Torrent Swapper is an open sourced sociable peer to peer file-sharing client based on the Bittorrent protocol that is ideal for high-speed distribution of large files that has a basic understanding of human friendships, of user tastes in content, and of Internet connectivity between users. Torrent Swapper supports simultaneous downloads, download queue, selected downloads in torrent package, fast-resume, disk cache, speed limits, port mapping, proxy, ip-filter, etc.

A beginner's guide to BitTorrent

What is BitTorrent?
BitTorrent is a protocol (a set of rules and description of how to do things) originally written by Braham Cohen allowing you to download large files quickly by allowing people downloading the file to upload parts of it at the same time. BitTorrent is often used for distribution of very large files, very popular files and files available for free, as it is a lot cheaper, faster and more efficient to distribute files using BitTorrent than a regular download.

Torrent Swapper is a BitTorrent client i.e., a computer program that follows the rules of a protocol. For example, HTTP is the protocol used to download web pages and other content - like this page - and your HTTP client (or browser) is the program you use to get those web pages. Just as there are multiple HTTP clients (i.e., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc.), there are multiple BitTorrent clients, and Torrent Swapper is one such BitTorrent client.

How do I download Torrent files?
Just like you need a qualified URL like "www.acme.com" to surf to a web site and download content, you need a "torrent file" to download content available using a BitTorrent client. Most of the time, you will download this file from a website, though you could also get the torrent from a friend or even a CD. Many websites offer torrents as one method of downloading files available through that website - for example, OpenOffice.org, a free office suite, can be downloaded using BitTorrent. Other sites, like legaltorrents.com, offer torrents of all kinds of things - these sites are just repositories of torrents and usually don't actually create any of the content available. They're known as indexes or trackers - there is a subtle difference between the two.

Once you've obtained the torrent file from wherever, you simply need to import it into your BitTorrent client. There are several ways of doing this in Torrent Swapper:

  • Click File then Add Torrent in Torrent Swapper and locate the torrent file.
  • Double-click the torrent file. (Only works if you've associated .torrent files with Torrent Swapper - Torrent Swapper asks you if it should do this the first time you run it. If you clicked 'No', you can do this by going to Options, then Preferences in Torrent Swapper, then clicking Associate with .torrent files under Windows Integration.)
  • (advanced) Click File then Add Torrent from URL in Torrent Swapper, and enter a URL from which the .torrent file can be obtained.

But I don't want to download open source software, I want to download the latest episodes of my favorite TV shows!
I would be lying if we didn't admit that the most popular use of BitTorrent is probably illegal file sharing of copyrighted material, despite the fact that it is used for many other purposes and was definitely not created for it. However, there are a number of BitTorrent indexes that have no restrictions on what's posted on them, for good examples visit our Top Torrent Sites

How do I avoid downloading viruses from BitTorrent?
You should treat something downloaded with BitTorrent just like any file downloaded from the internet – simply, if you don't trust the source of the file, then you should use caution when opening it. Running a virus scan is usually a good idea. However, BitTorrent does have protection to ensure that someone uploading parts of the file you're downloading (ie. someone who is not the original source of the torrent file) is not uploading malicious data to your computer.