The popular Bittorrent indexer The Piratebay announced yesterday that they would switch the position of torrent and magnet link download links on the website in order to save bandwidth. Many media sites reported that The Piratebay would be dropping torrents altogether, but that is not true. While it is still possible to download torrent files directly from the site, most users will probably click on the first download link they see that is not advertisement, and that loads the magnet link instead.
If you have never heard about magnet links before I suggest you check out What Is A Magnet Link And How Does It Differ From Torrents?. For those in a hurry: A magnet link is a hypertext link that contains information that the torrent client can use to find the data to download.
Downloaders should not experience many issues when they switch from torrents to magnet links. It may take longer before the client begins the download, but that is about it.
Another issue is that without access to the torrent file, you cannot use it in a program like Torrific which turns torrents into direct http downloads.
What most users do not know is that their torrent client will actually save a torrent file once the magnet link has been added to the client and the download has been started.
Users of the popular uTorrent client can for instance open the %appdata%\Roaming\uTorrent\ directory to find all torrent files listed in that directory. Torrents only appear here once the client has started downloading the file, and not before.
Having to start to download the files to get the torrent link is not an optimal solution, but it seems to be the only option at this point in time. Maybe someone will create a program in the future that downloads only the torrent file, for now, that’s not possible.
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I say it’s a good move for the Pirate Bay, especially if it saves them money. You don’t really need the torrent file anymore. Good clients like Tixati already handle magnet links, so who need torrent files. Magnet links are easier to share as well.
Excellent tip, Martin. I had found this out by accident
only because I have assigned an easily accessible
folder to store torrents within µTorrent settings.
I have been using µTorrent v1.7.7 and noticed
it did not handle magnet llinks with the
error message “unable to load”.
I wonder which version of µTorrent began
handling magnet links or if v1.7.7 can
but configuration is necessary.
Presently I use qTorrent just for magnet links.
It looks like the editing window to chose elements
of the download does not appear with magnet links
as it has with torrent files downloaded within µTorrent.
If this is a characteristic of magnet links than
that alone makes them inferior to torrent files.
Good question, I cannot really tell. And you are right, you need to start the download first before you are able to deselect items that you do not want to download.
The lack of a preview/edit capability before the
download starts is a step backward and
editing after starting just more work.
@robert
Why use two clients? Why not use one good client like Tixati that can handle both magnet links and torrent files?
I am using qTorrent temporarily until
I get µTorrent to handle magnet links.
However, I have been hesitant to use
µTorrent versions after 1.7.7 and I may
try a later version again if that is what it
takes or I may just move to another client.
And I’ll be sure to check out and try Tixati.
Right now it is not a pressing issue since
I have not encountered a magnet mink which
I could not find a torrent for but that situation
may become increasingly difficult as more sites
adapt to magnet links if they follow The Pirate Bay.
Martin, I fail to see how this would help torrific users. The method you mentioned gets the .torrent file, not the .torrent url (which torrific needs) Am I missing something?
You could upload it to the Internet again for instance.
:facepalm: Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks. I’m currently using torcache.net to upload the .torrent files.