uTorrent Glossary

In order you could better understand the principles of uTorrent we suggest you learn the main notions you will face in the process of using uTorrent:

• Announcement is user’s addressing a tracker. Each announcing implies user’s transferring information about the information sent and received. The tracker gives the list of other clients’ addresses. Announcements occur in certain time intervals set by client and tracker settings.

• Availability means the number of file copies available to the client.

• Choked is a peer to which user refuses to send files to. The reasons for that may be various: the file has been already shared; the second client is a seed and doesn’t require files; the client was put to the blacklist for spreading bad contents.

• Client is a program supporting p2p file sharing, for example, Vuze, uTorrent, BitTorrent, Ares, Limewire, FrostWire.

• Downloader is a peer having no file and downloading it at the moment. The term has negative connotation the same as in case of leecher.

• End Game is a mode when a user has stopped downloading a segment and is requesting all remaining parts of the file from other peers sharing it.

• Fake is a torrent that doesn’t contain the information mentioned in its name or description.

• Index – is a list of files located in the torrent (also includes description and other information about each file available to users). It can also be a tracker.

• Interested is a user interested in downloading files owned by the client.

• Leech is a user who is downloading a file at the moment but has not completed the download. Usually it is used negatively for leechers as a rule download files without sharing them with other users.

• Lurker is a user who is only downloading files without sharing own files with other users. Unlike a leech they can share files they have already downloaded.

• P2P is a technology used by users for sharing files via the Internet. In p2p network every computer is a server and its client at the same time, i.e. each computer is able both to receive files and send them.  

• Peer is a user participating in the file sharing. A peer can also create its own loads if they are not on the tracker.

• Piece is a file divided into several equal-sized parts. These parts are randomly distributed among the peers to make sharing more efficient.

• Scrape is a client’s request to a server concerning torrent statistics: whom to share files with, what user share the best files etc.

• Seeder is a peer having the whole file and creating the load. After downloading the whole file a user automatically becomes a seeder.

• Share ratio is displayed in user profile and shows the ratio of shared and downloaded information (the size of the shared information is divided by that of the downloaded information. The more information the user is sharing and the less downloading the higher their ranking is. The ranking should be not less than 1.

• Snubbed is a status assigned to a sharing user if a user downloading a file is not receiving any data from him during 60 seconds.

• Super-seeding is a sharing mode when a seed tries to minimize the size of data being sent to save its outgoing traffic. The aim is to give less before the first user appears who has downloaded the file completely.

• Swarm is the number of all peers participating in the sharing at the moment.

• Torrent is a file containing all necessary data for downloading. The torrent defines the information contents and the address where this information can be received.

• Tracker is a site storing and giving torrents to clients ensuring information exchange between them. The tracker sends information about peers, leeches and seeds spreading torrent to users. As a matter of fact, a tracker is link between all participants of the file sharing.