The other major bit they're missing—where to get torrents where the policies are a little, um, flexible—we've got you covered. If you've got more tips, shower the comments with 'em. [Maximum PC]

"uTP measures the time a packet takes to get sent from peer A to peer B, so in theory uTP will detect congestion anywhere on that path, although in practice the congestion most often happens somewhere on the first-mile uplink connection."

So won't that effect seeding—the very concept torrenting is based on? What if you're throttling yourself while everyone else is downloading like mad with a non-uTP client? TorrentFreak says that beta testers haven't reported any significant issues, and suggests that a more efficient use of the network may actually boost download speeds. uTorrent has a massive user base, and if all those users switched over, maybe that could happen.

If you're with an ISP who slows you down when you use too much bandwidth (like Comcast), or any provider that slows down when it's congested, uTP could actually be a very positive thing.

These days, µTorrent is developed by BitTorrent, Inc itself, and they've been looking to extend an olive branch in the whole net neutrality debate for a while now:

This will have a huge impact on ISP networks according to Simon Morris, BitTorrent's VP of Product Management. "If uTP is successful it should result in a multi-billion dollar windfall in terms of savings for ISPs," Morris told TorrentFreak

Cool...but I can't really see this making ISPs who shape torrent traffic suddenly go changing their mind. But I'm all for something being tried, and I'd love to hear your impressions of the beta if you've been using it for a while. Detailed background at: [TorrentFreak]

Demonoid
Demonoid, besides having a solid community and good quality torrents—no porn, exceedingly few viruses—also operates the other major torrent tracker besides The Pirate Bay. (A tracker is what help makes the whole BitTorrent system work, since it makes sure every peer's talking to each other properly.) It doesn't have the best selection around, but what most of what you'll find there is quality. The catch is that you need to snag an invitation from a member or when they periodically dole them out to the public.

Mininova.org
Mininova's always one of our preferred torrent sites—tons of torrents from multiple trackers, not a lot of crap in the interface, and the search isn't bad. Actually, it's kind of the like The Pirate Bay, but with less crap and fewer headaches. The catch now is that they're slowly implementing a new copyright filter to keep copyrighted torrents from being uploaded. But you should still be able to find True Blood on there, no problem.

ISOHunt
ISOHunt is a BitTorrent and P2P search engine that's got what feels like the most sophisticated search engine of the bunch. But like the others, you just punch in what you're looking for, and it pulls up results you can sort by seeds, date or whatever. It has one of the most massive indices of any site, so it's a good thing the search engine is up to it. Still, with a lot of torrents, it can be hard to find exactly what you're looking for.

BTJunkie
BTJunkie claims to be the largest torrent search engine of all, with around 5,000-25,000 new torrents added to the index daily. The quantity doesn't seem noticeably better than the other sites listed above, however. Also, the interface is really ugly. But you know, it's there if you need it.

EZTV
If you've downloaded a TV show, whatever site you snagged it from, chances are, it came from these guys. They're the most prolific TV rippers around, and usually have solid quality rips of shows up within hours of airing. If you're interested in TV, you might as well just go to the source—their site points to wherever their files are hosted, so you don't have to search through a million different sites to find the right EZTV torrent.

The whole scene is admittedly a bit depressing now, after years of high profile closures—Suprnova, OiNK TorrentSpy and LokiTorrent—so these are what's left of the big sites. And even they're not guaranteed to survive. Demonoid went offline for several months back in 2007-2008, Mininova has a copyright filter attached to it, and really, any site is just a police raid away from possibly going down. So tread carefully, and don't get too attached to any of them.

And of course, you should drop your own suggestions in the comments.

According to the site: "tracker.btarena.org" can be used to track new torrents.

The torrents available from the BTArena.net copy still carry the announce URLs from The Pirate Bay's tracker but since all torrents were updated with the OpenBitTorrent tracker, they will remain functional even when GGF's version of the site takes over at the end of this month

Remember: this is a torrent file index, not the petabytes of data they link to.

The anonymous uploader who compiled this huge torrent told TorrentFreak that he wanted to have a backup of the site in case all torrents mysteriously disappear after the site is sold. "I suppose I want us to have assurances. If the TPB deal disappoints us, we can just put it up again," he said.

Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay is also hosting what it calls "the $675,000 mixtape"—a collection of the 30 songs that student Joel Tenenbaum was found guilty of sharing, and then fined that amount for.

[The Pirate Bay via TorrentFreak –Thanks Mark!]

• iPhone OS 3.0 Gold Master Final for iPhone 1st Generation: Search for iPhone1,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

• iPhone OS 3.0 Gold Master Final for iPhone 3G: Search for iPhone1,2_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

• iPhone OS 3.0 Gold Master Final for iPod Touch: Search for iPod2,1_3.0_7A341_Restore.ipsw

[Thanks Adam Curry]

The movie industry would like to tell you that those 4 million downloads are totally equivalent to 4 million lost tickets at an average cost of 7 bucks a piece according to the Hollywood Reporter's figures, knocking about $28 million off its weekend total, which was a still respectable $85 million, though less than X3's opening weekend gross of $103 million.

It's not. Even discounting the few people brave enough for a repeat viewing of this crime against decency—adamantium bullets, really?—pirates who are piratey pirates were never going to pay to see it anyway, and the incredible download numbers undoubtedly drew more of them in. It's like a YouTube video with 2 million views. It makes you more likely to click.

But 4 million is still something of a watershed number. 1 million downloads was pretty damn good. 4 million is berzerk. The Dark Knight hasn't even sold 4 million copies on Blu-ray, and it's like the biggest thing ever on the format.

That's fairly incredible buzz for a thoroughly lackluster movie that's a bona fide wolverine fart in summer filled with actually good blockbusters, hype it likely would've never achieved otherwise. And being able to talk about all those millions of downloads in the press is just one slice of this illicit hype machine. (If Fox was smart, they would include the bootleg workprint as a special feature on the Blu-ray.)

Would it have made more $85 million if it hadn't leaked? Maybe. But I kind of doubt it. Would fewer people have seen it? Definitely. [Hollywood Reporter via digg]

Amanda told TorrentFreak she's actually semi-prolific cam watcher, but was frustrated when she couldn't find a cam vid for Adventureland, so she turned to the internet's sewage system to vent—Twitter. Obviously, somebody at Miramax scours Twitter for mentions of their movies, and the rest is now 15 seconds of internet history. But since it's a movie studio, they had to screw her over somehow, so they only gave her a code for one free ticket instead of the pair they promised.

Moral of the story: Tell the world you would like to pirate a movie (but make it clear that you haven't or that something is stopping you) and a desperate movie studio eager for eyeballs will let you see it for free, since it's still better to them than having you steal it.

P.S. Dear MiramaxFilms, I would also very much like a free ticket to Adventureland. @reply me! [TorrentFreak]

Ipredator is a virtual private network that people connect to which hides their actual IP address, using a different one provided by Ipredator as their public internet face, making it harder to track who's really uploading that Spanish-dubbed copy of Quantum of Solace.

Wired notes that feature that makes The Pirate Bay's anonymizing VPN service exceptional is that they supposedly won't log any data at all, making it that much harder to pinpoint specific users. The few other details known about the service so far is that it'll cost about $6 and it's expected to start up soon.

So far, 80 percent of the people who pre-registered are Swedish. Not surprising given that Sweden's internet traffic dropped by a third after IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) went into effect, which lets copyrights holders sue alleged pirates willy-nilly without dealing with the police. I expect it won't stay 80 percent Swede for long, though. [Wired]

The drop was measured by Netnod, a Swedish web tracking firm, who found that traffic fell from 120GB/s to 80GB/s on the day the law went into effect.

Christian Engstrom, VP of Sweden's Pirate Party (love it) is not concerned, however. He told the BBC:

"Today, there is a very drastic reduction in internet traffic. But experience from other countries suggests that while file-sharing drops on the day a law is passed, it starts climbing again. . .One of the reasons is that it takes people a few weeks to figure out how to change their security settings so that can share files anonymously," he added.

The law is catching a lot of flak for effectively letting corporations enforce anti-piracy code with lawsuits, rather than leaving them to the police to deal with offenders on a criminal basis. Copyright holders can no go straight to the uploader's ISP, get his IP address and identity, and sue him up good.

From the country that gave us the Pirate Bay, though, I'm sure someone will figure out a way to subvert this. [BBC]

It works perfectly: Now you can share the fruits of your labor with your friends after using our guide to BitTorrenting like a pro, so they can leech off you, like you're leeching off everybody working to seed aXXo's latest rip. Or you know, porn. You can also send torrents directly to individuals using Facebook's messaging feature, in case it really is the latter and you don't want it littering your public wall. Unless you don't care if your mother, boss or that girl you got to drunkenly Facebook you the other night knows your sexual proclivities right off the bat. [Neowin]

This guide is intended for folks who understand the basics but may have only just started to scratch the surface of what BitTorrent clients are capable of. If you're even more hardcore than the tips here, feel free to drop some knowledge (and links!) in the comments for everyone's use. Spread the love.

Throughout this guide we'll be using two of the most popular multi-platform BitTorrent clients, Vuze (formerly called Azureus) and µTorrent. Both apps take two fundamentally different approaches: Vuze packs in just about every feature you could imagine, including a search tool, social-networking-like sharing among friends, a content guide, and much more. µTorrent on the other hand is the opposite: sleek, simple and barebones. The choice is yours.

Lots of our pointers here will take advantages of some of Vuze's newest features, but we love µTorrent too. Where applicable, we'll highlight standalone applications that can help bring some of Vuze's integrated functionality to µTorrent fans.

Set up Your Router's NAT and Transfer Limits
This is, without a doubt, the single most important thing you can do to ensure the highest possible BitTorrent performance. And it's also something often overlooked by casual and even intermediate Torrenters.

BitTorrent clients pipe all of their network traffic through a single "port" on your network. But your router likes to partially or fully block traffic that doesn't come through on all the "standard" ports (like port 80 for web traffic, for instance). So you want to make sure your computer has a clear and open channel to all that data you're going to be sucking down by setting up "port forwarding," which lets your router know to which computer on the network it should send traffic on certain ports instead of blocking it. Make sense?

1. In your Torrent client's preferences under the "network" or "connection" heading, find out which TCP/UDP port it's using. Keep the default, but for the record, you can choose basically any number you want (but read Vuze's "Good Port Choices" article first) and if you have multiple machines on the same network using BitTorrent you'll want to choose unique port numbers for all of them.

2. Now, open up your router's admin page. This is pulled up by going to your router's IP address in a web browser (commonly 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1). Sometimes you'll have to enter a username and password; Google around for your model's default name/password if you can't remember it. Users of Apple's AirPort routers should use the AirPort Utility app.

3. Now, the terminology for what you're looking for is called different things by all the router companies. Some call it "port forwarding," others call it "virtual servers" or "port mapping"—the terminology is surprisingly varied, but it's usually listed under an "advanced settings" tab if there is one. The site Portforwarding.com can help you locate yours if you're having trouble.

4. Once you've found where this all goes down, enter the port number from your client in step 1 for BOTH UDP and TCP fields (you'll enter the same port number for the "private" or "local" UDP/TCP fields). You'll also enter your current machine's IP address (found in Network preferences on both OS X and Windows).

Note: If your machine is a laptop and you're frequently connecting and disconnecting from the network, you'll want to set up a static local IP address so you don't have to switch your router's settings every time you Torrent.

5. Hit save, and you should be good to go. Your BitTorrent client will have a network test built in somewhere in the preferences—use that to make sure your connection is clear.

6. Now, the final step, is setting a limit to your uploading speeds. As you know, BitTorrent simultaneously uploads to other peers while you're downloading, and to ensure solid download speeds you must upload. But you don't want these uploads to take over your limited upload bandwidth, especially if you're on a cable connection. To be safe, cap your uploads around 20 kb/s. This is a good general ballpark that'll ensure good download speeds and won't clog your pipe. If you're on FIOS you may want to kick that up a bit, but play around.

Vuze has a tool that can help you auto-configure your speeds too—probably worth experimenting with in the prefs.

Cover Your Ass
All the regular disclaimers apply: don't be an idiot when you're downloading stuff you probably shouldn't. Here are some tools and strategies to make sure you keep yourself virus- and subpoena-free. But like always, no guarantees! Proceed at your own risk! Etc.

1. Don't seed more than is absolutely necessary. The RIAA/MPAA/NARC's number one priority are heavy uploaders. Not to say that the downloading part is any less illegal, but if you stop seeding and delete your .torrent file after it's done downloading, your odds of staying safe are significantly higher.

Note: If your carefully crafted code of online morals compels you to continue uploading beyond the amount you shared during the download, feel free, knowing that it increases your odds of getting a friendly note from your ISP. And, please, do seed any files that are intentionally being distributed via BitTorrent, like a Linux distribution or Creative Commons licensed stuff from friends like Nine Inch Nails. You can't get hurt by that.

You could make an argument that Torrenting is mainstream enough to survive on many thousands of people seeding very small amounts (ie: the amount uploaded while they're downloading), or you could make an argument about the double (triple? quadruple?) paradoxes that surface when contemplating the morals of consuming vis a vis sharing in the gray to grayish-black Torrent market. But I'm not your dad—what you do is up to you.

2. Go for torrents with a lot of seeds and good comments. If hundreds of people are seeding a file, the odds of it being of good quality and virus free are higher. I know this may seem contradictory to point #1, but you're not in this for the geek cred. You're in this for you. So go with the herd. Also, comments on torrent sites will often have some shreds of useful info—if a lot of people report strange behavior with the downloaded file or a mysterious password lock, skip it.

Also, seeking out the geek legends of the Torrent community will go a long way to ensure good downloads. Choose people like aXXo's Torrents where possible.

3. Use the Bluetack IP filter to keep known baddies out of your life. The folks at Bluetack maintain a list of IP ranges of known spammers, virus seeders, and undercover snoops like Media Defender who might bust your ass. To add the list to Vuze, go to Preferences -> IP Filgers and type in the following URL into the auto-fill field: http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/level1.zip

Update: Someone who should know has advised us against using Bluetack for a whole litany of reasons, most shocking of which is that Bluetack is some elaborate ploy to mess with P2P networks from the inside. Over my head, but for what it's worth, maybe don't use Bluetack.

4. Look at private torrent sites. Even though Oink's hallowed days are over, there are still a number of good, private BitTorrent sites, where your odds of getting hit with random malware or a federal subpoena are lessened. But they may take some conniving to get invited to, and you'll likely be forced to upload a certain amount to keep your membership.

5. Moderation, moderation. When you can, watch on Hulu, or heaven forbid, buy from your favorite artists. And the less massive your bandwidth usage, the less likely you are to draw the ire of your ISP (or their monthly bandwidth cap).

Autodownload Your Favorite Shows via RSS
For serialized stuff like TV shows, you can easily set up Vuze to subscribe to popular series via RSS and auto-download them every week. It's nice. µTorrent lovers should check out TED, a cross-platform standalone app that does the same thing.

1. In Vuze, search for your favorite show. Once you've found the newest episode and added it to your download list, click the orange RSS button under "Subscribe." The subscribe window can also look at other files in your library and subscribe to those too.

2. You'll see a lot of different options, all seemingly the same. Choose HD where possible, and if there's an EZTV option, choose that—it's a reliably source of good torrents. Then, new episodes will appear in your Subscriptions area automatically, and you can pull them down.

Stream to Your Game Console or Transcode For Your iPod/PMP/Phone with Vuze
The newest version of Vuze added a seriously useful transcoding and streaming tool—just when you thought there couldn't be anything else crammed into this app. But it's great, and works perfectly to auto-detect a PS3 or Xbox 360 on your network and stream your downloads to your TV without any annoying configurations.

1. Enable the streaming add-on under the "Devices" option in the left pane.

2. If your PS3 or Xbox 360 is on and connected to your network, it will automatically show up as a device. Simply drag a file from your library to the icon for your console, and it will be available in the expected area (in the Video menu of the PS3's XMB and the My Video Library, as another PC, on the Xbox 360).

3. The tool will also transcode to iTunes in sizes optimized for iPods, iPhones and Apple TV using the same process. Just drag the file from your Vuze library to the iTunes icon, and after a somewhat slow conversion time, it will be copied to your iTunes library. Pretty sweet.

Next Steps
There are plenty of places you can take it from there. Like setting up a dedicated, always-on torrrent machine, either with a spare PC or a standalone NAS box with a built-in Torrent client. Then you can take advantage of web-only interfaces to access and manage your downloads from the road.

Sounds like pretty good fodder for a future how to, doesn't it? Keep your eyes peeled.

So that's about it! Like we said before, if you have more tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments—your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides. And if you have any topics you'd like to see covered here, please let me know. Have a good weekend Torrenting, everyone!

Image courtesy of, you guessed it, Jason Chen.

There's a new Devices tab that'll ask you to install some extra components, like a transcoder and a plug-in to push it to iTunes. As you can see, it's pretty simple—you drag the file to the device you wanna stream it to (in Windows there's a 360 option) and then you click on the icon for the device you want it converted for, like iPod, iPhone, Apple TV (it moves it to your iTunes library automatically for these) or Xbox 360 or PS3.

Transcoding unfortunately takes a long time, but the same test video in the screenshot from the Mac above streamed instantly, without conversion, seamlessly from my Windows desktop to my Xbox 360. It shows up as another PC in the Xbox's My Video Library, as you can see. This might be the new best way to watch TV shows that don't make it to Netflix streaming or Hulu on your 360 or PS3, since it cuts out a lot of the middle man. Worth checking out, for sure. [Vuze]

But that doesn't mean you should. You're not Lars Ulrich: "I was like, 'Wow, this is how it works.' I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download 'Death Magnetic' for free, it's me." Still, nice to know that nearly 10 years after his "Napster Bad" days, he's finally figuring out what exactly he was waging a futile war against. Better late than never. [Blabbermouth]