I keep seeing in forums and sites like these that say it’s frowned upon to not seed torrents that you use/used. I saw a post on here or Reddit (I don’t remember) with a guy ecstatic that someone started seeding his download he had been trying to get done for months. I know seeding lets someone download something using your computer but how is it helpful if someone doesn’t have a site and/or isn’t “in-range” ?
If you can’t tell, I don’t know much about how torrenting works other than how to download something using one. I hope that you all can just explain or point me in the right direction because I would like to support the community.
It’s basically like a room full of people with USB sticks. If you are just taking all of their USB sticks to download data off of, but you don’t put your data back on the USB sticks to share them with others, you’ll get kicked out of the part for being a jerk. It’s the same with torrents.
They are not the classic client-server thing that the web usually is. There isn’t a big server you are downloading from, it’s just other people that are seeding the torrent. So it’s common courtesy to do the same to allow more people to download it.
That’s the beauty of torrents. With servers, you just have to tell the owner to take the file down. With torrents, you’ll have to find every person that currently has the file and seeds it to take it fully offline. So yes, this exposes you to some risks. If you are downloading pirated content and live in a country where these laws are enforced, you’ll want to use a VPN to torrent. But with seeding, you’re giving back to the community that you’re taking from.
This actually explained it so much. I kept thinking in the normal web hosting way. I had no idea the internet was this easy. Torrents are really cool! I am sure to share ALL my USB sticks! Even the ones I don’t use.