Expert: Brian Benosky - 4/29/2010

Question
Hi Brian,

You may remember me. I asked you about Bit torrent a while ago.
I changed to Utorrent instead and it was going good for one day but the next day the same file said zero seeds.

Do I have to let the file seed after I download? Because I just click the stop button

Does the organisation who manage the site Do they know when someone is downloading and they stop the connection because it is illegal?
How do other people download if they dont use the torrent sites?
What is vuze is that also like bit torrent and utorrent?
How many other torrent clients are there?
Which one would you say is the best one to use?

Is there any other sites that arn't torrent sites which you can download tv series but you have to pay money like banditfm.com

I hope this makes sense

Answer
Hi Vanessa

Yes, your questions make sense :-)
Here's the short answers:
Yes, you should seed after finishing the download, otherwise you are just leeching, which the community frowns upon.
Not sure what organization you refer to, but torrents are generally not private, and they can be traced by IP address.  
Torrents are not located on web sites.  All the files are on users computers, like yourself.  Look here:
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/bittorrent-4.jpg
There are many clients, but I prefer utorrent for it's simplicity.  Vuze is a little different in that it has chat and other plug-ins, along with a torrent client.
I am not sure about non-torrent sites.  I have seen some scams.  The safest way to get things is usually directly from the source.  Go to the series website and see if they offer downloads of shows.
Read more about torrents here:
http://lisvn.wordpress.com/2007/04/01/torrent-newbie/
and here:
http://www.websitedesignpartners.com/bittorrent.html

Hope that helped.  Cheers!

Brian