Bittorrent

Yes, I know it's evil, but there's a lot to be said for not having to take buses to three different libraries to pick up the complete Codex Alera.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

It's a pretty clever protocol by itself.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

It's a very useful system for its users, according to what I've read about it... and it does sound pretty convenient.

Misanthrope Supreme

Ah, one of the downsides of TV Tropes.

The general copyright stance. So much that anything that looks like piracy is looked down upon. You can download plenty of legitimate things with bittorrent, like free ocremixes(the preferred and promoted of ocremix), and Linux, and many other things. We're right as rain here about most subject, though we have a few Jack Thompsons about a few.

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

@OP: Funny you say that, because I also recently acquired the complete Codex Alera via torrent.

I shall say only one thing about the whole copyright thing:

I'm considering running up a black flag from my laptop. Arrr.

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

I prefer direct downloads.

If people learned from their mistakes, there wouldn't be this thing called bad habits.

Agreed, the old, Napster model of filesharing was much simpler and more elegant. Bittorrent just adds more hoops you have to jump through and makes it all a counfounding ordeal; it’s amazing that people still do all that illegal downloading when Bittorrent has made it such a drag.

Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883!

I prefer the direct form of downloads as well.

UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI

1. Download a client
2. Download a torrent file
3. Wait for download to finish

That doesn't sound very complicated.

You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!

That Napster model of filesharing still exists, and Soulseek is doing it the best.

However, torrent is the best model of filesharing out there. Which is why people use it.

Bittorent is to filesharing as .MKV is to video.

edited 6th Jun '11 3:38:54 PM by Ukonkivi

Genkidama for Japan, even if you don't have money, you can help![1]

I tried to torrent, but the fact that some data could be outright dropped made me fear that it would render my download unusable, so I quit out of fear every time and just downloaded directly.

None of the data is dropped. The only problem with bittorrent is that sometimes the file can't be completed.

My other signature is a Gundam.

Things I know Bittorrent is better at than direct downloads:

• Continue your download as you like.
• Stuff doesn't get deleted off the internet.
• When downloads finish you can choose to standby your computer or something without having to do it manually to save power or whatever.

Things I remember Bittorrent being worse at:

• High chance of viruses because you're feeding off the files off someone else's computer. I think.
• If nobody cares about it, the torrent will die anyway.
• It has a higher strain on my computer (I have no idea why this is the case to be honest)
• If nobody has the files needed to complete the thing that is seeding, then you're screwed.
• Old stuff that isn't very popular will download at speeds that a turtle would snore at.

So i'd like it if you elaborated, unless that really is all.

If people learned from their mistakes, there wouldn't be this thing called bad habits.

Nope. The file has to match the hash (a sort of checksum that's impractical for anyone (except maybe the NSA, who knows) to forge) in the torrent file, or it's considered corrupt. True. Your computer uploads and downloads the file, if that's what you mean. Which is why it scales so well- if more people want to download the file, then there are also more people around to upload it. No server to be swamped. These are kinda the same problem as #2. But comparable to the file being taken offline entirely.

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?

Of course, the uploaded file may be virus-ridden itself. But that's a problem with DDL also, and torrent sites are usually community-oriented, so it's probably easier to petition that a bad file be taken down.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.

I like torrent.

I hate it when people use signatures.