How Torrent Works - How It Works

How Torrent Works - Simple Explanation:

The torrent file usually named after whatever you download, that's not the full package though it just lets your computer know what it's looking for. To read that file you need a client something like utorrent or BitTorrent, which manages the download and assembles the fine assembling. Assembling that file is really complicated work. 

When it becomes a torrent your file gets broken down into thousands of tiny snippets and the torrent file lets you know where to find each one. One might be on a computer in Singapore another in Brazil but the client lets you download all of them separately and reassemble them on your computer and once each chunk of data is safely on your computer. You then start sending it out again sharing the parts of the file you have while you look for the ones you don't.

To figure out where those snippets, you need a tracking system typically a server that specified the initial torrent file. It keeps track of who have which snippets, giving you a real-time map where all the different parts of the file are.

P2P Network File Sharing

The term “torrent” refers to a file shared through a decentralized, peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing network. P2P file sharing allows users to exchange files without uploading these to a server.

In peer-to-peer (P2P) networking, a group of computers are linked together with equal permissions and responsibilities for processing data. Unlike traditional client-server networking, no devices in a P2P network are designated solely to serve or to receive data. Each connected machine has the same rights as its “peers”, and can be used for the same purposes. 

In a traditional client-server network model, if a server goes down, it can take the whole network with it. But in P2P, if a single device goes down, the others on the network can help pick up the slack. They also help ensure network traffic doesn’t get bottlenecked at one device, since traffic handling is distributed across many computers.

This P2P file sharing allowed users to swap large files over the internet. Rather than using central servers for this purpose, they used their worldwide user base’s computers as both client and server (ie. P2P), effectively offloading processing loads onto their users.

Even instant message (IM) clients can serve this function, since the majority of them support sharing files in addition to chatting.

What Are Torrents?

A torrent file or meta-info file is a computer file that contains metadata. Metadata is "data about the data" it doesn't contain the actual data you trying to download but it contains the information about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms.

A torrent file contains information about those files, such as their names, folder structure, and sizes obtained via cryptographic hash values for verifying file integrity.

How Torrent Works?

Traditionally, a computer joins a BitTorrent swarm by loading a .torrent file into a BitTorrent client. The BitTorrent client contacts a “tracker” specified in the .torrent file. The tracker is a special server that keeps track of the connected computers. The tracker shares their IP addresses with other BitTorrent clients in the swarm, allowing them to connect to each other.

Once connected, a BitTorrent client downloads bits of the files in the torrent in small pieces, downloading all the data it can get. Once the BitTorrent client has some data, it can then begin to upload that data to other BitTorrent clients in the swarm. In this way, everyone downloading a torrent is also uploading the same torrent. This speeds up everyone’s download speed. If 10,000 people are downloading the same file, it doesn’t put a lot of stress on a central server. Instead, each downloader contributes upload bandwidth to other downloaders, ensuring the torrent stays fast.

Importantly, BitTorrent clients never actually download files from the tracker itself. The tracker participates in the torrent only by keeping track of the BitTorrent clients connected to the swarm, not actually by downloading or uploading data.

FAQs related to Torrents/Torrenting

Question: What is torrenting used for?
Answer: Torrenting is used to download files, the only difference is that files are not just downloading from one server but many, and you are also uploading files after you have downloaded them successfully.

Question: Is torrenting illegal?
Answer: No, torrenting is not illegal, torrenting is slan term used for P2P(peer to peer) network downloads, the technique is not illegal but the files you are trying to download can be illegal.

Question: Who makes torrents?
Answer: Anyone who wants to share the files on the internet through BitTorrent protocol.

Question: How Torrents are made?
Answer: By using any BitTorrent Client, Open it, Goto File>create torrent, Select the files and or directories, you can use one or more trackers, but in general one is enough. Save the torrent and send it to your friends

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