If you are an Internet power-user or you have been following news on the Internet, then you are probably well aware of what is called "BitTorrent."  For the uninitiated, BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol.  In the most basic of terms, it allows a user to download or upload files directly to other users, but we'll go into to that with more detail later.  Many of us who are used to using BitTorrent primarily use it as a means of downloading files. Be it documents, e-books, images, videos, movies, music, software, or virtually any other form of digital data, you can download it through BitTorrent as long as someone is sharing it.  If you are a BitTorrent user and you want to get more out of your peer-to-peer sharing experience, then you may want to learn more about how to share your own files through the service.  This article will go over the basics of BitTorrent and how to share your own files.

What is BitTorrent and how does it work?

As mentioned above, BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer sharing protocol.  What this means is that, instead of downloading or uploading the file to a server, users either leech or seed the files from other users.  When you are downloading a file, you take on the role of a leech, which means that you are downloading all or parts of a file from other users.  When you are one of the users being leeched from, you take on the role of a seed, meaning that a leech is downloading all or part of a file from you.  Basically, a leecher downloads all or parts of a file from multiple seeds, while a seeder shares all or parts of a file for multiple leechers to download.  To track all of this, BitTorrent makes use of trackers to locate and upload or download files.  The result is a high-speed and less server-dependent peer-to-peer sharing network.

How to share your own files through BitTorrent

In most cases, the balance of seeders and leechers is tipped toward the leechers, who normally take more from BitTorrent than they actually give.  Now, you can give back to the BitTorrent community by sharing your own files with the use of streamlined features in BitTorrent clients.  BitTorrent clients like uTorrent, Azureus, and Transmission all have easy to use features for creating your own torrent to share with others.  Simply click on the file menu of your torrent client, choose "create a new torrent" (or some similar function), choose the file or folder that you want to share, then add some trackers to your torrent file so people can leech it.  There are numerous free and paid trackers out there and you can use multiple trackers.  Finally, choose whether you want your file to be private or public, then save the torrent file and send to whomever you want to share it with.