What is a bittorrent?
from wikipedia:
BitTorrent may refer to:
- BitTorrent (protocol), a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) communications protocol
- BitTorrent client, a program that downloads files using the BitTorrent protocol.
- BitTorrent, Inc., an American corporation that develops Internet content distribution technology based on the BitTorrent protocol. [list]
- BitTorrent (software), the official client of BitTorrent, Inc.
[/list]
Thank you!!!
I was going to answer but…I thought it must be a trick question. 
allow me to attempt a more comprehensive answer to your question
through most of the internet’s history, information has been sent from a server (say pixologic.com) to a client (your computer) in a very linear fashion… your computer says “hey you have this file and I want it” and the server says “sure you can have it”
bittorrent is a different method of transferring information between computers that is a little more dynamic… first, it doesn’t rely on a client/server relationship… second, it breaks every file up into “bits”
a torrent begins when somebody creates a torrent file… that torrent file processes a file or directory on their computer and breaks it into pieces (bits) that can be distributed individually, but recreate the same original file when all pieces have been downloaded… kinda like a puzzle
then that person puts their torrent file online, which acts as a beacon on the internet saying “I have this”
now say 5 other people get their hands on this torrent file… it checks their computer to see if they have the stuff this torrent file refers to… if they don’t they become 5 beacons on the internet saying “I’m missing this” and start communicating the guy saying “I have this”
Mr. “I have this” then sends each of those 5 people a different piece of the puzzle… and as those 5 people receive their different bits of information, they begin to share this information between them so that the original owner of the torrent isn’t doing all the work… this is where the name comes from… a torrent of bits
pretty soon there are 6 beacons out in the internet saying “I have this”… and if another person pops up saying “I need this”, each of those 6 people will start sending that guy different pieces of the puzzle at once… that guy will get the files really fast and everyone will suffer minimal bandwidth usage in the process
it’s a really cool system… very efficient… not always fast… but go to ocremix.com and download one of their torrents (there’s usually hundreds of people on that one)… you’ll quickly see just how fast it can be
Many thanks still.
To elaborate, had downloaded bittorrents from Gnomonology, tutorials
that I had purchased. So I knew generally a form of zip or rar.
Friend of mine owns a garage and asked me about a program
called Hollander Interchange.
I looked it up on the net and found it is a commercial program
for car parts ,cost about 750.00
In the course of the search found reference to a site
that would let you download a bittorrent older version for
free, no information to give, no email address to give.
Nothing, you click, you download.
Smelled fishy to me.
From what I understand the 300 mb file took over 12 hours to
download on a fast connection.
I advised caution but he has run antivirus, everything, so far so good.
Even I know that it sounds to good to be true.
I found it to be another layer of confusion, but I see it mentioned a lot lately. I tried one use and lost interest. I think with all these free large file sharing sites around it will drift into obscurity.