Posted by Colin Wilson on 12/28/09 11:26

> What do you mean by unless you leave them running?.
> I downloaded some files to my d: and some to my mp3 folder where there are
> lots of other mp3 files i have. Is it sharing all this lot out?.

No, how bittorrent works is it will connect to as many people as it can
who also have / want the program you want. Bittorrent works by breaking
the file / program etc into "chunks", and you may find that while you`re
downloading chunk "x" from person "y", you happen to have chunk "z" that
he happens to need, so you will start sending it to him automatically.

Its a collaborative sharing system, where everyone uploads chunks the
other users need, sharing bandwidth (so it isn`t just the one guy having
to send the same file out to 300 users) - using bittorrent, everyone
else can contribute to sharing that file while they have that particular
torrent "open". Only the .torrent file(s) you have open is(are) shared,
nothing else, so its not like kazaa / limewire etc, where you run the
potential risk of inadvertantly leaving your hard drive wide open for
anyone to explore.

The name of the game, if you want to be a conscientious user, is to try
to upload at least as much as you downloaded to get the file - that way,
you`ve done your bit to help out. If you happen to leave it running
overnight once you`ve grabbed the file, great, and if you happen to
leave it open for longer, better again - everyone wins.

With Azureus, you can double click on the file and it will give you
another tab with more detail about who you`re currently uploading to /
from, as well as showing how much data you`ve uploaded / downloaded, and
the overall bandwidth total for the .torrent file you have open across
all the users who are sharing it.

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