How do torrents work?
In: Technology
Let’s say you made a Kick-butt video game, and you decide you want to give it away for free. But it’s a big program, BIG! Server space and data transfer costs money, and you don’t want to have to pay every time somebody downloads it.
So instead you set it up as a torrent file. One person downloads it, and agrees to be a seed for the program, so now there are 2 sources. Then another person downloads it and is a seed, so that’s 3 sources (your original server, and the two people who have downloaded)
The more people who download and seed (share) the file, the more spread out the data transfer is. Instead of you being the only option, everybody who is seeding the program gets a little bit downloaded from them. Which can also help things move along nicely so one particular server doesn’t get bogged down with requests.
Now the end user has to have a torrent program because their program is downloading a chunk here and a chunk there from all these seeders, and it needs to be put back together properly. But that’s about the gist of it.
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