Isn’t a torrent just, like…directly sharing a file from your PC? What’s all this business about “seeding” and “leeching”?
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It is basically like directly sharing, but not quite. A file (it can be anything) is separated into many smaller pieces, each getting a special name. The torrent basically holds this information and the instructions on how to assemble the smaller pieces into one piece, the original file.
This instruction (a torrent) is coupled with additional information which keeps track of various computers across the internet which have the same torrent and which pieces of the original file they have. This additional information is called Trackers.
When you download a specific torrent and run it using software made to read it, the software knows what smaller pieces of the larger file you lack (when you begin you lack all of them) and it checks which computers have those smaller pieces. Then it downloads the smaller pieces from any available computer which has them. Once it has all the pieces, they are assembled into the original file.
Seeders is the name for the computers which the entire file and thus all the smaller pieces.
Leechers is the name for the computers which do not have the entire file, but rather any amount of the smaller pieces.
The benefit of the system is that you can download any piece from any computer which has it, be they seeders or leechers, as long as those computers are currently running the torrent software and are connected to the internet.
So, in short, torrents help by distributing a file to as many people as possible and allow anyone to download that file by taking pieces from everyone until they have the whole thing. This way nobody is dependant on one place that holds the file. If someone disconnects or deletes the file it is still available to download from the other people who have it. Of course, if everyone who has the complete file were to delete it, nobody would be able to get the full file anymore.
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