Did Somebody Say Torrent?

Much of my workday entails me sitting in front of a computer for long stretches of time, so it’s not surprising that my abs aren't as washboard as they used to be, or that I’ve been asked to impart my bleep blop skills on my fellow co-workers from time to time. For you folks who are just now tuning in I’ll reiterate:

And now back to what I was saying. Of all the bleep blop requests I’ve received, the most common question I get is: Kiki, how do you download T.V. shows, movies and music off the internet?

Yep, that’s right. People are downloading entertainment like it’s crack cocaine, and I know it’s become a rather rampant phenomenon because even the 50- and 60-somethings who grew-up watching their T.V. with the usual dose of commercials, are asking me how it's done.

So for all you folks who've always wanted to know what a torrent was, love the idea of watching the shows you want to see, when you want to see them and without commercials, or want to get the latest Brittany Spears album including the cover art, this edition of Bleep Blop is for you.

Step One - Safety First

Before you begin your journey into the ways of the download let’s talk safety precautions.

There are bad people in the world who have nothing better to do with their lives than to add spyware and computer viruses to files on the internet (sounds like a boring existence to me). To make sure you are prepared to fight off anything that might come your way, be sure to have the following programs on your computer:

1) A firewall. Some routers come with built-in firewalls, and some people run additional firewall software programs on their computer. If you’re running Windows XP or Vista on your machine it might already have firewall software running, but it’s not the best. I personally use Comodo in addition to the firewall that my router has turned on for me. It’s free and it does the trick. If you don’t have a firewall program get one off the net and run it while you surf to keep the burglars out.

2) An I-don’t-want-no-spyware-software. When you surf the net, websites ask your computer to tell them things about where you’ve been on the internet and to keep them abreast of where you’re going next. To stop the spies from adding ads to your computer clicks (and slowing down your surfing), run an anti-spyware program on your computer. A great free program is Ad-Aware. Download it and run it once a week.

3) An antivirus program. This is the last-ditch effort to warrant off any bad bugs. If you don’t already have one, download a free antivirus program like AVG and have it running in the background while you’re online.

For more free software programs, visit the best website on the net for free stuff: filehippo.com (and they didn't even pay me to say that... perhaps they should have).

Step Two - Can My Computer Handle This?

Even the most basic computers can handle downloading. What you’ll want to think about is your hard drive space. If you don’t have a lot and you want to keep your movie or TV downloads without having to burn them onto discs, then it’s best to use an external hard drive as your keeper of the files. They're fairly cheap, go buy one.

So think about where you’re going to be keeping or not keeping your files, make sure you have a high-speed internet connection for faster downloading results and make sure your media player of choice can play the files you download. If you’re downloading .avi files for example, you’ll need the codec to play it. Don’t worry, just Google .avi codec and download it if your player won’t play your file.

Step Three - Take Me to My Download

Now that you’re prepared, it’s time to choose your weapon.

Weapon #1: The Old Fashioned Peer-to-Peer Way

You can download music, software and video via LimeWire or another free file sharing program. LimeWire is a standard peer-to-peer program that searches your shared folder for stuff to share with others online. It’s a great program for downloading in a hurry “that one song” that you would never buy the artist’s album for.

Weapon #2: The Torrent

A torrent is a different type of file than the usual peer-to-peer file, but it operates the same way. The main thing you need to know is that unlike LimeWire, to download torrents you need a torrent client. What does this mean Kiki? You need to download one of the torrent software programs in order to download torrents. The torrent client software collects and manages the download for you. They come in different flavours. My personal favourite because it’s easy to use is BitTorrent. There are also the flavours: BitComet, uTorrent and Azureus as well as others available for downloading. Check them out and choose your weapon. Check out filehippo.com for your free download.

Step 3 - Know Where to Find Your Downloads

To actually download the files you want, you have to go to the websites that house the content. There are a bunch of websites, some with better content than others. Shopping for downloads is kind of like going to a video store. Some video stores have a great selection of films, some only have the most popular stuff. So if you visit one of these sites and you don’t find what you’re looking for, try another one.

What kind of files can you find on a torrent site? Full episodes of TV, in letterbox and without commercials (including entire seasons). Movies that aren’t even out on DVD yet. Full albums, cover art and all. And yes, porn… but this article isn’t about helping you download porn. As a matter of fact I should warn you that when you visit these websites you may be inundated with some pretty raunchy images. If porn isn’t your cup of tea, just don’t click on anything but the torrent you want and you should be a happy camper. Did I mention it’s all free?

Here are my favourite torrent sites:

http://www.torrentportal.com/
http://www.mininova.org/
http://www.torrentspy.com/

Step 4 - Wait, Wait, Wait

Downloads either come down really fast or really slow, so be patient. At first it might say that your download will be down in thirty days, but within a few minutes (depending on the file) it might say 1 hour.

Step 5 - Let’s Review

1. Do you have all the precautionary software required to not let a file screw-up your computer? (Please Note: you may want to have these programs on your computer regardless of whether you are going to download stuff, they are good to have for surfing in general).
2. Can your computer handle it?
3. Once you’ve downloaded the torrent software and you’ve visited the first site and chosen a file to download your torrent client will open up the file and ask you where to save it. You just pick a place and then say okay. When it’s done the client will tell you it’s done. Then like any file you just click on it and you’re ready to watch or listen to it.

That’s it. Try it and let me know what you think. Happy downloading and remember, if you want to make the universe the best place it can be, respect other peoples' artistic expression. Keep renting DVDs, keep going to the movie theatre, keep buying music on iTunes or in your favourite CD shop, and keep supporting your favourite shows!