Hi...can some1 pls walk me thru the steps of how to download a torrent off of mininova?? im soo confused..lol thanx!

whats a torrent?? whats a mininova??

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Here is a writeup I did at cfans. Btw, I know what you are going for and I am downloading the IDOL EXTRA vid now.

Quick recap of how torrents work for those that are having difficulty understanding! Hope this helps..

Now basically, how a "torrent" works is this....the principle being it is a peer to peer sharing scheme that involved participation by all who are downloading the file. A "torrent" is basically a "tracker" file that contains information as to where the file is in the internet world. The actual file you are downloading most likely starts at the creator's PC. That person initially "seeds" the file. When other people start to download the file, they then become a "seeder" (which means they then also have the ability to share the file). When it works right, the tracker system (web site that is hosting the torrent file and keeps track of who is currently sharing the file) will get pieces of the file from many sources (the seeders) and thus give you a faster download speed than if you were downloading from a single source. If you have ever used say WINMX and are downloading from more than 1 person , it is the same principle. You need a torrent client (program used to download and share torrent files) in order to utilize the torrent peer to peer sharing system. There are many out there but some of the popular ones are Bittorrent, BitComet, Azurus..etc... they just have bells and whistles to differentiate themselves.

In order for this scheme to work, once you finish downloading your file, try to leave the client running as long as possible because you are then a resource to others that want to download the file. Download speeds of 500k/s are not uncommon when everone participates. If you go to the stats page of the website hosting the torrent you can see who is currently downloading (leechers), who has finished downloading the full file and are now sharing (seeders). Keep in mind as you will see, even though you haven't fully downloaded the complete file, you are sharing the pieces that you have already downloaded. Beware there are some sites that keep track of your participation (bytes downloaded vs. uploaded) and if your ratio gets too low, they will ban you from the site..so there are checks and balances to keep everyone participating in some fashion. Just imagine if you wanted a file but there were no seeders. Also keep in mind the longer a file has been posted, chances are that it will be difficult to find seeders so it would be in your best interest to download a fresh torrent that has been posted and has activity in it. Large file sizes ...eg...over 100 megs really benefit from the torrent file sharing system as you can imagine.

There are so many sites that utilize the bittorrent sharing scheme and more info can be found there but here is one starting point that may answer more questions you may have.

http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/1.html

To get the clients go here.

Get bittorrent or Azureus.

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wow...that's a little complicated but thanks Vinman

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thanx soo much!! i downloaded bitorrent but i was jw if it is normal that it takes extremely long??

It depends on the seeder, and it depends on your internet connection. If you're on dial-up, then it's obviously going to take VERY long.. about approx. 1-5 kbps (kilobytes per second) speed

DSL / IDSN Connections will have about 10-100 kbps, and Cable Internet will give you above 100 kbps to about a megabyte per second.

It also depends on the one seeding the file, depending on their internet speed as well, but people who usually remain to share (seed) the file usually have fast connections.. so it may be depending on your internet connection now.

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I use Mininova & Torrent Spy

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Thanks for this. I started downloading the torrent using utorrent, but got a little freaked when I saw I had UPLOADED some stuff, too, and had no idea what that might be. I think I understand now.

Thank you.

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Bump^ wow this is great u posted this for all.
But to add to it:
be warn also , that when downloading any thing, your anitvirus defintions should be up to date , as some may contain viruses or even spyware. also some large files are winziped or winrar. ( which means they are broken down into many smaller files) . they need to be extracted with the appropriated programs , most of the time the seeder will give you a text file or nfo file that can be read with notepad. Good hunting and be careful too.

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