![]() A tracker is a server that handles creating connections between peers, and it doesn't store or process any of the file to be transferred. A torrent file (.torrent) contains how the pieces go together and information about the "tracker", but doesn't contain any of the actual file to be downloaded. A computer downloading might pull parts of a file from 100 different sources. The computers that are currently downloading ("peers") or have fully downloaded the file serve ("seed") these pieces to other computers that are downloading ("leechers"). In order to improve robustness, a file that is served with bittorrent is broken up into many smaller pieces. For "free" files like Linux distros, a common practice is to have multiple mirrors, which are file servers that have copies of the file, so even if the primary source and some of the mirrors go down, you can still download the file from another mirror. If the person/company hosting the file server is risk-averse, they have backup file servers in case the primary one goes down, but that's not always the case. FTP, but regardless of the protocol used the whole file is hosted on a server somewhere, and you download the whole file from that server. The typical way you download a file from the internet is as follows: you find the file download link of the file you want, you click it which sends a request to the server, a connection is established, and the file server serves you the file. ![]() Despite the nefarious reputation of torrenting, it is a pretty amazing technology that has legitimate purposes. ![]()
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