Downloading torrents seems to be a polarizing topic. While some will tell you that this can be done easily, others will warn you of numerous complexities. However, all you need is a good guide. Lucky for you, you have come to the right place. TechNadu will teach you how to download torrents, the easy way.
Disclaimer: TechNadu does not condone illegal file sharing or copyright infringement. Even though P2P file sharing technology is legal, many of the files exchanged via P2P are indeed copyrighted. Uploading these copyrighted files can put you at risk of a civil lawsuit. While these lawsuits are often class-action cases, some have been targeted at individual users in an attempt to make an example of them.Â
Torrenting Safeguards
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Downloading Torrents: The Basics
First, let’s clear any initial doubts you might be having. You need to know what are torrents, what you need to download them, and if there are any requirements. Once we provide answers to these questions, we’ll jump to our guide. Keep on reading to learn more.
What are Torrents?
In essence, torrents are incredibly small files that pack a lot of useful data. Let’s say, for example, that you want to share a 4K movie you recorded. You can create a torrent file out of that movie and then share the file with the others. Those who want to download that movie will need to have access to the previously created torrent file.
Once they open the torrent file using specialized software for this kind of file type, the movie will begin to download in small or large chunks. Interestingly enough, those who download torrents also serve as seeders. You can think of it as a global network where people download torrents and upload them at the same time. Sounds pretty high-tech, right? Well, this is actually quite simple in practice.
Important Requirements
To get started with torrents, you only need two things. Don’t worry, both of these are easily attainable and don’t cost a single dollar. Here’s what you need to know.
- First, you need to download a torrent file. Someone can send it to you via email, or you can use websites that host these files. Here’s our guide to the best torrent sites. As you’ll see, you will find 10 options all of which are safe to use;
- You also need to have a torrent client installed on your computer. In other words, these are applications that open torrents and download them. Most of these are very simple and they take very little space on your PC’s hard drive. Also, they run even on very old computers. To make sure that you pick the right software, here’s our overview of the best torrent clients.
That’s it. Finally, let’s jump to our helpful guide on downloading torrent files to your computer.
How to Download Torrents?
The best way to describe the whole procedure is by providing a step-by-step guide. Don’t worry, we will explain everything you need to know. After all, we understand that many of you are handling torrent for the first time. Let's take a look at how to download torrents, the easy way.
- First, you need to download a torrent file to your computer. Your best bet is to use one of the popular torrent websites. You will find a link to TechNadu’s guide in one of the previous paragraphs. In this article, we will use a popular search engine for torrents, called Torrentz2.
- As you can see in the image above, this is a very simple website. You can click on ‘My Torrentz’ to see a list of currently trending options. In addition, you can search for a torrent by using the search field. For the sake of this article, we will download one of Charlie Chaplin’s movies – which are completely legal to download since they are public domain files. So, we are going to type in ‘Charlie Chaplin’ and then click on ‘Search’.
- Next, you will see a list of search results. There are two very important pieces of information that you need to understand. On the right side of the screen, you will see two numbers. The green one is the number of seeders (people who already have the movie on their computers and who are ‘seeding’ it to other users). The blue number is the number of leechers (people who are downloading the movie as we speak). As you can imagine, you need to find a movie with a large number of seeders to make sure that you can download it as fast as you can. So, let’s go ahead and click on the first movie title.
- Now you will see a list of torrent websites that host the torrent file we need. You can click on any of these. We are going to pick the first option, a website named 1337X. This will open the website in a new tab;
- Once the new website is opened, you will often see two options. You can download either a magnet file or torrent file. To make this explanation simple, you can always go for the magnet files which are often deemed more capable and faster to download. So, we will go ahead and download the magnet file for the Charlie Chaplin’s movie;
- Once you click on the ‘Magnet Download’, the torrent file will download to your computer. It should take a few seconds for the file to be fully downloaded. So, you need to know that you’re not downloading the movie just yet – only its torrent file;
- Finally, open the torrent client on your computer and drag-and-drop the newly downloaded torrent file onto the client’s window. Additionally, you can double click on the torrent file and it will automatically open the client and begin to download. In case you’ve used a torrent client previously and still have it on your computer, the magnet file will open automatically;
- All there’s left is to wait. The client will connect to seeders to begin to download the torrent. At any moment, you can check how is this process going. Most importantly, you can see the current download speed and the estimated time of completion;
- Once completed, you can go ahead and play the movie. If you keep the torrent file (and the downloaded movie) on your computer, you will act as a seeder – allowing other torrent users to download the movie to their computers. So, why not help other users and seed the movie for some time?
Final Thoughts
That’s it, guys. Thanks for sticking to the end of our guide on how to download torrents. In case you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.
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