If you have visited a Bittorrent website or torrent search engine lately you might have come upon magnet links that were offered on the torrent download pages. Chance is the magnet link did not really bother you since the torrent link was offered as well on the download page so that it could be downloaded and added to the Bittorrent software.
A closer look at the standard process of downloading files via torrents reveals several factors and parties that are necessary for this. The user needs a Bittorrent client like uTorrent or Vuze, a torrent file that is usually downloaded from a Bittorrent server which functions as a tracker and torrent provider and of course other seeders and leechers of that torrent.
A Bittorrent magnet link contains all the information needed to start downloading the files from peers directly. It is a server-less way of retrieving the right information to start downloading the requested files. A magnet link therefor is theoretically all that is needed to download files from other peers in the Bittorrent network. Magnet links can be distributed by email, messaging and other forms of communication but are most often found on the torrent sites that usually offer both torrent and magnet links to their users.
A magnet consists of several parts:
- magnet: (This is the magnet link identifier)
- ?xt=urn:btih: (Defines a Bittorrent Info Hash, the Edonkey identifier would for instance look like this xt=urn:ed2k:)
- 5dee65101db281ac9c46344cd6b175cdcad53426 (The content hash)
- &dn=name (The name of the file)
The full magnet link would look like this magnet:?xt=urn:btih:5dee65101db281ac9c46344cd6b175cdcad53426&dn=download. Detailed information about additional Magnet Link parameters are listed on Wikipedia. One useful parameter that has not been mentioned yet is the as= parameter which contains encrypted information about a download source. This speeds up the process of finding the first peers.
Main Advantages of Magnet Links
The main advantage for Bittorrent indexers is that they do not have to store the torrents on their servers anymore which could be beneficial for them in several ways. It could reduce the pressure from the media creation industry and reduce hardware infrastructure expenses thanks to less tracking and downloading.
The end users on the other hand benefit from Magnet Links as well. All they need is the link to start downloading the files which makes them independent from torrent indexers. It also allows them to distribute the information more easily. Torrent indexers remain on the other hand the main source of information for new files that are available for download.
Magnet Links use DHT
A tracker less environment should raise a question of identification. How can a download be initiated ff there is no tracker to inform the Bittorrent user about other users who download and seed the file? The answer is DHT, Distributed hash tables. DHT is enabled by default in popular clients such as uTorrent or Vuze. Without going into to much detail, the hash of the magnet link is used to find peers using DHT.
Torrent files
Torrents are still essential for Bittorrent as they contain information about the download that need to be present in the swarm. The only aspect that is changing is the way the torrents are distributed which is shifting from Bittorrent trackers and indexers to the server-less DHT procedure.
Many popular Bittorrent clients support magnet links already. This includes uTorrent and Vuze for Windows and Transmission for Linux and Mac systems.
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook or Twitter.Related Articles:
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Thank you, Martin, I always wondered what it was, but never took the time to find out.
As always, I appreciate your site!
Scott you are welcome, I also did not bother before but decided it was time to take a closer look at magnet links to understand the concept.
Excellent! I didn’t realize that utorrent had finally added support for magnet links until I read this article. Tested it and it works. Thanks!
I’m running beta versions of uTorrent most of the time, cannot really remember when they have added support in the release versions. But good that they do, its my favorite Bittorrent client.
This is the first article I’ve read in this blog. Very nice information! I’ll be trying this one since I’m using uTorrent for a long time now.
I’ll be reading your blog from now on. Keep it up!
Torrent Magnet URL shortening tool. http://mgnet.me
Supports open api.
For example magnet:?xt=urn:btih:N5VHIUX2EMQ3DB6 -> http://mgnet.me/@chromeOS
That was indeed a clear explanation of what I was looking for. Simple and straight. Thanks Martin…Doubts cleared.
sir , i am using bittorrent 7.2.1 for downlaoding, usually when i download movies , i always find magnet link , but now i cant find this link
what the problem ?
> The main advantage for Bittorrent indexers is that they do not have
> to store the torrents on their servers anymore
So they don’t store the torrents… they DO have to store the magnet links.
That’s a big difference?
Yes because a link is not a file.
unfortunately thats the same argument used to say .torrent files were safe. a .torrent isn’t supposed to be a file either – its meant to be a hyperlink. the equivalent to a .LNK file on windows containing just pointer information to an EXE file and which icon to show.
having any kind of ‘index’ towards copyrighted material could potentially be treated as ‘making available’. thats not my argument its their argument so dont think i’m the twat :P
im playing devils advocate here but while i dont see this as a legal solution i do find it a technical solution. it just means though you can get criminalized for having 100 bytes of information on your computer.
This is actually an answer to “derp”.
A hyperlink states what it links to. A magnetic link however is way more obscure. It is clear for anyone seeing a hyperlink how to get there – just paste it in a browser. How to prove that a magnetic link – which is a hash ( a binary number ) – is actually a link to something useful? It might as well be a piece of whatever binary file you may have on your computer. Maybe a cryptographic key or part of a compressed or encrypted file.
So in short: the magnet link is better the normal torrent one?
They definitely have advantages over .torrent files.
thaks martin
now i know a little about magnet link
what about virus?
How can I change magnet links into torrent links? As of today piratebay have changed their files into magnets links and I haven’t been able to download anything via torrific.
You can still download torrents from the Piratebay, just use the second download option.
Yes, I can still download from piratebay but I don’t want to. I have a proxy conflict which doesn’t allow to download through external software such as Bittorrent or utorrent. Coming back to my question, do you have any idea on how to change magnet links into torrent links? It would be of great help if you can help me out on this one :)
Only option is this: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/01/14/how-to-turn-a-magnet-link-into-a-torrent-file/
Hi there,
I’ve tried my first magnetic link, probably like some people on here, via TPB. The process works it seems, but it still actually puts a .torrent file on my PC. Is that as expected ? I don’t know, but I expected a .torrent file to be dropped from this process.
Thanks for your help and useful article.
Mike, magnet links basically download the torrent using the information contained in the link. So this is intended.
Magnet Link is faster than a normal torrent file?
No it is not, it is the same, maybe even a bit slower on start up.