Non Car related Bit-Torrent Q

[Father Ted]

Im trying to get the Harry Potter books on MP3 for my son to listen to at night ( he has autism and suffers dreadfully with insomnia) but whilst I can get them on CD and then rip them, they come in a billion little chapters all with very strange title numbers (using o instead of 0 for some tracks). Probably designed to stop it being ripped to MP3 in the first place.

 

It would appear that I can download it on something called Bit Torrent, now P2P file sharing is something I have thusfar avoided like the plague as I am fearful of getting a virus or some other shit. But I would like to download some audio boooks for my lad and this seems the way to get some of them.

 

So any pointers? Anything I should do or look for? Or avoid like the clap?

 

Thanking you in advance for helpful non sarcastic Mr Bollox type answers

[skattrd]

Make sure system restore is enabled on your pc before you start so if you do get a virus you can roll back the computer.

Decent firewall & anti-virus programs need to be installed also.

The above should all ready be on any machine that connects to the interwewbs imo.

 

Torrents:

http://www.peerblock.com/ - helps stop you being tracked.

http://www.utorrent.com/ - a torrent client, there are others.

http://thepiratebay.org/ http://isohunt.com/ - torrent search engines, many of these around. I like piratebay as theres usually lots of comments on the quality of the files, eg, good/bad/virus

 

If you're sensible you shouldn't have any problems.

 

If you want to rip cd's can you not set the ripper to not break the files up .... If not try another program.

[Station]

UTorrent combined with Pirate Bay is excellent. UTorrent (actually called µTorrent - Microtorrent, because of it's small size) sets everything up for you as well.

 

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5033408 ... _Stereo%5D

 

May I recommend some recreational mathematics/physics books I read for my degree on there? That'll put him to sleep instantly.

[Pillock]

Another vote for uTorrent - I get all my open-source creative-commons free-licence MP3s and films with it.

[pogweasel]

I concur, I use utorrent & piratebay for "stuff" (all legal, occifer).

 

It's magic. Never had any worries with viruses etc, do make sure that you have decent protection though, and I ain't talkin bout no Norton shit.

[Father Ted]

Thank you for that.

Pirate-Bay ahoy!

[Negative Creep]

I use Vuze for my downloads, dead easy to do

[barrett]

I have a lot of trouble actually getting anything from TPB these days, so I'd reccomend http://isohunt.com/, pretty much everything that's on TBP is there with just as many seeds* etc.

And out of the literally thousands of LEGAL things I've got off torrent I've never once encountered a virus. 99% of the stuff out there seems to be pukka, so don't worry too much about that

 

FT - download the file that has the most 'seeds', if the seeds outweigh the 'peers' by any large amount you are pretty much guaranteed of a quick D/L

[garethj]

Is there a duffers guide to this stuff? I had a look at one and you need to upload a certain amount before you could download or something?

 

Plan B, Father Ted - get your local library to get the books on CD and rip them yourself

[Station]

Just install the above, you don't need to worry about anything else!

 

These are worth a look through:

 

http://thepiratebay.org/search/haynes/0/7/0

 

http://thepiratebay.org/search/workshop%20manual/0/99/0

[RedSparrow]

+1 for uTorrent.

 

Oh and get CCleaner just in case; both of these can be downloaded for free at download.com.

[Pillock]

Is there a duffers guide to this stuff? I had a look at one and you need to upload a certain amount before you could download or something?

 

 

Sometimes the ratio'ed sites have their uses - I used to download TV shows from thebox, and I had to upload 10% of what I downloaded, because the TV shows are less commonly seeded so it's their way of guaranteeing availability. Generally speaking with Torrents it's polite to seed what you download for a while, since other downloaders rely on it being seeded from many different machines. As such, you're relying on someone else seeding so it's giving back a little of what you take.

 

However, many ISPs frown a little if you're uploading masses of data, and also if they're hit with an order from a film company or software maker asking them to turn over details of all the people sharing their files, they usually turn over the uploaders not the downloaders since it's a more criminal act, and easier to prosecute. As such, I tend to remove the torrent as soon as it's finished.

 

Other than that, just install uTorrent and then go hunting for .torrent files either on thepiratebay, isohunt or just googling .torrent

A .torrent file is just a description of the file, and a list of "peers" it can get it from to start looking - these will then lead to other computers with that file and so on. Each site will give you a vague idea of how many people offer ("seed") that file and how many are currently downloading ("leeching") it. Popular new films etc might have hundreds or even thousands of seeders making it a very quick download, rarer stuff only a few or none at all.

 

Load the .torrent file into uTorrent and it'll start downloading. All it's doing it taking tiny pieces of the file from different people hosting it, and reassembling.