How To Share Torrents With BitTorrent Illiterates
Written by Ernesto on January 06, 2008Every now and then I want to share a torrent with colleagues or family members who have never even heard of BitTorrent. For them even the easiest tutorials look like advanced algebra. That leaves me with two options, BitComet Lite and Bitlet. For the complete novice, sharing on BitTorrent doesn’t come any easier than this.
Both methods work quite well and are pretty much idiot proof. It should be fairly easy to share a torrent with anyone who knows how to doubleclick or launch a web browser.
BitComet Lite
Most people know BitComet as a standalone BitTorrent client, but the BitComet team also offers other tools. BitComet Lite is one of them, it’s basically a small BitTorrent client with a .torrent file included. With the BitComet Lite maker you can select a torrent file to include with the application and customize it with your own graphics. The application then compiles an .exe file that you can send to your BitTorrent illiterate friends. When they open the file you shared with them they can select the download location and the file will start downloading.
It is possible to resume downloads with BitComet Lite, which is ideal for larger files that can’t be downloaded at once. The user doesn’t have to configure anything and the download speeds are pretty decent. The only limitation is that the application is for windows users only.
BitLet
BitLet is a very neat web-based Java applet that allows you to download .torrent files without having BitTorrent client installed. The web based BitTorrent client is ideal to share a torrent with less tech-savvy friends. It works pretty simple, just append the link to the torrent to this url http://www.bitlet.org/?torrent= and send it to your friends, here’s an example. If people click on the link a popup window will appear, and the download starts immediately.
It is possible to resume downloads, just click on the link again and safe the file in the same location. BitLet also has a very useful code generator so you can offer BitTorrent downloads on your blog or website so that people can easily download, even when they don’t have a BitTorrent client installed.
Personally I prefer BitLet over BitComet Lite because it is costs less time and it is platform independent. The advantage of BitComet Lite to some might be that you can brand the application with your own images, which may look more professional.
Do you know of any other ways to share torrents with BitTorrent novices? Let us know and leave a comment!
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So set up an ftp server. Cant get any more idiot proof than ftp://ftp.server.com/file.txt in your favorite web browser. :)
well, why is it that people need to make less tech savy people use bittorent??? I mean if you really want to send them a 600mb+ file why not set up an ftp server or apach web server on your computer for that purpose? There is no need to mak it more complicated than it already is…
and by the way bittorrent is not for leechers like your friends or coworkers.. If you want someone to leech on a torrent please make them do it off your machine….
Well, lets say you’ve got a blog or something that you contently are uploading videos and stuff, if you have a large audience but no money for hosting that could mean that 10 people are sucking down on your little connection trying to get some 200 meg file. if you make them use a simple system like bitlet where they just click a link, all they know is that your video now takes 20 mins to download instead of 5 hours I only have 450k up, so if more then one person goes to download something from me it goes to crap. This system is perfect for getting files out there that lots of people want when you can afford to get a server line.
better yet, teach them how to file share properly with an ordinary client, it wont take you more than a couple of minutes to configure it for them. once the client is properly configured even my mother could learn to use bittorent after a 5 min explanation (and my mother is 50+ and have barely touched a computer in all her life, so i doubt you could find many people more computer illiterate than that…)
I’m all for power to the people, but given the state of security of the average Windows box (run by someone to whom learning to use a full-fledged BT client is too hard) do we *really* want to encourage people to swap custom executables and blindly run EXEs they get in the mail with their friends’ names in the FROM line?
Better to put in the effort to teach or convince them to use a full-fledget BT client.
But perhaps the battle is long lost? I don’t know any non-technical Windows users anymore…
“Does BitLet upload or seed?
Of course, please keep your download window opened as long as possible even after it has reached the 100%.”
NSKQuote
and by the way bittorrent is not for leechers like your friends or coworkers.. If you want someone to leech on a torrent please make them do it off your machine….
seeding/uploading = leeching now?
I’d think that many of the people who would use BitLet wouldn’t know how or why to share - though it is good for people without clients installed, maybe on a friends computer.
just use HFS friends….. thats all we need
This is cool. It would be nice to download on a friends computer if I didn’t feel like installing an application. Easy to remember too.
Sorry about the reckless self-promotion but I have created Podmailing specifically to facilitate sharing torrents with illiterates:
- it is compatible with bittorrent, actually based on the mainline client, although I don’t define it as a bittorrent client (to avoid scaring them off)
- it is easy to share torrents because it has a mailing feature (hence the name)
- illiterates can use it to send files too, because the software seeds (& uploads) to our servers, and we re-seed the files for them with a ton of bandwidth
When you receive a podmail sent with our service, it is downloadable either:
- with our podmailing software
- with any BitTorrent client
- with BitLet
- and if the file has arrived 100% on our server the recipient can download it straight from his browser using http
Again sorry for the long comment but I would really like to get your feedback on this service - would you recommend it to your illiterate friends?
http://www.podmailing.com/
i recomend geting them to use opera web browser, which feature automated torrent handleing
In my opinion, filesharing should be limited to the people who CARE about its potential enough to learn about it. If I was for example, too stubborn or oblivious to learn that driving a vehicle could end up making my life alot easier and I never bothered to learn how, then I shouldn’t have the right to drive.
i just ate a baked potato um nice to it was what is this filesharing thing your all talking about is it legal cause i dont like the potatoes they made me eat when i was in prison before my favorite film is porkys and rambo fist blood
You forgot one other simple method: tell them to use Opera as a web browser. It has an integrated bittorrent downloader by default. You almost doesn’t notice it’s not a standard download.
“The only limitation is that the application is for windows users only.”
I think windows users are the target of BitCometLite. I find it very hard to belive that any linux user doesn’t know how to download a torrent.
[quote comment="256848"]“The only limitation is that the application is for windows users only.”
I think windows users are the target of BitCometLite. I find it very hard to belive that any linux user doesn’t know how to download a torrent.[/quote]
No but lots of Mac users might.
True what they say about opera browser, you just click the torrent link as it were any other download link and opera downloads it. Cant match speed of good clients, at least not if there are few seeders/sharers, but on the upside you can use it on windows/linux/bsd/mac.
Bad article all around. The whole point of Bittorrent is to keep seeding once you finish downloading.. if people start using those apps ratio’s would be almost null.
To tell you the truth, most bittorrent clients are pretty straight forward, people who can’t learn how to use them don’t need them in the first place.
@ logos: clearly you’ve never made an attempt to explain it to anyone who doesn’t know.
@ guido: “people who can’t learn how to use them don’t need them in the first place” = antonym of seeding.
seeding = synonymous with sharing, which is what bittorrent is really all about.
file SHARING, right?
[quote comment="256896"]Bad article all around. The whole point of Bittorrent is to keep seeding once you finish downloading.. if people start using those apps ratio’s would be almost null.
[/quote]
witch is why god gave us private trackers, let the computer illiterate have the open trackers with slow speeds and loads of corrupted torrents ppl who know what they are doing can easily get access properly monitored trackers without corrupt torrents and an average speed of 1MB/s+ (and for people using public trackers, no that is not a typo of Mb, i mean a min speed of 1 MB/s = 8Mb/S)
forgot to mention, we don’t have to suffer 100+ duplicates of the same file either…
[quote comment="256819"]Sorry about the reckless self-promotion but I have created Podmailing specifically to facilitate sharing torrents with illiterates:
- it is compatible with bittorrent, actually based on the mainline client, although I don’t define it as a bittorrent client (to avoid scaring them off)
- it is easy to share torrents because it has a mailing feature (hence the name)
- illiterates can use it to send files too, because the software seeds (& uploads) to our servers, and we re-seed the files for them with a ton of bandwidth
When you receive a podmail sent with our service, it is downloadable either:
- with our podmailing software
- with any BitTorrent client
- with BitLet
- and if the file has arrived 100% on our server the recipient can download it straight from his browser using http
Again sorry for the long comment but I would really like to get your feedback on this service - would you recommend it to your illiterate friends?
http://www.podmailing.com//quote
hmm sounds like a great plan… could you start seeding the movie Water Horse if I was to upload it to the server? oh if i do upload it to the server how long will it stay seeding before the MPAA obligates you to remove it?
lol Louis.
:)
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