Torrents,basic question

[chiangrai]

I download torrents with uTorrents,uasually from the Torentz website.

Untill now I have started the download and check in 3 minutes to see what's

happening.This is fine when you're downloading popular torrents.

So my question is,is there any way tat I can tell if the torrent is active either from the Torrentz website or the or the Kissasstorrents"website.

At the moment I look at the "health" bar.There is another thing called E.T.A

which seems to be a good indicator,whatever it means.

[kkerry]

Look at how many seeds and peers there are. If there are only a few it can indicate a torrent will take a while to get going.

Other things to look for is if it is an old torrent e.g. something that has been on the net for 5 years may no longer have many others interested. Also, if you do try to download it, check the seeds and peers to see the percentage they have available. If everyone else is stuck at say 45% then give it a day and if everyone is still on 45% then forget about it. For old tv shows a complete season rather than individual episodes are more likely to be active.

ETA = estimated time of arrival

Edited April 27, 2015 by kkerry

[RichCor]

Torrents or P2P relies on peered connections, and those peered connections having 100% of the download combined between them.

Look at the number of SEEDS. If you have hundreds of seeders then more likely to have 100% combined contents and quicker download (multiple connection points).

If it's just 1 seeder then it's probably gonna be a slow download, may not have 100% of the file, or not be online 24/7 continuously for you to fetch the file.

So "Health" tries to calculate the integrity of having 100% of the file between the combined seeders.

ETA calculates the estimated time to completed download given current combined connections.

[chiangrai]

Is there any way of knowing that the torrent is totally not worth downloading from the website page.

Like zero seeders or something.

[kkerry]

I don't know that there is any foolproof way. You can read the comments if there are any. Sometimes on an older torrent the first thing you read is someone saying everyone is stuck on x% I don't bother when I see that. The older the torrent and the more obscure the less likely it is to download quickly, but then sometimes you get lucky and there are some seeds and peers in Thailand and it downloads superfast.

Even when it says zero seeders it isn't necessarily the case. Sometimes there are no alternatives and when you give it a try, turns out there really are others downloading/uploading the same file so the page you're getting the link from from can't have been updated. I give most things a try if I don't have an alternative except when I can see everyone else is stuck at a certain level.

[chiangrai]

O.k,thanks,this is very helpful.

How about websites are they more or less the same,

I search with Torrentz or Google and go for the first website they

recomend.

[kkerry]

I believe Google don't list a lot of torrents now due to copywrite concerns. Many newer torrents are simply duplicated across many sites with the same trackers. There are some torrent sites more popular and with more to choose from than others but I'don't think we can discuss them here, however one could always try Googling torrent sites...

[Langsuan Man]

If you look at the columns at the top of the torrents list you can click on the categories and they will open in a + or - order

So if you are looking for torrents with many seeders just click on the top of that column and the most seeded torrents will rise to the top. This works for Kickass, as well as Pirates Bay, although Kickass gives you more options