Bittorrent questions

[Gryndyl]

So there's a .torrent link I'm trying to use.  I've went and downloaded bittorrent,  doubleclicked it  and recieved the message that it successfully installed.

Ermmm...now what?

I see no tray icon indicating that it's running and no means of launching it, which makes me suspect it autolaunches when necessary?

The link I'm trying to click (and yes, it is a completely legal link) just brings up a page of gobbledygook. Perhaps some sort of code that's supposed to be telling bittorrent to launch?  Yet messages in the thread with the link seem to indicate that it;s working fine for other folks.

What the heck am I doing wrong?

I'm using Firefox-does bittorrent not play well with firefox?


UPDATE: Tried it again with IE-the link works now but then I get a message "bad data from tracker" and the download never starts. What might cause this error? I do have the WoW beta downloading-would that interfere?

[gameoverman]

I use bitTornado, and clicking in Firefox works fine.  I think your bittorrent program should be set to automatically open '.torrent' files when you click on them, it should have done this when it installed but maybe it didn't for some reason.  You should check that.

When I click a torrent, I get a window asking if I want to open it with bitTornado, I click yes and away it goes.

[kathode]

If you get the bad data from tracker error, sometimes it helps to download the torrent file to your local drive, and run it from there.  Just right click and save the .torrent to your hard drive.  

Also, bittorrent uses some ports that most routers close off by default, I think.  You might have to look up some settings on your network to make sure the necessary ports are open.  I think the ports are listed on the bittorrent website.  If you have the ports closed, I think it will still function, but at greatly reduced speeds.

[Creepy_Smell]

I haven't opened up any ports and am able to connect to torrents, but they are slow. I'll have to look into opening up some ports.

I use Firefox and get a window that asks me to save or open. I select open and choose bt. Works fine so far except the speed.

[gameoverman]

I forgot about opening ports. You HAVE to do that to get any decent speed if you're using a router.  Using bitTornado, when I didn't forward ports in my router I got the 'yellow' connection icon. As soon as I forwarded the ports and restarted, it went to green.

[JayG]

Azureus is pretty good for upload and download speeds, and very easy to use.

[warning]

ABC is the client I use.  Small, low overhead and very reliable.

And yes you have to make sure your ports are opened/forwarded.