Torrenting
“Where there's a will, there's a way.”
Or, I can't stop you doing things, so it's better to teach you the safest ways to do it and how to be careful, than to try to prevent you from doing it altogether.
Education over prohibition.
If only our governments thought this way too.
Contents
What is torrenting?
Torrents are a fairly old technology nowadays.
Basically, the files are stored on someone else's computer, and their software broadcasts the files' availability. The broadcasting happens via some dark magic, and then websites and other apps can detect these broadcasts. With the right instructions (more dark wizardry), the app on your computer can receive the files directly from their computer.
This is known as P2P, peer-to-peer file sharing.
Another layer of this dark magic is the trackers, which collate file listings from many many people. Each person may have all, or part, of the required files, and the application co-ordinates the transfers such that your computer can receive parts of the files from whichever computer is ready to upload it to yours at that moment.
You see? Dark magical wizardry.
People who don't believe in magic are delulu.
Risks
There are serious and very real risks associated with torrenting.
Torrenting is often used for sharing software and media that is illegal, be it pirated, cracked, or illegal content itself. You are responsible for checking the law in your country and making the right choices; and if you decide to use it for illegal purposes, you should protect yourself and prepare to suffer the consequences.
If you decide to use torrenting for immoral, debased purposes, you are going to whichever hell claims your disgusting soul.
Here I could shill for a VPN service, but I'm not going to. Well, even VPN services come with their own slew of risks!
The risks
Your network traffic may be being watched by your , the police, your government, etc.
Files may contain malicious code that steals information about your computer, your identity, your security, your cameras, and more. This is more dangerous than the police watching you — you can lose your email accounts, social media accounts, bank accounts, your money, your identity.
Due Diligence
Don't make rash decisions
For apps:
Check what the app installers should look like — any deviation means that it is probably fake
Block installers from the internet if possible
Block installed apps from the internet
Use a to test out the installation of apps before deciding to install them on your actual OS
Cancel installation at first feeling of doubt
Have Task Manager open, ready to kill the installation app if it seems to be rogue
For video:
Open the media app first, then drag the video file into the app.
Don't open the video file by double-clicking it in the file browser, because it might be an disguised as a video.
Best practices when searching for torrents
DON'T TRUST ANYTHING
how to choose a torrent index / search website
look at link URLs before clicking on them
order by seeder quantity
check details!!!:
check for torrent creator username and their reputation
check torrent date
check other torrent metadata
check torrent title
look for comments on the torrent's page
compare the file list on the page with the file list shown in your torrent client app
use the magnet 🧲 link instead of downloading the
.torrentfileinstall an adblocker to try to prevent getting caught by annoying & malicious ads, invisible clickjackers (fullscreen invisible buttons), etc.
use → uBlock ORIGIN (not uBlock.org)
→ 🔗 Edge extension (current reviews indicate it isn't working)
Why not uBlock.org? (explain later)
Why is Chrome Store warning me about it? (look on their GitHub page for the info)
How to choose a website
DON'T TRUST ANYTHING OR ANYONE.
Try Reddit first. There's a lot of chat on there, regularly updated.
Many websites get cloned, their s get mimicked with similar names and s.
Many websites get hacked, so they look identical, have the same URL, and even function the same as before, but their torrents have been replaced with malicious torrents — the files may even look like the original files, but the installers will install malicious software instead. This is scary but you can avoid it by paying close attention.
Search for the website address BEFORE going to the website itself. Google (etc) should show you posts from others who are warning if a site is malicious or has been compromised.
Desktop apps
DON'T USE UTORRENT
utorrent is just an advertising platform these days.
And fuq knows what data it is tracking and gathering about you and your devices.
qBittorrent
Open source, free, quite customisable. qBittorrent does probably everything you could want from it.
It runs on the main computer OSes: Linux, macOS and Windows; and even OS/2, FreeBSD and .
It supports dark mode.
Its UI is built in QT, hence the name qBittorrent.
Transmission
Transmission is a very lightweight app and runs on all the major OS platforms.
It also has a web UI, and can run a background daemon service.
On Linux, it has a dark mode that matches the GTK settings (and maybe QT settings under KDE). On Windows it doesn't seem to have a dark mode.
Deluge
Mobile apps
I haven't found many torrenting apps for mobile devices, but I do recall one called Flud on Android.
Flud (Android)
→ 🔗 Flud on Google Play Store or → 🔗 Flud+ (paid, no ads) on Google Play Store
I don't remember using this app much but who torrents on a mobile device?
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