utorrent
A Beginner's Guide to BitTorrent
What is BitTorrent?
BitTorrent (often abbreviated to 'BT') is a protocol (a set of rules and description of how to do things) allowing you to download files quickly by allowing people downloading the file to upload (distribute) parts of it at the same time. BitTorrent is often used for distribution of very large files, very popular files and files available for free, as it is a lot cheaper, faster and more efficient to distribute files using BitTorrent than a regular download.
µTorrent is a BitTorrent client. A 'client' in this case is a computer program that follows the rules of a protocol. For example, HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the protocol used to download web pages and other content - like this page - and your HTTP client (or browser) is the program you use to get those web pages. Some popular browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Opera. To an extent, they all work the same way because they follow the same set of rules.
Just as there are multiple HTTP clients, there are multiple BitTorrent clients, and µTorrent is one such BT client.
How do I download files using BitTorrent?
Just like you need a URL like 'www.livechd.blogspot.com' to go to a web site and download content, you need a 'torrent file', a small file that tells the BitTorrent client the necessary info to download the content you want. This is generally obtained from a torrent website. Many websites offer torrents as one method of downloading files. They're known as indexes or trackers - there is a subtle difference between the two. (The Wikipedia article on BitTorrent trackers explains the difference.)
Once you've obtained the torrent file from wherever, you simply need to import it into µTorrent. There are several ways of doing this.
Click File then Add Torrent in µTorrent (or press CTRL+O) and locate the torrent file.
Double-click the torrent file. (Only works if you've associated .torrent files with µTorrent - µTorrent asks you if it should do this the first time you run it. If you clicked 'No', you can do this by going to Options, then Preferences in µTorrent, then clicking Associate with .torrent files under Windows Integration.)
(advanced) Click File then Add Torrent from URL in µTorrent (or press CTRL+U), and enter a URL from which the .torrent file can be obtained.
µTorrent finished downloading, but now it says it's Seeding. What does that mean?
Seeding is where you leave your BitTorrent client open after you've finished your download to help distribute it (right click the torrent, then hit Remove).
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