Part 6 (1/2)

You can use Search, Browse, Recent, or RSS to find torrents (Chapter 8 has the details). Most sites index the same popular movie, TV, and music releases, but you may need to search a few sites for old or offbeat content. For help finding specific categories of torrents (movies, books, and so on), see the next few chapters.

Reading a Torrent's Description and User Comments You usually know what quality to expect from a popular, verified, or upvoted torrent, but if you have doubts or are downloading something less mainstream, click the torrent name and read the description and user comments on the torrent's main page. Initial seeders and release groups add torrent descriptions ranging from one-liners to elaborate technical details.

User comments can number in the hundreds. Among the ”Seed!” and ”Thanks!” shout-outs are quality ratings, software installation advice, questions or requests from peers, and warnings of fakes, malware, or nonstandard file formats.

Downloading a .torrent File Most sites have one-click downloads, meaning a ”Download torrent” link or icon (typically a down-pointing arrow) appears next to the name of each torrent in a Search or Browse results list. A download link also appears on the torrent's main page. Click the download link and, if given the option, open the .torrent file with uTorrent. Alternatively, you can save the .torrent file to your hard drive and double-click it to add it to uTorrent. Make sure that you download an actual .torrent file - some sites place other types of download links, including disguised ads, near the .torrent link.

After a few seconds, the .torrent file opens in uTorrent. (Activate uTorrent yourself if it doesn't auto-open.) If you set up uTorrent as described in Chapter 9, the torrent will appear in the torrent jobs list but the content files won't start downloading.

Note: Recall from Chapter 2 that a .torrent file is a small text file that points to shared content files. Downloading the .torrent file is a separate, prerequisite step to downloading the content files themselves. When you installed uTorrent, it registered itself as the default program for the file type .torrent and the MIME type application/x-bittorrent. For details about file types, see Chapter 3.

Selecting Content Files to Download.

uTorrent by default downloads every file in a torrent but that often wastes your time, s.p.a.ce, and bandwidth (single-file torrents excepted). For media torrents such as movies, TV, music, photos, and books, it's easy to tell the tacked-on extras from the real files of interest. You don't need checksum (.sfv), executable (.exe), URL (.url), ”Torrent downloaded from,” and most text (.txt) files. You may want movie subt.i.tles, music playlists, sample video snippets, cover art, screenshots, and NFO files. For media collections such as movie trilogies, TV series, or alb.u.ms, you can deselect any undesired movies, episodes, or tracks.

Superfluous files in application and game torrents are harder to spot. In the simplest case, these torrents come with a single disk-image (.iso, .cue/.bin, or .dmg) or executable (.exe) file and an NFO file. But these torrents often carry many subfolders and files with unfamiliar extensions. In this case, download all files except obvious filler.

Some torrents include an NFO (.nfo) file containing release notes in text format. (NFOs are the pirate equivalent of Readme files.) For applications and games, the NFO file contains installation instructions and software requirements. For movies and music, the NFO file gives technical details such as the codec, bit rate, and resolution. An NFO's useful information, when present, is buried under the release group's ASCII art logo, credits, and other bits of self-promotion. In Windows, the default program for .nfo files is System Information (msinfo32.exe). To open an .nfo file in a text editor or rea.s.sociate the filename extension, see Chapter 3.

To select files to download: In uTorrent, select a torrent in the torrent jobs list (the top pane).

In the detailed info pane (the bottom pane), click the Files tab.

The torrent's files are listed. You can customize and sort this list in the same way that you do the torrent jobs list (see ”Torrent Jobs List” in Chapter 9).

Select the files that you don't want to download.

To select a file, click it or press the arrow keys until the file is selected. Or, in Windows, press the first letter of the file's name (repeatedly if necessary).

To select adjacent files, click the first file and then either s.h.i.+ft-click the last file or press s.h.i.+ft+arrow key. Or, starting from an empty area below the list, drag across files to select them.

To select nonadjacent files, Ctrl-click (Command-click) each file.

To select all files, press Ctrl+A (Command+A). To select almost all the files, select them all and then Ctrl-click (Command-click) the files that you want to deselect.

Right-click a selected file and choose Don't Download. (To undo this action, right-click a selected file and choose a priority.)

Excluded files are labeled ”skip” in the Priority column.

Setting File Priorities.

uTorrent by default gives equal download priority to every selected file of a given torrent, but you can set any file's priority to change the speed at which it downloads. Files with higher priorities tend to download at faster rates than those with lower priorities. Priorities are handy for large media collections such as TV series, audio books, or music discographies; you can a.s.sign high priorities to the episodes, chapters, or tracks that you want to open first.

To set a torrent's file priorities: In uTorrent, select a torrent in the torrent jobs list (the top pane).

In the detailed info pane (the bottom pane), click the Files tab.

The torrent's files are listed. The Priority column shows each file's priority. You can customize and sort this list in the same way that you do the torrent jobs list (see ”Torrent Jobs List” in Chapter 9).

Select the files whose priorities you want to change.

Use the file-selection methods given in ”Selecting Content Files to Download” earlier in this chapter.

Right-click a selected file and choose the desired priority (the default priority is Normal).

(Optional) Click the Priority column heading to sort the file list by priority.

Queueing a Torrent Recall from ”Torrent Jobs List” in Chapter 9 that you can open any number of torrents but uTorrent will actively download only a small, fixed number of them at a time. A torrent's position in the queue, shown in the # column of the torrent jobs list, determines whether it's downloading. When a torrent completes downloading, the others move up the queue. You can reorder torrents to place more-important ones near the top of the queue.

To reorder torrents in the queue: In uTorrent, click the # column heading in the torrent jobs list (the top pane) to sort the torrents by queue position (1, 2, 3,...).

Do any of the following: Right-click a torrent and choose Move Up Queue or Move Down Queue. In Windows, holding down the s.h.i.+ft key moves the selected torrent to the top or bottom of the queue.

Select a torrent and press Ctrl+Alt+up arrow/down arrow (in OS X, press Ctrl+Option+up arrow/down arrow).