Beginner's Guide to BitTorrent

   If you have heard about BitTorrent downloads but never learned how to do it, this is the place to start. I won't go into the techical details, only provide a quick insight so you understand what you're doing, then I'll show you how to download with BitTorrent with help of a few screenshots.

    Software Environment

   This article assumes that you are working on a Windows desktop, more specifically WinXP, using uTorrent as your BitTorrent client. If you don't have uTorrent, you can find it here.
uTorrent is a BitTorrent client. You may use any BitTorrent client, but We'll work with uTorrent because it's by far the most popular BT client for Windows, and probably the easiest to use. uTorrent runs on any Windows OS from 2000 (and probably even NT4) all the way up to W7, including Vista and 64bit systems. It can also be used under many Unix-like sytems (e.g. Linux), using WINE, WINdows Emulator.
   Installing uTorrent doesnt require any special skills, it's just like any other Windows program, the good old next-next-next-finish. Keeping all the defaults should work for most systems, and you can always change any settings later.

    BitTorrent Basics

   You download from several users at the same time.
If an uploader goes off line, you continue downloading the data from other uploaders, sometimes 10 or more at the same time.

Everybody uploads all the time.
    This is done automatically with no user intervention at all. BitTorrent breaks files into 'chunks'. When you complete the download of a 'chunk', other users can request that chunk from you, while you keep requesting the chunks that you don't have. When you have all the necessary chunks, BitTorrent will reassemble them into a copy of the original data.

The more a file is requested, the more it becomes available.
Just the opposite of traditional downloads where too many requests would slow down the service. With BitTorrent each users uploads whatever he has, be that 5% or 90% or 100% of the total, so the more the merrier. Pretty cool, huh?

   Downloads can be stopped and resumed.
BitTorrent will resume an interrupted download exactly where it left it. Failed downloads that have to restart all over are a thing of the past.

   Add a download and forget about it until it's done
Adding a download to uTorrent and just checking on it once o twice a day, is by far the most comfortable way to manage large downloads. Sometimes it's not as fast, other times it's even faster, but in all cases it requires almost no work at all.

   Speed is not constant
   Basically, that means don't worry if you see low download speeds. Just let it run. You download from multiple users (peers). One peer goes off line, another one comes on line, others have connections that get more or less busy... and your download speed goes up and down.
   Bottom line: don't worry about low speeds, they will get better. And don't be too enthusiastic about high speeds, they won't last forever. At the end of the day, average speed over time is what counts.
   
    Speed alone is not the whole deal.
   The tradeoff is speed vs. work. BitTorrent may be slower in some cases but it's completely automatic, including automatically resuming downloads at startup (if uTorrent is set to start with Windows). And if a file becomes popular enough, with lots of people downloading and uploading the data all the time, BitTorrent can be much faster than traditional downloads. Faster and automatic. Using BitTorrent contributes to make your favorite data (in this case the Fusion Pack) easier and faster to download for everyone.

    How To Download With BitTorrent

   In order to download data, BitTorrent has to know where the data is (sounds kinda obvious, doesn't it?). Now, how do we tell our BitTorrent client, uTorrent, where to get the data we want? That is done by loading a torrent file

    A torrent file is a small file with a .torrent extension. That means all the filenames end in .torrent. This file is what you get when you click on a 'Torrent Download' link.
   The torrent file tells uTorrent where the data is, and uTorrent gets the data off other users' computers. Therefore the sequence of actions that are necessary to start a download goes like this:

    - Download the torrent file to your local computer. In our example, we'll download our torrent file to the 'My Documents' folder.
   - Start uTorrent if it's not already started, then load the torrent file into uTorrent. This can be done in the file menu, or clicking the 'Add Torrent' icon, or drag-and-dropping the torrent file into the uTorrent window.
   - A dialog will appear, asking you where to download the data. Pick a folder and click OK.
   That's it. The download is running. Don't worry if it's slow, it needs some time to find uploaders, then it will pick up speed. Just minimize to tray, and let it run. It will take minutes, hours, or days, depending on the size of the download and availability of the data. Check once in a while, and when the prograss bar hits 100% you are done.

   After reaching 100%, you 'should' (but no one can make you) keep running the torrent, so it becomes more available and therefore easier to download for other users. Running a torrent after reaching 100% is called seeding. Seeding should be seen as 'paying back' for the download. You don't have to seed right away, you can seed your previous torrent while you downloading something else (uTorrent supports multiple side-by-side jobs, downloads and seedings)

   In Pictures

(above) After downloading the torrent file, open uTorrent and click "add torrent" to start downloading the actual data.

   

(above) When you click "add torrent", a 'browse...' window will open. Select the torrent file and click Open.

   

(above) Next, uTorrent will ask where to download the data. Click the button with the three dots [...] in right-top corner

   

(above) The three-dots button will open a 'Browse...' window.
Select any folder you like, and click OK

   

(above) If you have some of the data (e.g. a partially completed download), select the same directory to avoid redownloading data that you already have.

   

(above) The download has started. Green arrow pointing down means download in progress, blue arrow pointing up means download completed, you may use the data.