What are "seeders" and "leechers" when searching torrent files?
By abhishek_138
@abhishek_138 (439)
India
February 2, 2012 3:43am CST
Hi folks,
Could any one of you tell me the mean of seeder of leecher regarding torrent file.
does they effect our downloading speed.
I can not understand these terms. often there is some seeder but speed is good, sometimes lot of seeder but downloading speed is very low.
2 responses
@egdcltd (12059)
•
2 Feb 12
I don't use torrents myself, but I believe a leecher is someone who just downloads the file and doesn't allow others to download it from their computer, whilst seeders share the file from their computer.
More seeders should, in theory, quicken downloads, but it's also dependent on the speed of the seeders' connections. 100 seeders all on dialup isn't going to be as good as 10 seeders on broadband.
1 person likes this
@bloggeroo (2167)
• Philippines
2 Feb 12
Actually, both seeders and leechers are sources of torrent downloads except seeders have all the pieces while leechers don't.
As for the speed of the torrent, your connection and those who are currently connected affect the download speed. It may be true that a seeder has broadband connection, but he may also be downloading other torrents so he may give priority to those and limit his upload speed for those he is seeding.
1 person likes this
@bloggeroo (2167)
• Philippines
2 Feb 12
Seeders are those who completed the torrent download and have now become sources for downloading. Leechers are those who only have a portion of the torrent download and are still in the process of downloading. However, as far as the pieces leechers have are concerned, these are available for download as well.
As a rule, make sure you see at least one seeder before downloading a file otherwise you won't get all the pieces.
As for the speed of the torrent, having many seeders doesn't not necessarily mean a faster download because you have to remember that the seeders may be downloading other files themselves.
