Torrent is the online element that allow us to enjoy all sorts of content for absolutely zero price tag and there are millions of users out there who take advantage of this service (For the discussion on illegal downloading, it’s another topic we will discuss later). Nearly the entire world has an application running on their computers or mobile device that gives them access to a variety of movies, TV shows, games and immense amounts of data content through these torrents.
We use different torrent clients/apps on a daily basis but most of us do not even know the phenomenon it follows. Whatever confusion and myths you have regarding torrents, this article is intended to provide you with the information about torrents and their working.
Torrents are simply ‘files’ that possess information related to other files and folders that are to be distributed. When you download a movie torrent, this ‘torrent file’ contains necessary information which will let you get that movie.
A torrent is a file that has a size that is no bigger than a few KBs of data. However, these tiny files are able to trigger the downloading of even bigger files and this is carried out through one system or another.
Simply, when you’re ‘torrenting’ a file, it pretty much means that you are transferring a file over a Peer to Peer (P2P). A P2P network is a type of network infrastructure that is created when two or more computers are connected to share resources without the mediation of any server.
The files containing your desired content in chunks are then transferred in tiny bits but they are completely downloaded on your system and finally the files present in your storage.
If you want to download these chunk files via torrenting, those files should be present completely with at least one person (which is also known as a seed) or in bits and pieces divided among other people on different servers.
Torrent apps just serve as a bridge that helps you obtain the files from other seeders and pull them towards either your mobile device or computer for downloading.
A torrent file and app itself hold all the necessary information where the bits and pieces of target files are present on different computer systems. So, you do not have a torrent app and torrent file (that contains all the information about seeder’s server), then you will not be able to download the larger files associated with the torrent file.
Seeds, Peers & Leechers:
While downloading any file, you come across three terms that are very important in the universe of torrenting. They are:
- Seeds
- Peers
- Leechers
Seed:
A seed is a person that has the complete file stored on its active system, not bits and pieces lying around.
Peer:
Peers are people who do not have the complete file but chunks or pieces of these files instead.
Leech:
Leechers are highly effective downloaders who download the actual files but refrain other users from downloading those files from them. In short, they do not want to share the love with other members in a torrent realm.