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Transfer your files in a jiffy
The “buzz idea” of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing, when Napster was released in 2000, suddenly took the public limelight and it was the hottest subject around. Swapping MP3 files over the P2P network turned out to be a “killer application” for internet. Since the release of Napster, numerous P2P clients or protocols have been developed including Kazaa Media Desktop, Gnutella, iMesh, Direct Connect, Freenet and FastTrack. The latest fad in P2P file sharing is BitTorrent.
Peer-to-Peer networking which simply means “equal communicating with equal” actually uses the client server model. The P2P term was introduced in the mid-1980s by local area network (LAN) vendors to describe their connectivity architecture. The P2P model appears in a variety of applications (file sharing, instant messaging (IM), resource allocation, etc.).
Metcalfe’s Law can be used to explain the popularity and success of P2P model: “Network value rises by the square of the number of terminals.” Simply this means that more peers increase the resources and performance of the P2P network.
A P2P file sharing application makes it possible to share music, software, documents, movies and games over internet, on a one-to-one basis, without the intervention of a centralized governing authority. P2P also eliminates the bottleneck of centralized resources (Http, Ftp, etc.).
P2P is now entering the mainstream of internet communications. P2P can prove to be very useful for distributing files to a large number of people with limited resources. P2P clients can also be used to illegally exchange files that are protected by copyright, but then so can other internet protocols and applications, ranging from HTTP and FTP to email and instant messaging. Majority of users is of the opinion that P2P file sharing clients should not be considered illegal.
A revolutionary and relatively new P2P file sharing protocol or software application is BitTorrent, which is designed for rapid file distribution, fairness (“upload burden” is shared), and efficient use of network bandwidth. This is accomplished by utilizing the upload capacity of peers (each peer is expected to upload), allowing peers to download parts of the same file from each other.
BitTorrent can be described as an “ad-hoc P2P network.” BitTorrent clients are fast, reliable, and extremely easy to use. It is best suited for sharing and transferring large and latest files. Bandwidth and server resources required are very moderate, compared to the size of files being shared (unlike HTTP, FTP, Kazaa Media Desktop, etc.).
Legitimate use
BitTorrent should be considered just another file transfer protocol (like HTTP or FTP), which is designed with the intention to reduce the load on the serves, for distributing files of enormous size. BitTorrent is Red Hat sponsored, to distribute their “Linux distributions” and other products. Many other Linux distributions are also available via BitTorrent, and in the future there will be many more.
The program is not intended to share only copy right files illegally
In BitTorrent, P2P network users connect directly to each other to send and receive portions of a file (known as segments). This segmentation is the key to BitTorrent’s increased efficiency and performance. The benefit of segmentation is that is that you can download segments of a file from someone, even if he/she doesn’t have the entire file (known as seed). When a new torrent is posted to a tracker, someone must seed it in order for it to be available to others.
As you are downloading some segments of a file, someone else can download segments of the same file from you. In this model of sharing (downloading & uploading segments of the same file at the same time), availability and speed of downloading increases for the participating peers, and network bandwidth is managed and utilized as efficiently as possible.
There is a central server (known as tracker) in the network, which coordinates the action of all peers. The tracker also gathers statistics such as number of transfers, number of seeds, number of peers who only have a partial copy, and performance of peers. The tracker informs BitTorrent clients about other peers who are sharing or interested in a specific file, and manages connections between peers. The tracker has no knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported by the system with relatively limited bandwidth available to tracker. You can configure or setup your own computer or Web server to act as a tracker.
Downloading of a certain file is done by first downloading a small metafile with a “.torrent” extension from a variety of sources. These sources include websites, IRC, forums, email, etc. The “.torrent” file contains the address of the “tracking server” which is used to locate other peers, interested in sharing the specific file. The “.torrent” file also contains the cryptographic hashing information (generally SHA1) to verify or confirm the integrity of data. This file is then used by BitTorrent client to initiate the download of the actual file.
Pros
BitTorrent doesn’t work like other P2P products or protocols. It focus on segmentation and load balancing (the users should upload at the same time they are downloading or anti-leeching). So when you are downloading, you will be uploading some parts of the same file at the same time.
According to BitTorrent’s official website: “The key to cheap file distribution is to tap the unutilized upload capacity of your customers. It’s free. Their contribution grows at the same rate as their demand, creating limitless scalability for a fixed cost.”
BitTorrent is designed to work better than other file-transfer protocols as the number of peers participating in the system, which are interested in a certain file, increases. The unique advantage of using this program is: the more users sharing a specific file, the higher the downloading speed. It is also possible for the peers to share an entire file, even if there is no peer in the system with the entire file (when all the segments of a file are distributed among peers). It is always good to have a complete file in a swarm (name given to a group of clients that are connected for a particular file), but it is not vital.
Downloading files
Unlike most other P2P protocols, typically there is no search facility available in BitTorrent clients to find files by name. So there is no protocol overhead for passing search queries amongst the peers. There is no central database of files. It is often up to the user to find and download .torrent files. The peers who want to distribute a file must run a tracker (or use someone else’s), and distribute that tracker’s address in their own created “.torrent” file. Most clients of BitTorrent are just used for the downloading of desired files with the help of “.torrent” files.
Most other P2P clients install spyware or adware on your computer. The official BitTorrent client contains no spyware or adware. So no annoying pop up advertisements are launched. It is “Open Source” and is released under the “MIT License.”
Considering an array of features provided in this software, by now, you must have decided to give it a shot. So, all you need to do is to follow the steps given below and viola!
— Download the official client
— Install the client.
— Find the .torrent file from the sources discussed above.
— Click on the .torrent file in the Web browser or save the file to disk and double click on the saved file. Client will be launched to start the download process of the actual file. You can also manually add the .torrent file (name or path of file) in the client.
BitTorrent is extremely suitable for distributing large files with limited resources, and is probably the future of downloading.
The writer
