Do you download torrents?

[jsobeck]

I've never gotten any viruses from torrents either. Then again, I've never heard of a virus on a Mac. All used to be good in the world of torrents, until the CRIA woke up and realized a certain large site was being hosted in Canada...

 

[Smith6612]

I don't torrent. Torrents chew up more bandwidth than they give you what you want. Besides, the Linux box in my basement is blocking torrent traffic (I set it to do that in case if my friends want to try sneaking things through. It doesn't filter encrypted traffic, but I can tell if they're running anything and drop their connection). Everything I download is from sites where I paid for it, from open source download servers, etc. Tthe only time I have ever thought about installing uTorrent was when the Fedora/Ubuntu download servers were all slow for days on end or down, though because of my patience, I didn't need to use it it and just let it download, then eventually the servers went fast again. this always happens the day a release comes out, but the speed usually comes back within a day or so, so all I need to do is grab an open slot, let it download at 5.5KB/s for a few hours, then the file will start hitting my max sync rate in the morning of 3Mbps.

 

[curt15]

I dont torrent. I always try and use open source were possible, or use an a completely different alternative altogether. Whenever I've tried to download stuff its been OK.

I have morale issues with theft... although adobe could do with lowering their prices a little.

 

[SyNRG]

I read that torrents are now accounting for about 40% of ALL internet traffic.

Here in Canada Rogers, one of the biggest ISP's is trying to control this traffic with new Cisco routers that can see what's inside the packets even if they are encrypted. Although I'm still able to get torrents they will not go as fast as they used to! And it's the same deal with Comcast in the states, although I hear they are getting some flack over that. This is really silly because we pay decent money to get web access and furthermore many many torrents are for 100% legitimate purposes. :thefinger

 

[gazzamc]

Ya i dl torrents all the time.......who doesn't like lol

 

[fallenx]

nah, i dont know how to download :dunno:

 

[Smith6612]

I read that torrents are now accounting for about 40% of ALL internet traffic.

Here in Canada Rogers, one of the biggest ISP's is trying to control this traffic with new Cisco routers that can see what's inside the packets even if they are encrypted. Although I'm still able to get torrents they will not go as fast as they used to! And it's the same deal with Comcast in the states, although I hear they are getting some flack over that. This is really silly because we pay decent money to get web access and furthermore many many torrents are for 100% legitimate purposes. :thefinger

In the US, a lot of ISPs are forging BitTorrent packets (Comcast is an example) to ease up the load on their already oversold and overloaded network. That's along with some of the ISPs, like Rogers having download caps as well, where you can only use soo much a month before you get shut off/billed by the byte. I don't find them too silly, but most of the legal stuff you can get right off of normal download servers, but I can see why you'd want to get torrents of legal things too, for those days when new distros are out and the normal servers are slow, that everyone is seeding for you. The thing is, I find torrents to chew up more bandwidth as well, as many times, seeders won't send you as much data if you don't upload something for them to download off of.

 

[satheesh]

What is mean by torrents?
I don't know.

 

[Dazz]

Yes but only for legal stuff, for example openoffice.org (which is free and 10 times better than MS Office) has its own bittorrent server.

Just to bring to your attention that this thread may be against the rules. Found HERE and rule 4 in particular.

 

[Eentoetsernaast]

Yes, I download torrents (with Opera/µtorrent), but only legal stuff. (e.g. trying out a new linux OS, OpenOffice, Opensource games, ...)

 

[Eric@TLG]

i be a pirate..

 

[sandogg]

Plenty of legal sources out there use torrents as mentioned.
It really is a great protocol though.

 

[TauRo]

omg omg omg!!!! Torrents!!!! OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!! PIRATESSSS!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAH I HATE U ALL!!!!!!!!! U ARE KILLING THE MUSICIANS AND THE GAME'S COMPANYYYYY AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!

Err... However... Yes Of Course! I use them XD

 

[Nikolasr]

I'm pirate

 

[gabrialm]

All this nonsense about viruses from torrents is balogna.

The odd one comes transmitted with a virus, or two or three. But for every odd one there are 4-5 trusted ones.

Even if you do happen to download a torrent with a virus, the download itself does not infect the computer, it happens when the infected code is executed. Make a habit of right clicking on the folder of the torrent in question and running a scan with AVG.

And Mac's can get viruses. The fact that they are running now on a unix core, makes them just as susceptable to virus attacks as linux operating systems. The only difference between them and Windows machines is that Windows operating systems have far fewer stringent guidelines when it comes to automated or system level code.

With MacOS X, and any flavour of linux most if not all system level code and actions require either 1) root or 2)pseudo root, and if you are ignorant enough to use either to run some code or application that wont run under the shell account, then you have no business using linux, or any derivation thereof, lol.

 

[VideoForum]

lol, i probably dl a few torrents a day, and i always have my trusty pirate bay toolbar on me,

 

[wolf693]

Only when I'm desperate for something I do.

 

[dpurcell]

Torrents are useful for more that just pirating software now days. Back in the day they may have been used for that but the intent behind the technology was always just to make downloading faster and more reliable, which it does.
I'm seeing more and more legit dls offering torrents to users as an alternative to seeing long waits and slow speeds while trying to get a popular file.

 

[Livewire]

Gotta admit, unless I'm highly mistaken Blizzards updater is using bittorrent.

Or at least the downloader I used to grab the SC2 movies when they were out was - router was port-forwarding a bunch of BS that looked almost identical to the official POS client (and it was pissing uTorrent off something awful).


Still, I'm more using it for games ATM. Tired of grabbing demos that rock for a game that sucks (FEAR: Perseus Mandate, I'm glaring at you with EYES OF DEATH), rather grab the whole thing (worked for Civ4 and FEAR + FEAR:XP, Sierra and Sid Meyer got some bucks off of me for that).

Lotta up-and-coming bands are releasing stuff on bittorrent though, that's nice to see (and hear in a great many cases - theres still the bands that suck, but there's some good ones popping up as well).

 

[Dazz]

Have to say that though I don't agree with illegal sharing, there is a lot of opinions on this thread I do agree with.

How many time have I watched a movie trailer that looked so good and the movie sucked?

How many times have I played a game demo or used demo software that seemed to be exactly what I want, only to find that the full version isn't everything the trial promised?

How many times have I bought an album only to realize that I only actually like 1 song?

Torrents, it seems serve a purpose amongst the legitimate 'want to know exactly what they are buying' downloaders but unfortunately are ruined by the 'want everything for nothing' crowd.

I have to say that I really resent buying anything for $5,$10 or even £300 that is rubbish when I use it and doesn't do what is promised to me at the time.

And after further research I found this http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-boosts-cd-sales-071103/
I do NOT claim this is accurate (given that it is on a torrent website) but it is replicated elsewhere and may indeed be true? I leave the moral decisions up to you.