Where do you recommend I go to set up bit torrents on my computer? I'm a newbie, please be gentle.

I've had people recommend Torrentspy to me, but in my opinion, torrents are hugely overrated. Almost everything I've tried to download gives me absolutely awful speeds, like 5k/sec. I've had zero luck, but good hunting nevertheless. It's got to work for some people, you know?

Did you open up the proper port on your router/firewall?

Tania, check out Azureus. Open up port 6881 (I think), and go look for something interesting.

I second Azureus, although I've recently switched to BitComet because some sites I use have blocked users of Azureus.

If you want to get bootlegs try etree and dimeadozen. I also recommend btbbeat, especially for the torrents done by birdoo.

i download torrents regularly. heres my suggestions:

sites
pirate bay
demonoid
torrentbox
mininova

clients (programs that use the bittorrent protocol)
the aforementioned azureus
bittornado
g3 torrent
abc
and the official bittorrent client

hey, thanks smafty. i used to follow his torrents on torrentbox but he hadnt updated in a couple months and wondered what happened to him. his torrents are always top notch.

if you go to the faq at bt.etree.org you can get set up pretty easily

i swear by torrents and always use www.torrentspy.com or www.isohunt.com, never have speed issues, i regularly dl on average at 100kbs

Thanks, guys! I knew I could count on you -- am gonna look these up when I get home tonight.

Libble.com seems to focus on indie rock. I noticed someone is seeding the new Super Furry Animals. I'm downloading it now to see how good it is.

Any tips to be had about the best way to condust searches? I haven't had much luck with a few of the sites I've tried above. Also, how obscure can one get with these things? I'm looking for the goodness.

bumping for my pleasure

ok...quick question....i have zero knowledge about torrents.....

this torrentspy does a search ie a sopranos episode....i want to download it - click on the link and it downloads a torrent file - what now--> what client should i use?

i am being lazy and want to use the best thing to get crap like the sopranos episodes

is there a plugin that firefox can use to basically download these files?

Just get BitComet or some other torrent utility. I don't think a firefox plugin would be a good idea, because torrent software already uses a lot of system resources.

done - thanks.

For anybody who, like me, did not know about all of the firewall bidness, I found this walkthrough:

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~hamilton/btclientconfig.html

nice sig

thanks for the link

A word of caution on the torrents , particularly the Sopranos episodes:

The entire network at my school got shut down for a half-day a couple weeks ago (just before finals; a terrible time to not be able to get what you need).

Apparently someone had downloaded an episode of the Sopranos the day before. Somehow HBO or whoever owns the rights tracked it to the IP address for our school network. At that point all they could tell was a general location (CA maybe?) and who our ISP was (COX probably). HBO then contacts COX.

If our IP address had been assigned by COX to a regular residence, I'm pretty sure the protocol would be that, upon notice by HBO, COX would turn over the name of the individual whose account it was. I'm fairly sure that COX did, in fact, turn over the name and address of our school.

Since it was impossible to find out exactly who downloaded (school-wide wireless), COX gave us "notice" and shut us down for a few hours. They have to do something like this to comply with the DMCA and not be deemed "contributory infringers" by HBO for enabling us to download copyrighted stuff without consequence. [And you betta believe that HBO/MPAA would love to get their hands on COX/AOL/etc.'s deep pockets]

Anyway, they made clear that it would be worse next time we're busted, and that if anyone is found responsible they will grace a silver platter for some CR infringement litigation.

Not to be paranoid or anything (hi Dalen) but just wanted to let you know that BitTorrent is NOT anonymus and the MPAA and networks (or whoever owns their shit) is out there looking. The good news is that the iinvestigation efforts are focused on big networks right now, like universities, where the rights-holders can get the most bang for thier buck. You wouldn't believe how may college-student's parents will settle for $10,000 or more to keep a prosecution off their baby's record.

As for me, it just ain't worth it. Don't they sell Sopranos episodes on iTunes yet?

a word of advice for all torrents of hbo shows. either download peerguardian, or use azureus with the safepeer extension. both will block ip addresses from known bad sources. ive downloaded every season 6 episode of the sopranos as well as the whole first season of rome with the safepeer extension on top of azureus, and never have had a single problem with it.

ok...you guys scared the bejeebus out of me.......i have uninstalled all that shit.....

Don't they sell Sopranos episodes on iTunes yet?

christ if they did, i would be all over dat

Just for the record, HBO and AOL are the same company (AOL/Time Warner)

The lawyers will find a way to make this lawsuit happen.