what is torrent? what is the advantage of downloading through torrent? which torrent application is the best?

Answer 1

...."A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is a network that relies primarily on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively low number of servers. P2P networks are typically used for connecting nodes via largely ad hoc connections. Such networks are useful for many purposes. Sharing content files (see file sharing) containing audio, video, data or anything in digital format is very common, and realtime data, such as telephony traffic, is also passed using P2P technology....."

"....BitTorrent is the name of a peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution protocol, and is the name of a free software implementation of that protocol. The protocol was originally designed and created by programmer Bram Cohen, and is now maintained by BitTorrent Inc. BitTorrent is designed to distribute large amounts of data widely without incurring the corresponding consumption in costly server and bandwidth resources....."

Azureus is a Java-based BitTorrent client, with support for I2P and Tor anonymous communication protocols. It is free software and cross-platform, and currently runs under Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and Unix. Azureus was first released in June 2003 at Sourceforge.net, mostly to experiment with the Standard Widget Toolkit from Eclipse. It is one of the most popular BitTorrent clients.

Get it right here,
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

Answer 2

Well torrent is a protocol just like P2P(peer 2 Peer network) the advantage downloading through torrents is that you can download very big files like entire movies and stuff and the chances of the torrent links to be dead are very less the best torrent client would be that you use Bitcoment here is the link

www.bitcomet.com

Answer 3

Torrent is used to distribute file in peer-to-peer file sharing network.
Advantage is large data can be distribute easily through the network.
The best torrent application for me is bitcomet 0.70

Answer 4

To share a file or group of files through BitTorrent, clients first create a “torrent”. This is a small file which contains metadata about the files to be shared, and about the host computer that coordinates the file distribution. The exact information contained in the torrent file depends on the version of the BitTorrent protocol. However, a torrent file always has the suffix .torrent. Torrent files contain an “announce” section, which specifies the URL of the tracker, and an “info” section which contains (suggested) names for the files, their lengths, the piece length used, and a SHA-1 hash code for each piece, which clients should use to verify the integrity of the data they receive. Clients who have finished downloading the file may also choose to act as seeders, providing a complete copy of the file. After the torrent file is created, a link to it is placed on a website or elsewhere, and it is registered with a tracker. BitTorrent trackers maintain lists of the clients currently participating in the torrent.
The computer with the initial copy of the file is referred to as the initial seeder.


Downloading torrents and sharing files
Using a web browser, users navigate to the site listing the torrent, download it, and open it in a BitTorrent client. After opening the torrent, the BitTorrent client connects to the tracker, which provides it with a list of clients currently downloading the file or files. A group of peers on a BitTorrent or P2P connected with each other to share a particular torrent is generally referred to as a swarm.

Initially, there may be no other peers in the swarm, in which case the client connects directly to the initial seeder and begins to request pieces. The BitTorrent protocol breaks down files into a number of much smaller pieces, typically a quarter of a megabyte (256 kB) in size. Larger file sizes typically have larger pieces. For example, a 4.37-GB file may have a piece size of 4 MB (4096 kB). Pieces are checked as they are received using a hash algorithm to ensure that they are error-free.

As peers enter the swarm, they begin sharing pieces with one another, instead of downloading directly from the seeder. Clients incorporate mechanisms to optimize their download and upload rates, for example using a tit for tat scheme. Peers download pieces in a random order, to increase the opportunity to exchange data, which is only possible if two peers have a different subset of the file.

The effectiveness of the peer-to-peer data exchange depends largely on the policies used by clients to determine whom to send data to. Clients will prefer to send data to peers that send data back to them, which encourages fair sharing, but strict policies often result in suboptimal situations, where newly joined peers are unable to receive any data (because they don't have any pieces yet to share themselves) and two peers with a good connection between them do not exchange data simply because neither of them wants to take the initiative. To counter these effects, the official BitTorrent client uses a mechanism called “optimistic unchoking”, where the client will reserve a portion of its available bandwidth for sending pieces to random peers (not necessarily known-good partners, so called preferred peers), in hopes of discovering even better partners and to ensure newcomers get a chance to join the swarm.

Answer 5

try limewire, not sure what it is but heard its like emule