Have you been frustrated trying to direct connect with that special friend or family member over AIM to send a video you took, only to be plagued by incompatibilities or slow speeds? Ever wish that you could send more than a few files in an email? Using torrents is your completely legal solution to any file sharing woes.

With all the heat that file sharing systems have received for illegal activity as of late, it is important to remember that people really do need a way to share files with friends and family that are larger than a couple megabytes. Just because a few bad people like to ruin it for the rest doesn’t mean you have to go to great lengths to share the files you want.

A few file sharing options I’ve personally explored include: using AIM to direct connect, sharing online storage space for upload and downloads, sending emails, and more.

The problem, time and time again, is the amount of material you can send tends to be limited with the above methods, however, torrents are a great alternative for directly sending the files, no matter what size, you want to whoever you like.

Think about the concept of direct connect, email, or any other method of sharing information: it is all based on a one to one transfer of information. That is exactly what torrents do; however, most people assume that because it is used to distribute files between a lot of people, it cannot be used for a one-to-one connection.

There are a few really great tutorials on creating torrents, like this one here. In essence, all you need to do to begin sharing files directly with your friends and family are:

1. Download a torrenting program (remember that simplicity and functionality are both important, so try to find the best mix of both that fits your needs. The best program I’ve found for Mac is Transmission.) Try to use one that allows both the seeding and downloading of torrents, and ideally the creation of torrents.

2. Create your torrent of whatever material you want to share (grouping all the items in a single folder tends to do the trick).

3. Use an indexing site to list your torrent, and send the link to your friend or family member you want to share the material with.

4. “Seed” the material, which means open it in your torrent program so others can download it directly from you.

And that’s all there is to it; it might sound complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it isn’t really any more difficult than attaching files in an email.

The best part is you shouldn’t suffer from the woes of slow download speeds due to incompatibilities in messaging programs, or server timeouts if you try to upload files over emails.

I’m not at all condoning the redistribution of copyrighted material, but I think people need to know that file sharing is a part of every day life, and it doesn’t have to be illegal. There is no reason to tuck your tail and resign yourself to burning someone a dvd of material to send them or hand them on the weekend when torrents are so easy to use.

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 9:59 pm under Apple, Blogosphere, Online video, Open source, Opinion.

Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
Stumble It!