We will be adding torrent links to all of our downloads from now onwards. So please donate your upload bandwidth to help us reduce our very large bandwidth levels.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE A MEMBER TO USE OUR TORRENT SECTION

All you have to do is download the file via our direct download link, and then after download the torrent file and open it with a bit torrent client. We recommend BitComet

Here is an excellent guide about torrents. Thanks to TorrentSpy for the information.

Original location: http://www.torrentspy.com/help.asp

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What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth. The key philosophy of BitTorrent is that users should upload (transmit outbound) at the same time they are downloading (receiving inbound.) In this manner, network bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible. BitTorrent is designed to work better as the number of people interested in a certain file increases, in contrast to other file transfer protocols.

Where can I download the BitTorrent program?

There are several choices here, because unlike some peer to peer applications (such as Kazaa), the BitTorrent implementation is open source. This means that programmers are free to take the source code to the program and modify it, if they feel there is something they'd like to change. Here are the various clients of which I am aware:

Microsoft Windows (please put the name of the client into google.com to find a download location)

* BitComet - (Recommended Client) - BitComet is a p2p file-sharing freeware fully compatible with Bittorrent, which is one of the most popular p2p protocol designed for high-speed distribution of 100MB or GB sized files. BitComet is a powerful, clean, fast, and easy-to-use bittorrent client. It supports simultaneous downloads, download queue, selected downloads in torrent package, fast-resume, chatting, disk cache, speed limits, port mapping, proxy, ip-filter, etc.

* Azureus - (Recommended Client) - A very nice Java client that incorporates a full-featured GUI with extensive visualizations/statistics about the transfer. You will need the 1.4 JRE installed to run this, which can be obtained from this link. See also: Screen shots.

* The Shad0w's experimental client - This client incorporates the codebase of the official version as well as all the improvements of the experimental version, below. Additionally, there are some misc. bug fixes, improvements from the latest development CVS sources, a user preferences feature that remembers its settings, and more. I highly recommend this version! (alternate) (alternate 2)

* burst! - This client features a smaller memory footprint compared to the others, due to replacing the wxPython GUI with one written in Delphi. The GUI lets you control multiple transfers from a single window, in addition to many other handy features such as a built-in TorrentSpy-like capability. It uses the same Python back-end as The Shad0w's client so you also get all of the recent developments included therein.

* burst plus! - A client which is based on the burst base and includes Spanish language support, as well as some other additions.

* SimpleBT - Another fork of the burst code base that features Chinese language support.

* ABC ("Another BitTorrent Client") - This is a relatively new client that includes many of the most recent changes in the experimental versions, as well as other added features such as controling multiple downloads from a single window, queueing, automatic seeding, etc. See also: Sourceforge page.

* Official client - This is the "official" client in that it is the latest supported version from Bram Cohen, architect of BitTorrent. It has the fewest features of all the clients, and releases are much more conservative than the experimental versions. Use this if you want stability but don't need any of the common features of the other clients, such as upload rate limiting. See also: (CVS view), Sourceforge page.

* Eike Frost's Experimental client - This is based on the official version, with patches to allow upload rate control and show statistics about the number of peers and seeds, among other things. New in the "-2" revision is support for displaying additional details about the peers that are connected, as well as some annoyance and bug fixes.

* Personal Torrent Collector (PTC) - This is an alternative GUI interface to the Python BitTorrent client. It has support for a number of interesting features, such as the ability to control the total bandwidth usage of a group of BitTorrent transfers, and RSS syndication for organizing torrent files. See also: SourceForge page.

* Shareaza - Newer public beta versions of this program now include BitTorrent support, in addition to the eDonkey2k and Gnutella protocols. However, the BitTorrent support may still have bugs, and some things (such as seeding a file) may not be as straightforward as with dedicated BitTorrent clients.

* BitTorrent++ - This is an alternative to the official client. It supports extra functionality such as multiple downloads from a single GUI. Some people (myself included) have experienced major bugs with this program, so consider it unstable and use a different client unless you want to experiment. It appears to be abandoned and has not had any bug fixes in a long time. Therefore, since these bugs have the ability to adversely affect the performance of the BitTorrent swarm, so pleae do not use this client.

I've installed BitTorrent, now what? There's no program to run!

BitTorrent is not like other peer-to-peer applications (such as Winmx, Kazaa, Gnutella, etc.) in that it does not have its own "universe." Put another way, BT lives on top of the Web, which means that all of the searching/listing of available files is done on the web. When you find a file you want to download, you click on it and the BitTorrent client program will run and ask you where to put it, and then start downloading. See the links section for some starting points on the web if you're new.

I just installed BitTorrent but whenever I click on a link I just get a small file and nothing happens?

Try closing and restarting your web browser. When BitTorrent installs, it registers a new MIME-Type (application/x-bittorrent) and this change will not take effect until the next time the web browser is opened.

What do all these words mean? (seeding, uploading, share rating, etc.)

Here is a brief list of words associated with BitTorrent and their meanings.

torrent

Usually this refers to the small metadata file you receive from the web server (the one that ends in .torrent.) Metadata here means that the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself. This is what is sent to your computer when you click on a download link on a website. You can also save the torrent file to your local system, and then click on it to open the BitTorrent download. This is useful if you want to be able to re-open the torrent later on without having to find the link again.

In some uses, it can also refer to everything associated with a certain file available with BitTorrent. For example, someone might say "I downloaded that torrent" or "that server has a lot of good torrents", meaning there are lots of good files available via BitTorrent on that server.

peer

A peer is another computer on the internet that you connect to and transfer data. Generally a peer does not have the complete file, otherwise it would be called a seed. Some people also refer to peers as leeches, to distinguish them from those generous folks who have completed their download and continue to leave the client running and act as a seed.

seed

A computer that has a complete copy of a certain torrent. Once your client finishes downloading, it will remain open until you click the Finish button (or otherwise close it.) This is known as being a seed or seeding. You can also start a BT client with a complete file, and once BT has checked the file it will connect and seed the file to others. Generally, it's considered good manners to continue seeding a file after you have finished downloading, to help out others. Also, when a new torrent is posted to a tracker, someone must seed it in order for it to be available to others. Remember, the tracker doesn't know anything of the actual contents of a file, so it's important to follow through and seed a file if you upload the torrent to a tracker.

reseed

When there are zero seeds for a given torrent (and not enough peers to have a distributed copy), then eventually all the peers will get stuck with an incomplete file, since no one in the swarm has the missing pieces. When this happens, someone with a complete file (a seed) must connect to the swarm so that those missing pieces can be transferred. This is called reseeding. Usually a request for a reseed comes with an implicit promise that the requester will leave his or her client open for some time period after finishing (to add longevity to the torrent) in return for the kind soul reseeding the file.

swarm

The group of machines that are collectively connected for a particular file. For example, if you start a BitTorrent client and it tells you that you're connected to 10 peers and 3 seeds, then the swarm consists of you and those 13 other people.

tracker

A server on the Internet that acts to coordinate the action of BitTorrent clients. When you open a torrent, your machine contacts the tracker and asks for a list of peers to contact. Periodically throughout the transfer, your machine will check in with the tracker, telling it how much you've downloaded and uploaded, how much you have left before finishing, and the state you're in (starting, finished download, stopping.) If a tracker is down and you try to open a torrent, you will be unable to connect. If a tracker goes down during a torrent (i.e., you have already connected at some point and are already talking to peers), you will be able to continue transferring with those peers, but no new peers will be able to contact you. Often tracker errors are temporary, so the best thing to do is just wait and leave the client open to continue trying.

downloading

Receiving data FROM another computer.

uploading

Sending data TO another computer.

share rating

If you are using the experimental client with the stats-patch, you will see a share rating displayed on the GUI panel. This is simply the ratio of your amount uploaded divided by your amount downloaded. The amounts used are for the current session only, not over the history of the file. If you achieve a share ratio of 1.0, that would mean you've uploaded as much as you've downloaded. The higher the number, the more you have contributed. If you see a share ratio of "oo", this means infinity, which will happen if you open a BT client with a complete file (i.e., you seed the file.) In this case you download nothing since you have the full file, and so anything you send will cause the ratio to reach infinity. Note: The share rating is just a number that is displayed for your convenience. It does not directly affect any aspect of the client at all. In general, out of courtesy to others you should strive to keep this ratio as high as possible, of course.

distributed copies

In some versions of the client, you will see the text "Connected to n seeds; also seeing n.nnn distributed copies." A seed is a machine with the complete file. However, the swarm can collectively have a complete copy (or copies) of the file, and that is what this is telling you. Referring again to the "people at a table" analogy, consider the case where the book has 10 pages, and person A has pp.1-5 and B has pp.6-10. Collectively, A and B have a complete copy of the book, even though no one person has the whole thing. In other words, even if there are no seeds, as long as there is at least one distributed copy of the file everyone can eventually get a complete file. Meditate on this, the Zen of BitTorrent, grasshopper.

choked

This is a term used in the description of the BitTorrent protocol. It refers to the state of an uploader, i.e. the thread that sends data to another peer. When a connection is choked, it means that the transmitter doesn't currently want to send anything on that link. A BT client signals that it's choked to other clients for a number of reasons, but the most common is that by default a client will only maintain --max_uploads active simultaneous uploads, the rest will be marked choked. (The default value is 4 and this is the same setting that experimental client GUI lets you adjust.) A connection can also be choked for other reasons, for example a peer downloading from a seed will mark his connection as choked since the seed is not interested in receiving anything. Note that since each connection is bidirectional and symmetrical, there are two choked flags for each connection, one for each Tx endpoint.

interested

Another term used in the protocol specification. This is the corollary to the choked flag, in that interested refers to the state of a downloader with respect to a connection. A downloader is marked as interested if the other end of the link has any pieces that the client wants, otherwise the connection is marked as not interested.

snubbed

If the client has not received anything after a certain period (default: 60 seconds), it marks a connection as snubbed, in that the peer on the other end has chosen not to send in a while. See the definition of choked for reasons why an uploader might mark a connection as choked. The real function of keeping track of this variable is to improve download speeds. Occasionally the client will find itself in a state where even though it is connected to many peers, it is choked by all of them. The client uses the snubbed flag in an attempt to prevent this situation. It notes that a peer with whom it would like to trade pieces with has not sent anything in a while, and rather than leaving it up to the optimistic choking to eventuall select that peer, it instead reserves one of its upload slots for sending to that peer. (Reference)

optimistic unchoking

Periodically, the client shakes up the list of uploaders and tries sending on different connections that were previously choked, and choking the connections it was just using. You can observe this action every 10 or 20 seconds or so, by watching the "Advanced" panel of one of the experimental clients.

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If you have any further questions please pm one of the moderating team for further assistance.

How to make your own torrent and upload it to http://www.uktrancealliance.com/forum/phpb...er/announce.php

http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/romeria/tutorial.htm

http://krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/maketorrent/index.phtml

A QUICK NOTE BEFORE READING THIS HELP

*The password for all the downloaded files from UKTA is turbotrance

*Please be kind and seed the file after downloading to help other users to complete their downloads and to help UKTA by donating your upload bandwidth, which would be a nice contribution to our site..

1 - WHAT IS A TORRENT AND HOW IT WORKS

Time ago jimbo made a good work explaining how the torrent system works.. then you will find some more information about torrents that would be useful to people who have never used the torrents, explained as simple as possible



Please take note of these concepts:

BitTorrent: (without spacing) is one of the client programs used to download torrent files (there are a lot of other clients, BitTorrent is just one of them).

Bit Torrent: is a file being shared on the Bit Torrent Network, is the file you want to download which has an associated .torrent file called metafile.

Torrent File or Metafile: is a small file (about 10-50 Kb) with the extension .torrent containing the information necessary for your Bit Torrent Client to download a larger file: the Bit Torrent file (the one you want to download, usually a large .zip file).

2 - HOW TO START DOWNLOADING A TORRENT FILE FROM UKTA

The fist thing you need to be able to download a torrent file is a Bit Torrent Client, which is a small program that you have to download and install onto your hard disk.

The most popular clients at the moment are (just to mention a few):

BitComet

ABC (Yet Another BitTorrent Client)

Azareus

BitTorrent

Bittornado

If you’d like to find another client just search on Google, Yahoo, etc.. you will also find screenshots and a lot of information about them.

Once you have the client installed onto your hard disk, the process is as follow:

First, someone (Fly & Turbotrance) decides to create a Bit Torrent File. They put together the files that they want to release, start a tracker on the server and generate a .torrent file . This .torrent file is then submitted to UKTA site, and becomes available to the members. UKTA is seeding the torrent during the initial release.

UKTA’s users locate the bit torrent they want to download and click on the torrent link. The .torrent file (that small metafile) is downloaded to the user’s hard disk, and the file is passed to the user’s Bit Torrent client.

At the Bit Torrent client menu, the user has to choose “open” or “add” or some command like that (it will depend on the client used) in order the program opens the .torrent file.

The client uses the .torrent file to locate and contact the tracker for the Bit Torrent File (the large file the user wants to download).

The tracker gives to the user’s client the list of other users that are currently downloading the file, so the client can contact them in order to download from them. In other words: as the user is downloading the file, their client will be contacted by other user’s clients, and parts of the file will be uploaded to them.

*Important*: before downloading a torrent file, you should pay attention to some important details (you will see them at our Torrents Download Area, where you are redirected when you click on the torrent link to download):

*How many peers (leechers) are currently downloading the file.

*How many seeders are currently uploading the file.

*How many completed download files are available.

That information is useful to know in advance if you will be able to complete your download.

Example 1:

Seeders = 0
Peers (leechers) = 5
Completed downloads = 2
There are not seeders, but you will be able to complete your download anyway because there are 2 completed downloads among the 5 peers. There must be at least 1 completed file for you to be able to complete your download.

Example 2:

Seeders = 0
Peers (leechers) = 5
Completed downloads = 0
There are not seeders, and there isn’t any completed download .. in this case you won’t be able to complete your download, you will get a partial file at xx.xx % so you will have to wait for some kind seeder to start seeding the file so you can complete yours.

About speed: the more seeds / peers the faster speed.

3 – SEEDING THE FILE AFTER DOWNLOADING:

Once the user (peer/leecher) has completed the download and has the entire file, he becomes a seed. Seeding is the process of connecting to a torrent when you have a complete file in order to help other users (peers) to complete their downloads.

.. PLEASE be nice , and SEED THE FILE after completing your download. This way you will be helping to other users to complete their downloads and helping UKTA by donating your upload bandwidth.

*Important* If you are going to seed a file, you must keep both: the .torrent file and the .zip file .. yes, you need to unzip it to listen to the set .. but please do not delete that .zip file because the .torrent file is associated to it.

How to seed a file:

There are three ways to seed a file:

1) Leaving your bit torrent client open after downloading: once your client finishes downloading, it will automatically start seeding (uploading) the file and it will remain doing this until you click the Finish button or Close it.

2) Download the .torrent file to your hard disk to the same folder where the associated .zip file is located (both files must be together into the same folder). At your client menu you choose “add” or “open” .. perhaps you need to browse your hard disk to find the folder where you put both files. Then choose seed. Wait.. and the bit torrent client will start seeding (uploading) the file.

3) You can also seed a file that you have downloaded by Direct Download .. provided you kept the .zip file, what you have to do then is to click on the corresponding torrent download link at UKTA’s Downloads Area, from where you will download the .torrent file (that small metafile..) to your hard disk. Then, you have to do what is explained at 2) and you will be seeding your file..

What is explained at 2) & 3) is also called reseeding and it is what should be done when there are zero seeds and not even a complete file to download. As all peers will get stuck with an incomplete file, someone with a complete file (a seed) must connect so the others’ download can be completed.

The user who requested for a reseed will kindly leave his client open for some time after finishing the download, in return for the kind soul reseeding the file.

4 – ABOUT SPEED AND PORTS FORWARDING:

If you are behind a firewall you will need to configure it to forward ports from 6881 to 6889, to the computer that will be doing the downloading in order to get a decent download speed:





BIT TORRENT HELP SITES:

*Dessent.net

*BitComet.com

*Bittorrent.com

*Azareus FAQ

*Bittornado FAQ

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT PORTS FORWARDING:

*Firewalling.com

*Portforward.com




Thanks to Sandy Mar for compiling this very informative guide to torrents