Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Recently ThePirateBay announced they will no longer run their torrent tracker and will be moving to magnet links. Magnet links are an older technology but many people have neither heard of them or use them. This guide goes into the basics of how to use a magnet link and provides information on what magnet links, DHT, and PEX is.

Note: This guide is part of the Windows Guides’ Legal File Sharing Series. If you want to find out more about file sharing, check the topics covered here.

The Basics about Magnet Links

Put simply, magnet links:

1. Are dependent on data in the file and not file name so more people will share the common file
2. Store torrent files within the link so the file cannot be lost on a website that goes down

If you’d like a more detailed explanation of Magnet links, DHT, and PEX, read this.

How Does a Magnet Link Work?

Magnet links work just like torrents. First, you’ll need a client capable of opening magnet links.

Now, go to your favorite download site and look for the magnet links:

Click the magnet link (notice the magnet address.)

Your browser may warn you that your file-sharing client is attempting to open the file:

Launch your client and wait for the download to complete.

Once complete, your file is ready to use–just like a torrent.

Magnet files are nothing to be feared and work just like torrents (really they are just torrents that aren’t hosted on file-sharing sites.)

Question for Readers

I tried a few download links and noticed that while downloading the file, I would upload exactly the same file size even though there were no peers (see the screenshot above.) Does anyone know why you upload the complete file and where the uploaded data goes to?

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