BitTorrent users are often referred to as pirates, even though there are plenty of legal uses for the most used file sharing protocol. Since 2006, bit torrents have been the main resource for users to trade software, music, movies, and digital books online. Torrents are used by millions of college and university students around the planet. The aims of my guide are to:

• Educate the readers about the importance of bit torrent and the many positive uses it can provide.

• Show the readers different ways to safely download torrents.

Torrenting is the most effective peer -to-peer protocols in the world, and is necessary to gather information from all across the web.

For these Instructions you will need a computer with Internet access.

· This instruction set uses a OS X operating system.

Key Terms

A Torrent file is a computer file that has data about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms.

KickassTorrents (commonly abbreviated KAT) is a website, founded in 2008, that provides torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol.

Download (DL) to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer, this transfer is known as Upload (UL).

It is important that the reader know exactly what is legal and illegal to download. It is important to take note that torrent code is open-source, advertising-free, and adware/spyware-free. This means that no single person profits from torrent success. Everyone who torrents are basically on their own.

Step 1: Downloading a Torrent Program

To grab the torrents you will need a Bittorent program to download the torrents.

• For my demonstration I will be using the Transmission torrent program. (Can be downloaded at http://www.transmissionbt.com/).

• I chose this program because its easy to use and is relatively safe for downloads. You are not limited to this program but this intstructable will be using this program! Another popular torrent is Utorrent. (Can be downloaded at http://www.utorrent.com/).

2. Once at the Transmission website, find the appropriate version for your computer and follow the installation guide.

3. Open Tranmission.

Step 2: Finding a Torrent

5. There are plenty of sites out there to download torrents. Like all websites on the Internet it is important to always be careful on what is clicked on and downloaded.

• For this tutorial we will be using www.kickass.to/. (Other sites: www.thepiratebay.se/, http://torrentz.eu/)

• Once at KAT, a simple way to start is to click on the browse torrents section at the top.

For this download find any file:

6. A torrent should always be reviewed and looked over before downloading.

• When looking for a torrent it is important to see how many leechers it has. The higher the leecher count the more people uploading, usually correlates to how fast the download will be.

7. Once found, click on the “Download Torrent” Button

8. Kickass.to will supply you with the torrent file, which should already be the default opened to Transmission or your other BT program. Open the Torrent with Transmission.

• To open find the downloaded file and RightClick + Show File in Finder + Open File with + Transmission.

9. Transmission will ask if this is the right file, if everything seems to be what you want to download click “Add.”

· The Download should start automatically

10. When finished the bar will appear green. Double click on it to open the folder.

11. These are your newly downloaded torrents! To begin using them, click and drag to your desktop or wherever you choose to store them.