Geeks have no problem with this of course, but it’s not something everyone wants to spend time setting up. Happily it is no longer necessary with µTorrent 3, which offers an extremely simple way to manage your torrents remotely. Whether you want to simply add a torrent to your download queue, manage which files are downloaded within a particular torrent or even change your client settings, µTorrent Remote gives you full access to µTorrent from anywhere.

Getting Set Up

The first thing you need to do, if you haven’t done it yet, is install µTorrent 3 - find the download here. Downloads are available for Windows and Mac. Once you’ve got your new version of µTorrent up and running you’ll notice a new button on the menu bar. Click it:

Doing so will quickly take you to the “Remote” section in µTorrent’s preferences. Now you need only add a username and password:

You should see “Status:Accessible” under these boxes shortly after you fill them in. If not, try another username/password combination. When you do see “Status:Accessible” you’re done.

Yep, that was it.

Web Interface

Ready to check out the web interface? Simply head to remote.µTorrent.com. You’ll need to move your mouse around to help encrypt the communications, then you can enter your username and password. Should all go well you’ll then be looking at the web interface of µTorrent:

Everything you can do in µTorrent itself you can do here, it seems, from managing your torrents to changing your download settings.

This isn’t a dumbed-down version of µTorrent for the web; everything is here, and it’s all very easy to find if you’re familiar with µTorrent’s interface already. I was able to add an RSS feed, set certain files not to download within a torrent and cap the total amount of bandwidth used by all downloads.

Privacy

So what are the privacy implications of logging into your torrent client over the web? Many are concerned with this, but it seems to me that the µTorrent team spent a lot of time making this secure. Read their privacy FAQ here for more information.

Conclusion

I’m not sure how often I’ll be logging into µTorrent to manage my downloads; I’ve been using Dropbox to start torrent downloads for a long time and don’t usually need more than that. Still, it’s nice to have the option to log in without the need to configure my network settings.

Do you see yourself using µTorrent’s remote function often? Let us know in the comments below, along with any other tips for achieving the same thing.

Regardless of your reasons, stance, operating system or client – there’s no need to get caught. Of course I can’t guarantee this won’t happen, but you can reduce the risk of a threatening letter with a little bit of common sense, patience and forethought.

Install Additional Security

The first thing you’ll want to do is cover as many bases as possible, and this is where PeerBlock comes in. We’ve mentioned PeerGuardian before, but that software is unfortunately no longer maintained. Instead the authors recommend everyone switches to PeerBlock.

PeerBlock is a method of controlling who (and what) your computer talks to over the Internet. The software checks any incoming requests from known bad IP addresses including those of anti-piracy groups. This software will go some way towards protecting you, but only from known threats (which makes it far from watertight).

For that final layer of security then a VPN is the order of the day. By connecting to a virtual private network, all of your Internet traffic (and torrent data downloaded) is directed through a private connection, making it difficult for intruders to spy on you. There are a plethora of various VPN services out there, with clients for nearly every operating system you can think of (that’s right, even your iPhone). We’ve got a run-down of 7 free efforts right here.

Note: Free VPN services are notoriously touch-and-go. If you’re really concerned about security then a subscription service will provide you with the speed, stability and above all security you desire – at a cost of course.

Don’t Use Public Trackers

You’re far more likely to be caught for speeding in a busy, regularly policed area than you are on a quiet country lane – and copyright enforcement is no different. Public BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay and Demonoid (which is virtually public) might be jam-packed with tasty torrents, but at what cost?

So where do you get your wares from? Easy – the smallest, most privacy-savvy trackers you can get into. If you’re a member of any “closed” private trackers, invite-only private trackers or torrent hubs that are clearly going out of their way to avoid detection then use them. If the trackers you use offer advanced privacy settings – e.g. hiding upload/download amounts from the public then use them!

Private trackers are not always safer places to be, and don’t assume a tracker is “private” just because you have to register. Some sites ask users to fulfill requests and enforce stringent ratio requirements (that everyone has to adhere to). You can learn more about maintaining private tracker memberships in our etiquette article.

Encrypt Torrent Data

This one is a fairly basic and obvious setting you’ll find on your BitTorrent client – encrypt your data. Many torrent clients support protocol encryption, which encrypts data in a bid to reduce throttling and blocking of torrent data by ISPs. If you’re looking to keep the powers that be off your back then steering clear of confrontations with your ISP is one way of going about it.

Don’t Download Unreleased Material

For some of you this will be the most difficult tip to follow – if next week’s big budget blockbuster release is staring you in the face with thousands of seeds – don’t download it. Where else do you think the MPAA, RIAA and other copyright enforcers hang out, picking off vulnerable targets?

Even if you buy all the things you download once you’ve sampled the goods – leave it well alone. The “I wouldn’t buy it anyway” defence won’t stand up either and you’ll be lumped with the thousands of other downloaders accused of copyright theft and potentially face a nasty fine and a criminal record.

Put it this way – if you thought downloading copyrighted material was already risky, downloading unreleased movies, music, books and games (especially from public torrent trackers) is outright foolish. You have been warned.

Use A Remote Seedbox

A seedbox is a server with a torrent client that is used for downloading and uploading files. Not only are they incredibly useful for serving private trackers and maintaining a spotless ratio, they also add an extra layer of separation between you and the torrent download.

With Internet connection speeds of 100Mbit or more large files can be downloaded (or uploaded) in record time. You can then connect to your box via your preferred method to collect your payload.

If you’re serious about private sites then a seedbox probably makes a lot of sense. Seedboxes can be rented from various providers online, a quick search will get you where you need to be.

Conclusion

Whilst you’ve been watching what you download, installing a VPN, blocking bad IP addresses and generally securing your box – did you think of checking behind you? Don’t forget that school teachers, parents, siblings or even a spouse might not approve – even if it is just because you’re sucking up all available bandwidth! Be careful out there. If you do receive a nasty notice and are wondering what to do about it then we’ve got an article that might answer a few questions.

How else do you protect yourself? Add a comment in the box below.

Image Credits: Intro (Shutterstock), Infringement Notice (TorrentFreak), Server Room

Read on to find out, in our list of the top 10 most downloaded and pirated movies, ever. This time, I’ve included box office stats from IMDB as well, to see how they correlate.

1. Avatar (2010)

16.58 Million Downloads/Box Office $2.03 Billion

An industry-changing movie from director James Cameron, Avatar was the first movie to be shot and directed from the start with 3D as the target viewing method, and continues to be a benchmark for all other 3D releases today. The movie explores an epic struggle between the natives of the planet Pandora and the earth military forces as they attempt to mine the incredibly valuable Un-obtainium, with the most breath-taking CG we’ve seen yet.

2. Kick-Ass (2010)

11.4 Million Downloads/Box Office $48 Million

Originally a comic book, Kick-Ass follows a boy who wants to be a super hero, despite a complete lack of super powers, training, or real reason to become one. He soon finds himself famous thanks to YouTube though, and gains the attention of a ridiculously hard 11 year old girl and her gun-nut crime-fighting father.

Described as “morally reprehensible” by some, “a ridiculously entertaining, perfectly paced, ultra-violent cinematic rush” by others, Kick-Ass received mixed reviews to say the least.

3. Star Trek (2009)

10.96 Million Downloads/Box Office $385 Million

With a fan base of dedicated Trekkies begging for it, who wouldn’t want to make a Hollywood-quality Star Trek blockbuster? Though previous movies have been hit and miss, this one managed to break it to a mass audience, and we are the better for it. An all-star cast and an intriguing plot about the early days of the USS Enterprise put this movie safely in the top 3.

4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

10.6 Million Downloads/Box Office $836 Million

Is it possible to make a heartwarming film about giant transforming vehicle-robots? It seems so. Full of fantastic effects, and a surprising number of comedy moments, Transformers is an instant hit for any child of the 80’s. It also made for a great cinematic experience, which explains the high box office takings.

5. Inception (2010)

9.72 Million Downloads/Box Office $820 Million

A thrilling action movie that brings the concept of multi-layered, shared lucid dreaming and combines it with guns and bombs. The premise is about forcing an idea into someone’s head, through their dreams – resulting in a mind blowing movie that may take a few viewings to understand fully. Even more mind blowing is that lucid dreaming – the act of waking up consciously while remaining in a dream, is not in fact science fiction at all.

6. Shutter Island (2010)

9.49 Million Downloads/Box Office $127 Million

With DiCaprio as the lead in both this and Inception, he’s doing pretty well. Another one that’s going to potentially give you a headache as you try to make sense of what you’ve just seen, Shutter Island follows a detective who is sent to investigate a murderer who has escaped a hospital for the criminally insane. I can say no more without spoiling the plot, but suffice to say it’s an absolute winner.

7. RocknRolla (2009)

9.43 Million Downloads/Box Office $5 Million

Reminiscent of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, a true London action/crime gun-fest full of cockney accents, Americans who we can all hate, and copious amounts of drugs. Absolutely dismal box office performance, but clearly still worth watching if it’s free.

8. The Hangover (2009)

9.18 Million Downloads/Box Office $277 Million

Guy gets engaged, guy goes to Vegas with friends for man-party, guys get drunk, guys lose aforementioned engaged friend… good times and hilarity ensues. It’s pretty textbook stuff, yet something about this movie has made it one of the best comedies of recent years. Reasonable success, the sequel promises to be one of the biggest hits of this year too.

9. Iron Man 2 (2010)

8.8 Million Downloads/Box Office $312 Million

The only real sequel in this list (Star Trek doesn’t count!), Iron Man 2 is another movie that really wants to be experienced in a cinema. Following the continued adventures of a rich CEO who invents an armoured robot suit that effectively makes him a superhero – much to the chagrin of his own company which makes weapons for the world. A new guy emerges on the scene though, resulting in epic robot battles.

10. Twilight  (2009)

8.72 Million Downloads/Box Office $382 Million

Sexy male vampires and werewolves, programmed to have an almost drug-appeal to young girls. The female lead doesn’t quite fit in with her social group, when she discovers her knight in shining armour – in the form of a glittering vampire teenage heart-throb. A joke to many, but clearly appealing to many more, Twilight has become a powerful cultural phenomenon of this century.

So do the download figures correlate with the box office? For the most part, they do, but we can see a few anomalies in there. Firstly, Kick-Ass and RocknRolla seem to stand out as highly downloaded and pirated movies, yet not commercially successful. I suspect this was because they were relatively unknown and of niche appearance, so people weren’t willing to risk a pricey cinema trip on them. Second, Transformers and Inception seem to stand out in box office sales compared to their position in the list. I suspect this is because they are FX-heavy movies which really urge the viewer to get the complete “cinema experience”.

Note: These numbers were compiled from TorrentFreak.com annual summaries. Bear in mind that the figures for 2011 aren’t out yet – so it’ll be interesting to see where the 2011 statistics fit into this – they may even eclipse the entire top 10.

Were you expecting something else in the list? I’m shocked to see not a single Harry Potter in there, but then I’ve personally only ever been to see it at the cinema so perhaps I’m not alone in thinking it needs to be seen big-screen.  What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

Open Those Ports!

Your first step how to speed up torrent downloads is to ensure you can actually be connected to from other peers. The latest version of uTorrent is able to test this for you, so launch the Setup Guide from the Options menu. If you have an older uTorrent, you can test specific ports using this tool.

By default, uTorrent will attempt to auto-configure your router using uPnP, which solves so many problems. If your router isn’t compatible, this will fail – but you can perform the following steps to forward the ports correctly.

Open up a command prompt from Windows, and type ipconfig. Find the IPv4 address of the form 192.168.x.x and note it down.

Open up uTorrent Options-> Preferences -> Connection , and choose your own port or note down the one it has chosen for you. Make sure “randomise port each start” is not checked.

Open up your router config page and look for PORT FORWARDING. Yours may be different, but they are all basically similar. Name the forwarding rule, add the first and last port you want forwarded (just enter the same value in this case), and the IP address or the machine you want forwarded to.

Note that if your network is running an automatic addressing scheme, you may need to reconfigure this if you shut down and are given a new address. You can read my previous tutorial here on how to reserve a permanent IP address from your router.

Be sure to re-test when you’re done, though you may need to restart your router.

ISP Throttling & Traffic Shaping

Assuming you’ve gone through all the other steps in this guide and your torrents are still slow, then it’s quite possible that your ISP is shaping your traffic somehow.

This tool from Glasnost can help you tell if your ISP is throttling your speed and specifically tests torrent protocol.

If you find you’re being restricted, you have two possible courses of action. The first is to switch your ISP to one less draconic. In the UK at least, I know Virgin Media are very open about their traffic policies, and do perform some outright speed restrictions (not just on your torrent traffic) if your download/upload goes beyond a certain point during peak times. In general though, they have the least restrictive of any UK ISP.

Your second option is to use a VPN to encrypt your traffic, making it impossible for your ISP to inspect what you are actually doing. Bear in mind this only works if they are “shaping” your traffic for specific protocols, rather than placing general restrictions on the total amount of traffic you can use. We covered some free solutions before, and you can read a complete explanation of what a VPN is here – but when choosing a service for you it’s important to note that most VPN services explicitly DON’T allow torrent traffic, and certainly not any that are free. The best two paid services I know of that do allow unlimited torrent traffic are vpntunnel.se and torrentsecurity.com

Enable DHT Or Join A Private Tracker

I extolled the virtues of private trackers with their ridiculously fast download speeds and high quality torrents last week in my 9 Easy Ways To Never Get A Virus article, but be aware that private trackers generally don’t allow peer exchange and DHT to be enabled because it prevents the system from counting your ratio correctly, effectively letting certain users “cheat”. So personally, I would recommend you DISABLE DHT and join a good private tracker or two, but if you can’t find your way into one…

Make sure DHT and peer exchange is enabled from the connections screen. This will have the fortunate side effect of meaning you can still find peers even when the tracker is down.

Windows Firewall

Make sure the firewall exception is on, or turn off the Windows firewall entirely. Again, do this from the connections screen of uTorrent options if you wish to add an exception.

In my opinion it’s another of those unnecessary security precautions like anti-virus that ends up causing far more problems that it’s worth. To turn off the firewall completely, click Start and type “firewall“. Open the first option in the Control Panel results, and you’ll see a link on the sidebar to completely disable it.

Don’t Be A Leech

If you set your torrent client to severely restrict the amount of uploading it can do, and basically just leech the files, most private trackers will restrict the amount you can download too. Make sure you are fully able and willing to give back to the community.

Conclusion

What kind of speeds do you get for torrents, and is that your ISPs fault? Do you have a restrictive ISP and would like to shame them in the comments? Do you still use public trackers? Go ahead and tell the world in the comments! Alternatively, ask for ISP specific advice in the ever growing tech questions community we have here at MakeUseOf.

Omega Torrent Search, or Torrent Omega, is one such way to reduce this. Before, if you were looking for a hard to find torrent file you used to have to visit every decent site you knew and search them one by one. With Torrent Omega, you save considerable time because the surfing you used to do by hand is done automatically for you using the website.

As you can see when you first head over to Torrent Omega’s website, the layout is pretty basic. You can type your query in the search box, which is the easiest way to find what you’re looking for, or you can click on the Search Cloud link to view a list of recent searches, or the Popular Torrents link to see a list of the most popular torrent queries.

When you run a search, Torrent Omega will search all of the popular torrent sites out there and display the results from each on a single page. From there you can compare, click through the link to go to a specific listing, or click the download arrow to directly download the torrent file.

There is also an advanced page where you can de-select any of the torrent engines you do not wish to search, as well as set a maximum number of results per search engine. Lastly, there is a Links page that has resources to different sites based on several categories. There’s very little there at the moment, so if you know of any interesting links that should be listed there send them some!

Another good way to search for torrents, as provided by Justin back in September, is the aptly named Torrent Search, so I invite you to check out that service as well.

How Do I Download Torrent Files?

Once you locate and download the types of torrent files you’re looking for, you’re going to need a way to open them so you can begin downloading the actual files listed inside of them. In other words, you’re going to need a torrent client.

There are a lot of great torrent clients out there but for the sake of argument I’ll just give you my favorite one: uTorrent. I recommend uTorrent because it’s lightweight, easy to use, and overall it’s the best client I’ve seen.

You can grab a copy of uTorrent here. Once you become familiar with the application, you can start doing things that are a bit more tricky, like remotely controlling uTorrent downloads from your Android. You may also be interesting in learning how to speed up torrent downloads and using RSS feeds to download torrents automatically.

Conclusion

As I feel obligated to say this, I’d like to openly state that MakeUseOf does not condone the use of torrenting for illegal purposes. That is to say, we do not support the use of these websites and applications for the downloading of copyrighted works. Having said that, there are a lot of perfectly legal torrent files out there for you to enjoy, so go ahead and see what you can find.

Do you have a website or application that you’re partial to when it comes to torrenting? Feel free to share it with us in the comments!