What are seeders and leechers and how do I seed?

Question

I download torrents a lot (I'm downloading one now) and I keep hearing about seeders and leechers. People keep asking for other people to seed. What are seeders and leechers, and how do I seed?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

a leecher or peer is someone who doesn't have the full torrent yet but is still uploading whatever they have as the download it. a seeder has the full torrent and is thus no longer downloading it just uploading. people are asking others to seed because they are probably stuck at a certain percentage and it won't go any higher because all the leechers/peers don't have more so they need someone who has the full file (seeder) to upload it.

Asker's Rating:

Asker's Comment:

Great, easy to understand explaination. I totaly get it now, thanks!

Answer 2

Well you already know what the relation is, they're related to torrents.
Now for the explanation of what they are. You're downloading a torrent, you're currently a leecher of that file. If you leave it in your torrent client and allow people to connect to you (make it available for others to download) then you a seeder.

Answer 3

A seeder is someone who has a file that is complete and has allowed it to be seen by other Bit Torrent clients and allows it to be downloaded by others. A seeder is a giver in other words. A leecher is someone who is trying to download a file, in essence taking or leeching.

Answer 4

leechers = bad
seeders = good

leechers are people who are currently "downloading"
seeders are people who are uploading

the more people uploading the better your connection will be
if the ratio of leechers outnumbers the seeders connection will be more likely slow and youll have to wait in a que before your downloadwill start.

to seed, all you need to do is have a particular data file (dvd, audio album, etc) and anyone else who has that exact same file will cause a seed count of "2" to show up to anyone else looking to download that file.

Answer 5

a simple explanation:

LEECHER - gets

SEEDER - gives

but most torrent softwares now, require the leecher to "give" as they "get"... this is due to the fact that most leechers don't want to share...

How to seed? Most torrent software automatically "seeds" your downloads. But other torrent software gives you the capability to create your own seed (e.g. uTorrent, Azureus), just make sure that... if you make your own "seed".... you'll be seeding it for next few months or until other leechers have dowloaded your seed upto 100%. But the best practice is... to seed "FOREVER".