Torrents for Luddites

Here is what you will need.

1. Up to date antivirus software. Avast and AVG are free so there are no excuses.
2. Up to date antispyware software. AVG, Ad-Aware, and Spybot Search & Destroy are free so no excuses.
3. A bit torrent client (might I suggest uTorrent)
4. Peer Guardian 2
5. A site from which to download torrents. Demonoid.com and/or stmusic.org are the best but require invites or an open enrollment period which, with Demonoid.com at least, are not infrequent but hard to catch if you aren't vigilant.

Step one.

Install Peer Guardian 2.
a.You don't have to run this program all the time but it absolutely must be running anytime you are using bit torrent or any other method of p2p sharing.

b. It should be updated at least once per day.

c. I use the default settings and I have every list blocked except "educational." You should probably block that one to. I just don't.

Step two.

Install uTorrent.
a. I recommend uTorrent because it is lightweight, easy, and has an encryption feature I suggest you use. Under Protocol Encryption I have Outgoing: set to Enable and the "Allow incoming legacy connections" box is checked. You don't have to check the box. Maybe you shouldn't check it. I have it checked and I'm OK with that.

b. Set up an isolated download location. If you aren't downloading huge files it might not be a bad idea to use a USB flash drive and just set that as the location in which pending and completed transfers are placed along with their torrent files. I have an old IDE drive which I screwed to the bottom of the inside of my desktop case. It isn't large or fast or special but I use it as a kind of holding area/cluttered junk yard of stuff I felt was worth keeping but not terribly important (funny pictures off the internet or whatever). On this drive I have two folders I use for bit torrent. One is called "torrents" and the other is called "unsorted." uTorrent puts all the torrents I download into the torrents file and once they are completed I move them to unsorted where they will eventually be named, altered, converted, or whatever happens to them on the way to their final destination.

c. Set up something other than the default bit torrent port. If you do not have an Xbox or Xbox 360 might I suggest using port 3074. If you do have an Xbox try port 3389. If you have a router you should enable UPnP port mapping in uTorrent and turn on UPnP in your router OR you must forward whatever port you use in uTorrent to your PC in your router's settings. This might involve static IPs and other things so you are better off just enabling UPnP in your router. If you are reading this you obviously have internet access so if you are unaware how to make these changes to your router I suggest using the internet to find out because I really don't want to have to try and walk anyone through it via IM or telephone. It's not hard and some day you'll have to learn to fly on your own so start flapping.

d. Don't be a leech. Set uTorrent to continue seeding a completed torrent until 175%. If you see a file has a setting > 1.0 then you can stop the torrent seeding. Until you hit 1.0 (1oo%) you have not given back as much as you have taken and should keep seeding. If you have a Demonoid.com or STMusic.org membership that began with an invite from me please remember that your overal ratio reflects on me so keep it >1. If you don't I will be very cross.


Step three.

Download torrent files
a. Download them to your desktop or a specific folder to start. Use the information provided. Don't download a torrent that says it has zero seeders. There's nobody sending the files so it might take forever to download the actual content if you are able to download it at all.

b. Opera has a built in bit torrent client so if you are trying to download torrent files in Opera it will want to open them itself. Circumvent that by right clicking the download link and choosing "save target as." The resulting file downloaded should end in ".torrent" and if it doesn't you are doing it wrong. Try again.

c. Double click on the files on the desktop and uTorrent will open them and display all the content this torrent will attempt to download. Uncheck anything you don't want to speed up the download.

d. When a torrent has completed downloading make sure you scan it before you do anything else with it. Scan the whole folder and be wary of any compressed files (.rar, .zip, .whatever) and don't open a .exe file that you've downloaded unless you damned well know what you are doing.

Step four.

???

Step five.

Profit!

---> If you use any of this information to download copyrighted material outside the bounds of the law then you should be aware that doing so runs the risk of being held accountable by agents of the law or litigious copyright holders and their nefarious representatives. If you download something illegal like copyrighted music, movies, games, books, comics, death star plans, terrorist propoganda, or underage Lithuanian horse porn and are subsequently sued, fined, jailed, extraordinarily renditioned, hauled to GITMO, or waterboarded it is not my fault or my responsibility. If you, though downloading files w/ bit torrent (even legal ones!), become infected with viruses, worms, malware, spyware, trojans, gonorrhea, or Lithuanian horse fleas I will accept no responsibility. You were warned. Take the proper precautions.