Torrents: Everything you should know

Torrents are becoming increasingly popular day by day. With the amount of content available on the internet for download, it can be said that almost every internet user comes in contact with this file format. You may wonder how such a single, small torrent file can hold such a huge amount of data. Movies, games, documents, music and much more have their torrents. Keeping that in mind, here are some basic guidelines related to torrents, and if by using them, you are in the moral grey area or not:

What are torrents?

Torrent is a file transfer system which is used mainly for transferring a large amount of data. Instead of downloading files directly from a server, one downloads it from other user’s devices. The users also can upload the torrent file for others to download by ‘seeding’ it.

Who created Torrent Systems

Bram Cohen and Ashwin Navin, two Americans had founded Rainberry Systems. The company today is known as BitTorrent. They were the creators of the torrent file-sharing network and even provided software for people to use it.

How does torrenting work?

Torrenting is a peer to peer (p2p) file-sharing format. Quite simply, one simply downloads the files from another local machine. This causes downloads to be faster and more efficient. After downloading, BitTorrent automatically seeds your download for others to use if required.

Why is torrenting deemed illegal?

Torrenting isn’t illegal. Nor is it piracy. Torrenting is simply a way of transferring data. You may be torrenting your personal projects from one computer to another. This isn’t any violation of any piracy laws.

However, downloading unsanctioned copyright material is. If you download a movie which is copyrighted, you are infringing that studio’s rights. That is illegal. Torrenting video games is also illegal as all art and code in the game require one to purchase it.

Popular torrent softwares

Some popular torrent clients are BitTorrent and μTorrent. Both of them are really fast and are used by everyone for torrent downloads. BitTorrent is a bit resource-heavy as its has more features such as streaming torrents directly. However, just for downloading, μTorrent is better.

When is torrenting legal?

Simply using the torrent client is not illegal. One may use torrents to transfer a large amount of personal data quickly. You may be wanting to transfer all your documents and photographs from one PC to another. Over here, the usage of torrents is perfectly legal and in fact, recommended. If you want to share a video which is under an openlicense, you can download it via torrents.

When is torrenting illegal?

Torrenting is only illegal when you are downloading pirated content. A lot of sites strip-down content and remove the privacy policy. Due to this, torrents are useful for transferring, as the information can’t be intercepted. A lot of countries have strict copyright protection laws. Hence you may fall in legal trouble for pirating files.

Popular websites for downloading Hindi/South Indian Movies

One can find plenty of Bollywood and other Indian movies in The Pirate Bay and other movie websites. Sites like ytsHindi and torrentz provide a great number of films.

Hindi Films

There are many websites which pirate Bollywood films. Some of them are 9xmovies,filmywap, filmyzilla, bolly4u, moviemad provide a majority of the movies. However, it should be noted that there is a higher chance of Virus infection by visiting these sites.

South Indian Films

Plenty of South Indian Films can be found in websites like TeleguWap, TamilRockerz, TamilYogi etc. However, these websites are again fishy and shouldn’t be trusted. These websites can also inject adware into your PC which can harm your computer.

Popular websites for downloading Hollywood Movies

Yify and YTS are the most popular sites for downloading high-quality English films. However, the films take time to come on the website. Hence it is better to use any streaming service for immediate access.

Plenty of other sites which have Hindi content also provide popular English movies and TV series

Is Pirate Bay Illegal

Yes and no. Simply opening Piratebay is not illegal. In fact, downloading no copyright content is also not illegal on Pirate Bay.

The problem arises when you torrent/download copyrighted material. Games, Books and Movies come under this category.

How to torrent safely

If you yet wish to torrent, it is advisable to use a VPN. There are many different kinds of VPNs available and you should choose one which suits your needs. A VPN simply makes you invisible to your Internet Service Provider and thus, you can torrent anonymously.

Read More: Top 5 issues related to VPN’s data security

Alternatives to torrenting

Streaming is one of the biggest alternatives to torrenting. In streaming, one simply needs to pay a basic fee and they get access to all content. This helps the consumer as they don’t have to find torrents through suspicious links which may contain viruses.

You also get high-quality services and great audio/video. Other than streaming, one can also buy a movie online through Amazon or Microsoft Store. Then they don’t need to torrent it.

For video games, it is highly advisable to use platforms like Steam or Epic Games to purchase games. Through this way, you can also support the developer to create more games.