Speed Tests - Azureus ‘Magnet Links’ vs Torrents

March 13, 08 by sharky   4,392  views  

To confirm our belief that bonafide torrents would be faster than decentrally-hosted Azureus magnet links, we decided to put them head-to-head in a speed test.

To achieve this, we downloaded four different torrents and the four corresponding ‘magnet links’. Since we couldn’t open both the torrent and magnet link in the same BitTorrent client (Azureus v2.5), we opened the torrents in µtorrent (v1.6.1).

The results really aren’t all that surprising. Nor should they be - Azureus magnet links are not designed to be the Porsches of BitTorrent. Their purpose is to potentially squeeze out those last few packets that otherwise wouldn’t be available from a seedless or dead torrent.

Read the rest of this entry »

Using Azureus ‘Magnet Links’

March 12, 08 by sharky   5,517  views  

Azureus is a BitTorrent client that exclusively supports special torrent magnet links that run through their own Distributed Hash Table (DHT) network. Instead of downloading the torrent from a web server (i.e. torrent site / tracker), you download it directly from the seeds / leechers. The biggest advantage is that you might be able to download the contents of the torrent even if the tracker is down or temporarily offline (or there are no seeds).

Configuring Azureus for Magnet Links

You’ll need a version of the Azureus client that is higher than 2.3. There are two settings within Azureus that must be enabled in order to use magnet links. By default, these are already set to ON, so no further modification is required. You can check if these two are already selected in the TOOLS > OPTIONS menu (see below). NOTE: We used Azureus v2.5 for these examples, and NOT the new Azureus Vuze client (v3.0.5). The older version can be found here on filehippo.com.

Read the rest of this entry »

‘Magnet Links’ Explained

March 10, 08 by sharky   3,965  views  

A magnet link is a unique link to a specific file, typically on a P2P file sharing network.

Magnet Links allow users to directly download files into a P2P file sharing application. Through the support of magnet links, users can follow links to find specific files quickly and accurately. In short, getting the file is as easy as following a link - the magnet points to a specific file and launches the P2P program, adding the file to the user’s download list.

Magnet Links are an extension of a greater group of URIs/URNs (not to be confused with ‘URL’) - whereas a URL will point to a specific website; a URI will point to the specific contents, or, location of a file. Read the technical jargon for Magnet Links on Wikipedia.

Magnet Links - What are they for?

The main reason for the conception of magnet links is for increased authenticity (and less redundancy) of files being shared via P2P programs. For example, if you conduct a search for something specific in a filesharing program (such as Limewire), you’ll notice “multiple sources” for some of the results. We don’t have to tell you that ‘multiple source’ files offer the best availability, in terms of transfer speeds and chances for a successful ‘working’ download. All of the sources use the same hash link (that points to the exact same file).

Read the rest of this entry »