Hi everybody, I've had a mac for a couple of months and haven't a clue about anything!!

Still trying to grasp torrents,seeds,downloading the lot!

I downloaded bit torrent and when i try to download films it says its going to take days?

Also downloaded a film through limewire but its in like 49 files??

Is mininova ok for my mac?

Any help would be much appreciated

it can be a bit daunting to start, so i will give you the bare-bones details, then point you to a very good guide.

Torrent: a file containing information about what you want to download, where to find people that have the files to upload TO you

Seeds: people that have the files you want, and can upload to you

Peers: people like you that do not have all the files, and are in the process of downloading from seeds, and uploading to other peers

limewire: a lousy program that is only good for downloading single song tracks, and still not very good at that.

mininova: a site listing hundreds of thousands of Torrents (see above) for you to download

Azureus: not a babies' client. probably the best out there in my opinion, the one you should likely use while being on a mac, as it's plugins and options will help out later when you learn more and want to protect yourself, and maybe even upload your own torrents :)

note: with the aforementioned client, it will be wise to first click the 'Advanced' button in the top right on first startup, then go to tools>options>interface>start> click 'Show' and select 'Advanced' for starting up, then you will have the normal view and not the 'Vuze' Layer that is mostly for downloading of hi-def media content, but not good for managing your up/downloads

Deluge: a lightweight client, that will do a lot, but i have heard is easier for people just starting out

when downloading torrent files, you want a good Seed-to-Peer ratio, such as 500 seeds and 1000 peers is relatively good, as it comes out to 1:2

40 seeds and 2000 peers is not good, as it is 1:50 and will produce very low speeds for download

also remember that when downloading, it's best to give your client time to find seeds and peers and go through a full tracker check (tracker is the server that connects peers and seeds together) which can range anywhere from 10-30 minutes time.

when you first start a download, it's not uncommon for it to be slow, but as you get more of the file(s) you intend to download then you have more to offer others and then your "priority" in the swarm (the entire group of people sharing the files) goes up and you get files faster from other people, the faster you upload, the more you will get from people that have all of the file(s)

i hope this helps you

M00ter's Bittorrent Guide

Howto: get good download speeds

if you want to start uploading your own torrents

let me know if you need any further help



M

THanks for your help, I've downloaded a few films off Vuze and everythings fine.

Dear Sirs i am new to this and not quite up to the rules. After i download a movie bittorent still downloads and uploads, how long should i leave bittorent on before logging off and how do i know that its finished what its doing in order to be fair with other users.

when you have uploaded as much as you have downloaded, then you are OK to close it and log off, but giving back MORE than you download is appreciated. it should show a "Ratio" in your client, and when that reaches 1.0 or more, you can close out



M