That’s the question really. I hear the terms metadata and torrents thrown around all the time when talking about internet and privacy, but I don’t really understand them and when I tried googling torrents I was just confused. Can someone explain one or both like I’m 5?
I good example that’s completely legal is Linux distributions. They are licensed in a way that lets you share the file with other people so there is no risk of illegal activity.
You need torrent software installed that can speak the language of the torrenting protocol. Examples would be QBitTorrent, Transmission, and uTorrent, but there are others as well.
For the general process, you would download and install torrenting software, then you would go to a page that has torrent files (like this Ubuntu page), save the
.torrentfile and then from the software open that file, this will begin the download. Once it’s done, you have a full copy of the files on your computer.The only thing unique about torrents is that you are downloading parts of the file from a bunch of other people that have a copy, instead of downloading the whole file from just one single server.
I just want to quickly jot down that a fair bit of torrents are delivered through “magnet links” instead of .torrent files. An example is Arch Linux which has both.
In most cases after you install a torrent client such as Qbittorrent, Deluge, Transmission or what have you, your system will automatically recognize magnet links and will offer to launch the software to handle it properly once you click it.
cc @shadowSprite@lemmy.world
Yes, thank you. I was going to explain that as well but asl owanted to keep it as basic and simple as possible. Honestly, I can’t recall the last time I actually alsaved and opened a torrent file, I’ve always used magnet links.
If your computer doesn’t automatically open a magnet link when you click on it (usually you’ll just see a 🧲 that you can click on), you should be able to right click that icon to copy the link. Often the client will have an option to enter the magnet link when you select File>Open.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone “CC” someone else outside of business emails. Man, I like it here.
What is the difference between a magnet link and a torrent file?
For actually getting torrents loaded into the client software, there’s basically no difference. They both contain the information needed to start downloading the content.
A torrent file just has the information needed to start the download, kind of like a text file.
A magnet link is similar to any other link, like
http://example.com/SomeFile.torrent. They’re a bit more complicated because the websiteexample.commight remove or change the location ofSomeFile.torrentand then any of the existing links won’t work. Magnet links aren’t affected by that sort of thing. I say this with the caveat that I honestly don’t really know or understand them fully because, like I first said, it doesn’t really matter.Wow, that was super informative. Thank you!
All of you commenting have been so much nicer than everyone on the tech pages. I don’t even go there because everyone is all “Linux is God, if you don’t understand everything about it why are you even on lemmy lolololol” and I just want some building blocks to start my knowledge :)
On that topic, know of any good torrent clients for windows that don’t give your computer herpes, then cancer to the herpes?
I can’t speak for the Windows side as I’m one of those Linux users. But the ones I mentioned are ones I know off the top of my head because I see them mentioned often.