its precursor, but it's now very apparent that this new version is about extending the BitTorrent protocol -- and the company -- into another space entirely.

The main new feature, which we alluded to when we reviewed uTorrent Remote for Android last week, is integration with uTorrent Web. uTorrent Web is a completely new offering from BitTorrent (the company) that offers secure and private zero-config control of your torrents via a Web control panel.

There's more, though! Video and music streaming makes its return, and 'Pulse' torrent ratings are making their debut. Finally, there's a new way to share files with your friends with the magic of TinyURL, BitTorrent, and 'Web Seeds.' Read on for the full hands-on treatment.

We've played with some good remote torrenting apps in the past, but now, at long last, the most popular desktop torrent client has a companion app as well. uTorrent Remote for Android is available for download from the Android Market, and it's one of the slickest mobile torrent apps we've seen.

With uTorrent Remote you can fully manage your uTorrent desktop client: add and remove downloads, pause transfers, and check your RSS feeds for new downloads. Once a torrent finishes downloading, you can even push the completed files to your device for mobile viewing. It's incredibly simple to set up, too. Just set up some login details in Options > Preferences > Web, and then use the same username and password on your device. There's no need to fuss with your router or firewall, either -- uTorrent takes care of negotiating the connection on its own.

On your desktop, you'll need to download the uTorrent 3.0 beta (currently Windows only). Android 2.1 is required on your device to run Remote.

Download uTorrent Remote for Android [QR code after the break]

This week's series of tips is all about downloading files via BitTorrent. We'll highlight ways in which to torrent more efficiently, obtain higher download speeds, and generally make the whole process easier. For more tech tips, check our Tips index.

To wrap up our series of BitTorrent tips, we're going to show you how to make your own torrents. After all, torrents have to come from somewhere, right? You've been leeching for years -- isn't it time to give something back?

Just follow these simple steps:

• Open up your BitTorrent client of choice. uTorrent, Vuze, Transmission -- whichever, they all work in the same way
• File > Create Torrent (or simply hit the 'Create' button, if there is one)
• Select a source file or directory -- this can be absolutely anything
• Now you need to find some trackers. If you're making a torrent for a private torrent index, make sure you use its tracker. Otherwise, paste all of the following into the box:
  udp://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce
  udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce
  http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
  http://tracker.torrent.to:2710/announce
• If you want to add a comment, go for it! Include your name, website, email address -- whatever you like
• Make sure Private Torrent is unchecked, unless you're creating a torrent for a private tracker
• Click Create -- then add the new torrent to your client and start seeding!

Now, if you're just making a torrent to share a file between friends, classmates or workmates, just send them the .torrent file and tell them to hop on. It's as simple as that.

If you want to share your torrent publicly, you need to upload the torrent to an index like The Pirate Bay. First register an account, and then simply click 'Upload torrent' -- the method is the same for uploading to a private site (just make sure you've used its private tracker!)

This week's series of tips is all about downloading files via BitTorrent. We'll highlight ways in which to torrent more efficiently, obtain higher download speeds, and generally make the whole process easier. For more tech tips, check our Tips index.

Did you know that almost every BitTorrent client has an API that allows Web-based control panels and smartphone apps to directly tap into your torrents? Have you ever seen a poster or billboard for something shiny, and felt suddenly compelled to download something?

Before we get started, make sure you have access to your Internet router. You will need to set up some port forwarding -- and if you don't know how to do that, check PcWinTech for a guide, or type your router's name into Google. For uTorrent, you will need to forward port 8080; Transmission uses 9091.

Now, find a combination that matches your needs:

• Windows + Android -- use uTorrent on your PC, and Transdroid on your phone
  (see complete guide)
• Windows + iPhone -- use uTorrent on your PC, and access it via the Web interface
  (see complete guide)
• Mac + Android -- use Transmission on your PC, and Transdroid on your phone
  (see complete guide)
• Mac + iPhone -- use Transmission on your PC, and access it via the Web interface
  (see complete guide)

If you're an Android user, Transdroid is truly fantastic. Not only does it let you stop and start torrents that are running on your desktop PC at home, but you can also search for new torrents and add them to your download queue. The Web interfaces are pretty good too, iPhone users, so don't despair!

Finally, it's worth noting that the console-based Linux client rTorrent will also connect to Transdroid, and it has a Web interface.

This week's series of tips is all about downloading files via BitTorrent. We'll highlight ways in which to torrent more efficiently, obtain higher download speeds, and generally make the whole process easier. For more tech tips, check our Tips index.

If you've decided that text-based console torrenting isn't for you, the next best solution is automating your torrent downloads with RSS. Most big-name BitTorrent clients support RSS feeds, but for this tip we'll focus on uTorrent.

First, your favorite torrent source needs to actually have RSS feeds. The Pirate Bay has them, and Torrent Reactor has per-category and per-genre feeds. For TV shows, you can't go wrong with EZRSS. Once you have the URLs for an RSS feed or two, open up uTorrent, click Feeds on the left bar, and then the Add RSS Feed button. Paste the URL in, give it a name, and make sure "Do not automatically download all items" is selected. Do the same for all of the RSS feeds that you want to use.

Now it's time for the fun bit! You have to create filters that parse each of the RSS feeds for the torrents that you want to download. Hit Options > RSS Downloader (or Ctrl+R). In general, you type the name of what you want to automatically download into the Filter text box, such as "Heroes" or "Ubuntu". Rather than walk you through the entire process, the uTorrent site has a good tutorial that you can follow -- and EZRSS's guide is excellent, too. Once you've set up some filters, they become active immediately -- and if you've set them up correctly, you can minimize uTorrent and never manually add torrents ever again!

Finally Mac users, if you're using Transmission (which you should be!), check out this guide on setting up RSS feed automation.

This week's series of tips is all about downloading files via BitTorrent. We'll highlight ways in which to torrent more efficiently, obtain higher download speeds, and generally make the whole process easier. For more tech tips, check our Tips index.

Only noobs BitTorrent from their main Windows or Mac computer! Torrenting uses a lot of system resources and can significantly slow down your computer if you have a few torrents open. Additionally, you don't want to upload lots of data while you play games, or while other people in the house are using the Internet -- and really, leaving your computer on over night to download torrents is rather uneconomical.

The best solution, short of getting a VPS and doing your torrenting remotely, is to install a headless Linux or BSD box and control all of your torrents via the text-only console. Now, this isn't a guide on how to set up your own Linux box (there are hundreds of them online, just search) -- but basically any old, unused computer will do. Ideally you want it to be headless (i.e. without a monitor), so that you can put it under the stairs and so that it draws as little power as possible. If you can't choose a distro, Ubuntu Desktop is just fine.

This week's series of tips is all about downloading files via BitTorrent. We'll highlight ways in which to torrent more efficiently, obtain higher download speeds, and generally make the whole process easier. For more tech tips, check our Tips index.

In almost every case, your download speed on a torrent is dictated by your upload speed. If you manage to download a few chunks, and then upload those at high speed, you will very soon find your pipe very full indeed.

Now, if you're lucky enough to have a juicy upload connection at home (a few megabits), you probably have no problem filling your entire downstream bandwidth. If you're stuck with a weak DSL connection, however, a virtual private server (VPS), or 'seedbox', is what you need.

A VPS [Google search link] can cost as little as a few dollars a month, and for that you get access to 100Mbps both upstream and down. 350 megabyte torrents will complete in just a few seconds, and in general you'll get more bandwidth than you'll ever need (100GB or more). Once your torrents are complete on your VPS, you can download to your home computer at full speed. This also leaves your home's upstream bandwidth free for other uses, like surfing the Web!

Most VPSes run Linux, though, so you will need to learn how to use a console torrent client like rTorrent -- but that's tomorrow's tip!