BitTorrent is a Peer-to-Peer method of file exchange developed by the American programmer Bram Cohen. BitTorrent is still growing in popularity today, mainly because of its consistently fast download speeds provided by the P2P nature of the network. It can reach download speeds of several hundred kilobytes per second, and facilitate the downloading of very large files in a timely manner.

BitTorrent rapidly became indispensable for people attempting to obtain Linux distros or open source applications. It was with these purposes in mind that BitTorrent was designed; rather than the piracy which it has become (in)famous for facilitating (however unwittingly) nowadays.

In this article we will show you the easiest ways to use BitTorrent to exchange important files.

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How Does It Work?

The way BitTorrent’s functions has little in common with other peer to peer networks such as Gnutella.

An exchange of packets

The main principle of BitTorrent is that each user downloading a file also participates in its dissemination. Each computer downloading a file simultaneously uploads packets of data which it has already received. This exchange of small “packets” facilitates faster transfer rates, as the more people downloading a file, the more people you have uploading it as well.

For the internet user, the first step in using BitTorrent consists of downloading a small .torrent file (of only a few kb). This file launches your BitTorrent application of choice and the download begins. The packets of data are then individually transferred from computer to computer in a fragmented form.

Files are not downloaded in sequence – Packet 1 first, Packet 100 last. A BitTorrent download will send any packets in any order, so you might receive Packet 44 first, Packet 88 second, Packet 5 third and so on. What packets you receive can depend on the peers (other computers) on the network. They will upload whichever parts of a file are available, and each peer connects to one another based on what parts of the file each one has and doesn’t.

As a very linear example, if there are two peers on a torrent and Peer 1 has packets 1 – 50, and Peer 2 has Packets 51 – 100, each peer will upload the packets he has whilst downloading the ones he does not.