Why is seeding a torrent helpful? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 month ago by MaggotInfested@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I keep seeing in forums and sites like these that say it's frowned upon to not seed torrents that you use/used. I saw a post on here or Reddit (I don't remember) with a guy ecstatic that someone started seeding his download he had been trying to get done for months. I know seeding lets someone download something using your computer but how is it helpful if someone doesn't have a site and/or isn't "in-range" ?

If you can't tell, I don't know much about how torrenting works other than how to download something using one. I hope that you all can just explain or point me in the right direction because I would like to support the community.

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[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 36 points 1 month ago

With a traditional download, examplesite.com sends a file to your computer, that's it.

With torrents, instead of that you download little pieces of the file from many different computers. Sometimes hundreds of different computers. Then once you've downloaded the file you can then start sharing pieces to other people downloading. The more people doing this, the faster the downloads will be for everyone else and the less strain it will put on each computer's Internet connection.

Also if not many people are seeding, there's a danger that the file will have 0 seeders and nobody can download it at all.

This is also why torrenting is good for privacy. Shutting down one website isn't so hard. Shutting down hundreds of random personally owned computers is very hard.