BitTorrent on the Mac

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bittorrent/

Bit-Torrent is a unique file distribution system. It is not quite like a traditional Peer-to-peer system. This system is good at distributing large files to the masses.

The way the system works is one user must host the source file. A special "BitTorrent" link is then generated. Other users may start downloading from the original source. The cool feature is that each user is downloading a different part of the file. Shortly afterwards, they start downloading the parts they don't have from each other. The file transfer is therefore spread and distributed over the total number of people downloading the file. This means everyone who is downloading is also uploading.

This same system is implemented in the eDonkey/Overnet P2P network which is what makes it so efficient at distributing large files.

BitTorrent, however, is not a general purpose P2P network. Instead, it is useful to download that one large file... the problem is you need to find someone hosting that file.

While there are a few other clients which support the BitTorrent network, the official client does a reasonable job.

Advantages: good for large files
Disadvantages: not organized as a network, need to find links yourself

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