How to Add Peers in uTorrent – TechJunkie
uTorrent is among the best and most popular torrent clients in the world. For the most part, it’s very intuitive and easy to use. And if you know a little about torrents, you’ve probably heard of peers and are people who are currently downloading a torrent, helping you download it even faster yourself. In case you were wondering how to add peers in uTorrent, you should know that it can’t be done directly. But you can add trackers, which will add peers and seeders, resulting in faster download on for more details, and remember to always use a VPN when Are Peers? Torrent peers are the people currently downloading the same torrent you’re downloading. When they download a portion of said torrent, they help you download what they have already downloaded. Hopefully, that makes sense, if it truly isn’t complicated at peers, seeders are people who (mostly) intentionally share the torrent files they’ve already finished downloading. These help you even more because they’re sharing the whole torrent file with you add torrent trackers, you’ll most likely (although not always) increase both the number of peers and seeders. You can find lists of torrent trackers online, but we’ll provide you with one later sure that you find the updated list of trackers. The one we’ll share is active at the time of writing (January 2020), but if you’re reading this in the future, consider finding an updated tracker to Add PeersAs mentioned, you can’t add peers directly in uTorrent, but you can add trackers – which is basically the same thing. Adding trackers is really easy, just follow these steps:Make sure that you have updated or installed the latest uTorrent program suited for your operating system from the uTorrent and start downloading any on the torrent while it’s downloading and select Properties from the dropdown list of trackers will appear at the top of this window. Open this list of torrent trackers, then copy and paste some trackers into the trackers field in the mentioned you’re done, click on OK to confirm the will increase the number of peers and seeders for your torrent. Sometimes that number is insignificant, whilst other times you should see a great improvement. The result will be an increase in download speed, depending on the ditional Torrent TipsBefore you start downloading torrents, make sure of the following:Get a decent internet package from your ISP. If you want to increase the download speed of torrents and everything else, you can always get a better package. Of course, this will cost use a cable connection, rather than a wireless connection. An Ethernet cable connection will give you maximum download speed and internet signal, unlike download “healthy” torrents. You can easily determine if a torrent is healthy by looking at the number of seeders, and leechers. Seeders are the good guys, leechers are bad. A healthy torrent has at least a 2:1 ratio (e. g. 300 seeders and 150 leechers). Leechers are people who only download a torrent, without seeding trustworthy torrent sites. In my personal experience, the Pirate Bay and Rarbg are the best choices, at least at the current a VPN! Step 5 deserves a section all of its own because it’s incredibly Use a VPN When TorrentingTorrenting is illegal in most of the western hemisphere. If you live in the U. S. you probably know this already. Therefore, you should find a trusted VPN (virtual private network) service and use it if you’re downloading any torrents. Without a VPN, you’re more likely to be charged for pirating, i. e. breaking copyright laws. Be warned. The fines for this are quite hefty. Instead, why not spend several bucks every month and stay safe? There are many VPN services, not all of which are that recommend using ExpressVPN or NordVPN. Both are very popular and trusted options. They have great encryption and value their users’ privacy. Also, they have many servers across the globe which offer great internet ’s great about these VPN providers is that they allow you to use their service across multiple devices, without having to pay extra. Whenever you’re torrenting, make sure your VPN is active. This way you’ll stay under the radar at all Fast Torrent DownloadsIf you follow our advice, you’ll surely have a much better time torrenting than you did before. Always stay safe with a VPN, and don’t bother downloading unhealthy or sketchy torrent files. These may have malware too, but on trusted torrent sites that usually won’t be the you’re done with your download, remember to seed the torrent so you can return the favor. Don’t be a leecher, sharing is caring. That said, adding more peers is sometimes impossible, usually on older recommend that you download torrents as soon as they come out, or shortly after. If you want to watch a show from 20 years ago, you probably won’t have as many peers and seeders as you would for a more contemporary you ever added peers in a torrent? Why not share your experiences in the comments section below?
Glossary of BitTorrent terms – Wikipedia
This is a glossary of jargon related to peer-to-peer file sharing via the BitTorrent protocol.
Terms[edit]
Availability[edit]
(Also known as distributed copies. ) The number of full copies of a file (or set of files and directories) directly available to the client. Each seed adds 1. 0 to this number, as they have one complete copy of the file. A connected peer with a fraction of the file available adds that fraction to the availability, if no other peer has this part of the file.
Example: a peer with 65. 3% of the file downloaded increases the availability by 0. 653. However, if two peers both have the same portion of the file downloaded – say 50% – and there is only one seeder, the availability is 1. 5.
Sometimes “distributed copies” is considered to be “availability minus 1”. So if the availability is 1. 6, the distributed copies will be 0. 6 because it is only counting the “copies” of the file.
Choked[edit]
Describes a peer to which the client refuses to send file pieces. A client chokes another client in several situations:
The second client is a seed, in which case it does not want any pieces (i. e., it is completely uninterested)
The client is already uploading at its full capacity (it has reached the value of max_uploads)
The second client has been blacklisted for being abusive or is using a blacklisted BitTorrent client.
Client[edit]
The program that enables peer-to-peer file sharing via the BitTorrent protocol. See Comparison of BitTorrent clients.
Distributed Hash Table[edit]
Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) are used in Bittorrent for peers to send a list of other seeds/peers in the swarm for a particular torrent directly to a client without the need for a tracker.
Downloader[edit]
A downloader is any peer that does not have the entire file and is downloading the file. This term, used in Bram Cohen’s Python implementation, lacks the negative connotation attributed to leech. Bram prefers downloader to leech because BitTorrent’s tit-for-tat ensures downloaders also upload and thus do not unfairly qualify as leeches.
Endgame / Endgame mode[edit]
Any applied algorithm for downloading the last few pieces (see below) of a torrent.
In typical client operation the last download pieces arrive more slowly than the others. This is because the faster and more easily accessible pieces should have already been obtained. In order to prevent the last pieces becoming unobtainable, BitTorrent clients attempt to get the last missing pieces from all of its peers. Upon receiving the last pieces a cancel request command is sent to other peers.
Fake[edit]
A fake torrent is a torrent that does not contain what is specified in its name or description (e. g. a torrent is said to contain a video, but it contains only a snapshot of a moment in the video, or in some cases malware).
Freeleech[edit]
Freeleech means that the download size of the torrent does not count towards your overall ratio, only the uploaded amount on the torrent counts toward your ratio.
Grab[edit]
A torrent is grabbed when its metadata files have been downloaded.
Hash[edit]
The hash is a digital fingerprint in the form of a string of alphanumeric characters (typically hexadecimal) in the. torrent file that the client uses to verify the data that is being transferred. “Hash” is the shorter form of the word “hashsum”.
Torrent files contain information like the file list, sizes, pieces, etc. Every piece received is first checked against the hash. If it fails verification, the data is discarded and requested again.
Hash checks greatly reduce the chance that invalid data is incorrectly identified as valid by the BitTorrent client, but it is still possible for invalid data to have the same hash value as the valid data and be treated as such. This is known as a hash collision. Torrent and p2p files typically use 160 bit hashes that are reasonably free from hash collision problems, so the probability of bad data being received and passed on is extraordinarily small.
Health[edit]
Health is shown in a bar or in% usually next to the torrent’s name and size, on the site where the. torrent file is hosted. It shows if all pieces of the torrent are available to download (i. e. 50% means that only half of the torrent is available). Health does not indicate whether the torrent is free of viruses.
Hit-and-run[edit]
To intentionally “leech” a file; downloading a file while seeding as little as possible.
Index[edit]
An index is a list of. torrent files (usually including descriptions and other information) managed by a website and available for searches. An index website can also be a tracker.
Interested[edit]
Describes a downloader who wishes to obtain pieces of a file the client has. For example, the uploading client would flag a downloading client as ‘interested’ if that client did not possess a piece that it did, and wished to obtain it.
Leech[edit]
Leech has two meanings. Often, leecher is synonymous with downloader (see above): simply describing a peer or any client that does not have 100% of the data.
The term leech also refers to a peer (or peers) that has a negative effect on the swarm by having a very poor share ratio, downloading much more than they upload. Leeches may be on asymmetric Internet connections or do not leave their BitTorrent client open to seed the file after their download has completed. However, some leechers intentionally avoid uploading by using modified clients or excessively limiting their upload speed.
Lurker[edit]
A lurker is a user that only downloads files from the group but does not add new content. It does not necessarily mean that the lurker will not seed. Not to be confused with a leecher.
Magnet link[edit]
A mechanism different from a. torrent metafile which can be used to identify a set of files for BitTorrent based on content, as opposed to referencing any particular tracker. The method is not limited to BitTorrent data. See Magnet URI scheme.
Overseeded[edit]
In private trackers using ratio credit, a torrent is overseeded when its availability is so high that seeders have difficulty finding downloaders.
p2p[edit]
In a p2p network, each node (or computer on the network) acts as both a client and a server. In other words, each computer is capable of both responding to requests for data and requesting data itself.
Peer[edit]
A peer is one instance of a BitTorrent client running on a computer on the Internet to which other clients connect and transfer data. Depending on context, “peer” can refer either to any client in the swarm or more specifically to a downloader, a client that has only parts of the file.
Piece[edit]
This refers to the torrented files being divided up into equal specific sized pieces (e. g., 64kB, 128kB, 512kB, 1MB, 2MB, 4MB or 8MB). The pieces are distributed in a random fashion among peers in order to optimize trading efficiency.
Ratio credit[edit]
A ratio credit, also known as upload credit or ratio economy, is a currency system used on a number of private trackers to provide an incentive for higher upload/download ratios among member file-sharers. In such a system, those users with greater amounts of bandwidth, hard drive space (particularly seedboxes) or idle computer uptime are at a greater advantage to accumulate ratio credits versus those lacking in any one or more of the same resources.
Scraping[edit]
This is when a client sends a request to the tracking server for information about the statistics of the torrent, such as with whom to share the file and how well those other users are sharing.
Seed / seeding[edit]
A seed refers to a machine possessing all of the data (100% completion). A peer or downloader becomes a seed when it completely downloads all the data and continues/starts uploading data for other peers to download from. This includes any peer possessing 100% of the data or a web seed. When a downloader starts uploading content, the peer becomes a seed. [citation needed]
Seeding refers to leaving a peer’s BitTorrent client open and available for additional individuals to download from. Normally, a peer should seed more data than download. However, whether to seed or not, or how much to seed, depends on the availability of downloaders and the choice of the peer at the seeding end. [citation needed]
[edit]
A user’s share ratio for any individual torrent is a number determined by dividing the amount of data that user has uploaded by the amount of data they have downloaded. Final share ratios over 1. 0 carry a positive connotation in the BitTorrent community, because they indicate that the user has sent more data to other users than they received. Likewise, share ratios under 1 have negative connotation.
Snatch[edit]
A torrent is snatched when its data files have been downloaded.
Snubbing[edit]
An uploading client is displayed as snubbed if the downloading client has not received any data from it in over 60 seconds.
Super-seeding[edit]
When a file is new, much time can be wasted because the seeding client might send the same file piece to many different peers, while other pieces have not yet been downloaded at all. Some clients, like Vuze, μTorrent, and qBittorrent have a “super-seed” mode, where they try to only send out pieces that have never been sent out before, theoretically making the initial propagation of the file much faster. However the super-seeding becomes less effective and may even reduce performance compared to the normal “rarest first” model in cases where some peers have poor or limited connectivity. This mode is generally used only for a new torrent, or one which must be re-seeded because no other seeds are available.
Swarm[edit]
Together, all peers (including seeds) sharing a torrent are called a swarm. [1] For example, six ordinary peers and two seeds make a swarm of eight. This is a holdover from the predecessor to BitTorrent, a program called Swarmcast, originally from OpenCola.
BitTorrent may sometimes display a swarm number that has no relation to the number of seeds and peers you are connected to or who are available. E. it may show 5 out of 10 connected peers, 20 out of 100 connected seeds, and a swarm of 3.
Torrent[edit]
A torrent can mean either a. torrent metadata file or all files described by it, depending on context. The torrent file contains metadata about all the files it makes downloadable, including their names and sizes and checksums of all pieces in the torrent. It also contains the address of a tracker that coordinates communication between the peers in the swarm. [1]
Tracker[edit]
A tracker is a server that keeps track of which seeds and peers are in the swarm. [1] Clients report information to the tracker periodically and in exchange, receive information about other clients to which they can connect. The tracker is not directly involved in the data transfer and does not have a copy of the file. It only receives information from the client.
References[edit]
^ a b c “BEP-0003: The BitTorrent Protocol Specification”. Retrieved 2009-10-22.
How to Fix uTorrent Stuck on Connecting to Peers – Help Desk …
One of the most annoying issues to plague uTorrent users is an issue with connectivity. Sometimes, clients like uTorrent get stuck on “connecting to peers” error, where the BitTorrent client cannot connect to other BitTorrent users. A uTorrent not connecting to peers error means a user can’t begin downloading a torrent.
There are a couple of reasons why this error can occur. Sometimes, the problem is down to the client or the internet connection, but it can also be caused by problems with a torrent file itself. If uTorrent is stuck on “connecting to peers” for you, here are a couple of ways you can fix the problem.
Also, be sure to check out your YouTube channel where we made a short video covering the fixes mentioned in this article.
Check Your Firewall and Enable Port Mapping
A problem with uTorrent not connecting to peers can often be due to your system or network firewall. For BitTorrent clients like uTorrent to work correctly, they require open network ports to allow incoming and outgoing traffic. If the ports that uTorrent uses are blocked, you can’t download your torrent file (or share it with others).
A good way around this is to use port forwarding (or port mapping). You can set up port forwarding to forward traffic to the BitTorrent ports to your PC (and vice versa), allowing uTorrent to make a stable connection.
If your network router has automatic port forwarding options like UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) and NAT PMP (Network Port Mapping Protocol) available, uTorrent can take advantage of these to forward bypass firewall restrictions and connect your PC to torrent seeders and downloaders automatically.
You can check this setting is active by opening the uTorrent client and pressing Options > Preferences, then making sure the Enable UPnP port mapping and Enable NAT-PMP port mapping options are enabled. You should also ensure that the Enable Windows Firewall exception checkbox is enabled to allow uTorrent connections through your Windows firewall.
Run a uTorrent Settings Test
When a uTorrent gets stuck on connecting to peers, it could point to a problem with your network configuration. To help you, the uTorrent client includes a setup guide that will check your network and configure uTorrent’s settings to the most optimal configuration.
To run the uTorrent setup guide, open the uTorrent client and click Options > Setup guide. From here, make sure the Network and Bandwidth checkboxes are enabled and select the server nearest to your location from the Bandwidth drop-down menu. Press Run Tests to begin the tests.
The uTorrent setup guide will run. Once it has completed, the results of your tests will be listed under each section. Press Save and Close to save any recommended changes to your configuration.
Hide Your uTorrent Traffic
BitTorrent has a reputation—and not a very good one. To most people, it means illegal file sharing, which is why internet service providers will (where possible) block and severely limit the capability of users downloading or uploading BitTorrent files.
To get around this problem, you can hide your BitTorrent traffic using uTorrent’s BitTorrent protocol encryption. Technically, uTorrent doesn’t encrypt the traffic, but it will help to bypass the kind of traffic shaping that ISPs use to automatically disrupt BitTorrent file sharing—the kind of problem that stops uTorrent connecting to peers.
To enable BitTorrent protocol encryption in uTorrent, press Options > Preferences in the uTorrent client. From here, click the BitTorrent tab, then make sure to choose Enabled from the Protocol Encryption drop-down menu. Press OK to save.
If you’re still having problems, change the protocol encryption from Enabled to Forced to ensure that protocol encryption is always used.
Using a VPN? Switch To a BitTorrent Friendly Server
Many users will prefer to use a virtual private network (VPN) to bypass ISP restrictions or to maintain their anonymity while downloading or sharing BitTorrent files. Unfortunately, not all VPNs are equal—some will actively block BitTorrent connections on all or certain servers, depending on the VPN provider.
If you’re using a VPN to download or share BitTorrent files, you may need to check whether the server you’re connecting to (and indeed, the VPN provider itself) allows BitTorrent connections. If they don’t, they may use the same kind of tools that ISP uses to block BitTorrent traffic and stop uTorrent connecting to peers.
Check with your VPN provider and, if it does offer BitTorrent-friendly servers, make sure to connect to these when using uTorrent to download or share your files. NordVPN, a popular VPN provider, labels these servers as P2P servers, for instance.
If the connection is still problematic, make sure to run the uTorrent setup guide again to alter your connecting settings (Options > Setup guide).
Is Your Torrent File Dead? Torrenting Files with No Seeds Available
While uTorrent is certainly a capable BitTorrent client, it can’t resurrect the dead—dead Torrent files, that is. If a BitTorrent file is no longer being shared and has no seeders to match with, then you can’t download it.
That means that uTorrent is stuck on “connecting to peers” until other users begin to seed the file you’ve chosen to download again. Your only option in this scenario is to try and find another, similar torrent file to the one you’re attempting to download.
Of course, no seeds doesn’t necessarily mean that your torrent file is dead—but it’s a likely and possible cause.
Try Another BitTorrent Client
uTorrent is a memorable name in the BitTorrent business, but it’s certainly not the client it used to be. If uTorrent is not connecting to peers, it might be worth looking at alternative BitTorrent clients to see if the problem is with the software and not with the file.
You can try options like qBittorrent for free on all major operating systems or, if you’d prefer to use a mobile BitTorrent client, you could download torrents on a smartphone using a client like Flud.
This isn’t a miracle fix, of course. If uTorrent can’t make a connection, it points to a problem with your internet connection or configuration, but if uTorrent itself is being blocked, then trying an alternative client could resolve the issue.
Resolving Your uTorrent Issues
If your uTorrent is stuck on the “connecting to peers” error, these fixes should help you resolve the problem and get your torrent client working. BitTorrent isn’t just about downloading files, however. If you’ve got a large enough file to share, you could think about making your own torrent file to distribute it to your audience.
Don’t forget to keep your PC safe when you’re using uTorrent, especially if you’re downloading torrent files from sources you don’t fully trust. To lower the risks, you should consider scanning for malware on your Windows PC on a regular basis.
Frequently Asked Questions about what are peers in utorrent
What are peers in Torrenting?
Peer. A peer is one instance of a BitTorrent client running on a computer on the Internet to which other clients connect and transfer data. Depending on context, “peer” can refer either to any client in the swarm or more specifically to a downloader, a client that has only parts of the file.
How do I fix peers on uTorrent?
How to Fix uTorrent Stuck on Connecting to PeersCheck Your Firewall and Enable Port Mapping.Run a uTorrent Settings Test.Hide Your uTorrent Traffic.Using a VPN? Switch To a BitTorrent Friendly Server.Is Your Torrent File Dead? … Try Another BitTorrent Client.Resolving Your uTorrent Issues.Mar 22, 2020
Do seeds peers affect download speed?
There really isn’t any “optimal” ratio of seeds/peers. You could max out your download bandwidth from one single seed, regardless of how many peers or leechers there are. In general, the more seeds, the better, as this gives you more places to connect to to download the file.