What's the difference between a torrent file and a Magnet link?

What is the difference between usage, can I use μTorrent to download files from a Magnet link?

The reason of speed of downloading any torrent file depends on many factors like – Seeders, Leechers, Peers etc. To download the torrent files you need a torrent client like uTorrent, BitTorrent etc. Or download torrent using Zbigz or Bytebx. Best way to download torrents anonymously. How awesome would it be if you could just ask someone to download the torrent you like and then just get the file from them? Well, there is a service that does exactly that. Myfastfile is a service that acts as a middle man. The.torrent file just provides the directions for the torrent client on how to find and download all the chunks of data. Once downloaded, the client rebuilds the chunks into my working linux distro. Since.torrent files are simple data files, they are easy to read, find and scrape.

3 Answers

μTorrent is compatible with Magnet links, so you can use them.

Short version:

Instead of downloading the .torrent file from a webserver, you download it directly from a seed/leecher. The biggest advantage is that you might be able to download the content of the torrent, even if the tracker is down or closed for registration.

Long version:

Traditionally, .torrent files are downloaded from torrent sites. A torrent client then calculates a torrent hash (a kind of fingerprint) based on the files it relates to, and seeks the addresses of peers from a tracker (or the DHT network) before connecting to those peers and downloading the desired content.

Sites can save on bandwidth by calculating torrent hashes themselves and allowing them to be downloaded instead of .torrent files. Given the torrent hash – passed as a parameter within a Magnet link – clients immediately seek the addresses of peers and connect to them to download first the torrent file, and then the desired content.

It is worth noting that BitTorrent can not ditch the .torrent format entirely and rely solely on Magnet links. The .torrent files hold crucial information that is needed to start the downloading process, and this information has to be available in the swarm.

can I use μTorrent to download files from a Magnet link?

Yes, you can.

Both torrent file and Magnet links perform the same task, that is, download files via BitTorrent. Magnet links contain hashes of the files to be downloaded and location of where these can be downloaded from.

From the Wikipedia,

Magnet links consist of a series of one or more parameters, the order of which is not significant, formatted in the same way as the query string on the end of many HTTP URLs. The most common parameter is 'xt', meaning 'exact topic', which is generally a URN formed from the content hash of a particular file, e.g.. magnet:?xt=urn:sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQCZO5C

referring to the Base32 encoded SHA-1 hash of the file in question.

Other parameters defined by the draft standard are:

• 'dn' ('display name'): a filename to display to the user, for convenience
• 'kt' ('keyword topic'): a more general search, specifying search terms rather than a particular file
• 'mt' ('manifest topic'): a URI pointing to a 'manifest', e.g. a list of further items application-specific experimental parameters, which must begin 'x.' The standard also suggests that multiple parameters of the same type can be used by appending '.1', '.2' etc. to the parameter name, e.g.

magnet:?xt.1=urn:sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQCZO5C&xt.2=urn:sha1:TXGCZQTH26NL6OUQAJJPFALHG2LTGBC7

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.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged bittorrentutorrentmagnet-links or ask your own question.

Thanks to the never-ending abuses and misuses, torrent is associated with outlaws and illegal sharing of copyrighted materials. But in truth, it’s a genius way to share files. Instead of relying on individual servers to host the files and taking the beating of download traffic, torrent makes use of the community of downloaders to share the traffic by dividing chunks of files among them to share.

This notorious reputation is also one of the reasons why iOS doesn’t support torrent. Jailbreaking used to be the only way for iOS users to download torrents directly to their devices.

But that was then. Now you can download torrents to your iPhone or iPad without having to resort to jailbreaking. Besides, with the current state of iOS and all the features, there’s almost no reason to jailbreak your device anyway.

So how do you do it? Here’s how.

Getting Your Torrent File or Magnet Link

From the downloader side, there are two components to a torrent process: the torrent client and the torrent files or magnet links. Legally, there’s no torrent downloader client available in the iOS AppStore, so we will work around the problem later on. But for now let’s discuss where you can get legal torrent files.

There are tons of illegal torrent sites but only a handful of the legal ones. Some of these rare species are Public Domain Torrents, Internet Archives, and Legit Torrents. You can find more by doing a simple research in Safari. Some desktop app developers also make their software available via torrent, even though you might not want to download the desktop app to your iPhone.

Download Torrent Like Normal File Download

Both the torrent file and the magnet link serve the same purpose which is to connect the torrent client to the seeders who provide chunks of the files that you want. For iPhone users, the magnet link method is easier, but using torrent files is also possible.

Bypass the Limitation Using Online Torrent Clients

Armed with the torrent file or magnet link, you are ready to download your file to your iPhone or iPad. The question is, how do you do that if there’s no torrent client available? The answer is to use an online torrent client.

This genre of the web app is also a rare breed, and many of the existing ones are either going commercial or discontinued. One of the first and most popular ones is Zbigz. Examples of other alternatives are Bitport.io, Filestream.me, and Torrentsafe.

But my current personal favorite is Seedr.cc because it provides bigger file storage of 2GB for free compared to 1GB from other services. The service is mobile-friendly and lets you store as many files as you want as long as you don’t exceed the 2GB ceiling. It also gives you ways to earn free additional space up to 5GB. All you need to do is to register and log in.

Downloading Torrent on Your iPhone

First, go to the source of your torrent and obtain the magnet link or the torrent file. If you get the magnet link, copy the link and paste it to Seedr.cc and then wait.

For the torrent file, the step is trickier. First, you need to download the torrent file and save it somewhere in your iPhone. Choose the “More” link after you click the Download button, then choose “Save to Files” in the pop-up window. After that, you can choose where you want to save your file. The options might be different from the ones on the picture below depending on what apps that you have on your iPhone. To be on the safe side, I’ll just use “iCloud Drive.”

Note: the “Save to Files” feature is only available on iOS 11. If you are on the older iOS, you can choose one of the available icons above.

The next step is to upload that torrent file to Seedr.cc. To do that, click the “Plus (+)” icon on the main page and then choose the “Upload” button. After that choose the “Browse” option.

Download Torrent Like Normal File To Pdf

Then find the torrent file that you saved before.

Whether you are using magnet link or torrent file, Seedr.cc will start downloading your file to its server after the input. Since it happens in the background, there’s no user interference needed. You can close the browser window and do other things while waiting for the process to finish.

Please note that you can’t add another file if a file download is in progress. And while the process is usually very fast because we’re talking about the server-to-server transfer, it can also crawl since torrent download speed also depends on the number and quality of the seeders (people who share the files).

After the process is done, the file is stored in the Seedr.cc server. You can download it as a normal file by tapping on the downward arrow on the right of the file to open the options. Choose “Download” to save the files in your iPhone. Similar to downloading the torrent file, you can choose where you want to save it.

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And after the file is ready, you can open it using the default app. Since I downloaded a movie, I’ll use the media player to play it.

Download Torrent Like Normal File To Excel

Have you tried downloading torrents to your iPhone? What method do you use? What is your choice of the online torrent client? Share them using the comments below.

Download Torrent Like Normal File To Mp3

This article was first published in Jan 2014 and was updated in Oct 2017.