So here is where you get the disclaimer...do all this at your own risk. Some torrent files can have viruses while others might even be illegal to be downloading. Do your research and make smart choices when using torrents and you should be just fine...I will explain some of this in more depth later on.
Lets Get Started:
Finding your Download Location
Before you do anything else you will need to locate where your internet browser is putting your downloads. For the purpose of this walk-through i will show you how to find your download location in both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
For Google Chrome
You will need to click the wrench icon in the upper right of the browser window then select "Options" in the list given. Once on the options page you will need to select the "Under the Hood" tab located in the left side column. Your downloads location should be listed under the "Downloads" header.
For Mozilla Firefox
You will need to select the "Firefox" button in the upper left of the browser window then select "Options". Once the options pop-up menu is displayed you should already be on the "General" tab. You should see the downloads section where "Save files to:" is located is where your download location will be.
Odds are the download location will already be inside your "user" folder. You can change the location of the downloads if you want to, that's all up to you. Either way you will need to know where they are going for the next steps, so write it down if you need to.
Folder Location and Setup
The next step will be setting up the folders needed to keep your torrent files clean and organized. If you are going to skip this step then stop reading right now...we are either going to do this right or not at all, so DO NOT skip this step.
After you have found your browsers download location we are going to create some new folders in there to keep things organized. You will need to open the download location from earlier and create a new folder called "Torrents". Next you will need to open the "Torrents" folder that you just created...you should now be looking at an empty folder location. Inside the torrent folder we will need to create a "Completed" folder and an "Incomplete" folder. This step is going to help stop so many headaches later on...just trust me.
The folders we created should look similar to the image above.
Downloading and Installing a Torrent Client
Now we need to get the program that will allow torrent files to be downloaded to your computer. For this tutorial we will be using uTorrent. It's lightweight(uses a small amount of resources) and pretty easy to use once everything is setup. So follow the link provided and once the download has completed you will need to install uTorrent onto your computer.
After you have installed uTorrent we will need to change its settings to do most of the work for us.
Setting up Automated Downloads
You should now have all your folders created and have uTorrent installed and ready to be setup...if you have had trouble getting this far please leave a comment below and we will see what's going on.
You will need to open uTorrent's main window so we can change the settings. Once open you will need to select "Options" and then "Preferences." You should now see a pop-up window with all kinds of settings...don't let all the options scare ya, we are going to focus on the "Directories" settings for this tutorial.
Once you have selected the "Directories" menu you will see all the folder location options on the right hand side. This is where we will be using everything we setup earlier.
Note which boxes have check marks in the image above:
"Put new downloads in:" (This should be set to use the "Incomplete" folder that we created earlier.)
"Move completed downloads to:" (This should be set to use the "Complete" folder that we created earlier.)
"Only move from the default download directory:" (Will allow uTorrent to move files only from the "Incomplete" folder)
"Automatically load.torrents from:" (This should be set to use the Download Location you found under your web browsers options.)
"Delete loaded .torrents" (This option will delete the .torrent file once uTorrent has loaded/begun downloading the files.)
Select the "OK" button, in the lower right of the preferences pop-up window, to save and close your settings.
That's it...WE'RE DONE!
Now if you are uncertain about what a torrent download is you will need to do some more research to expand your knowledge because that's way more than I am willing to type :) but here are a few places to get started:
"Now where do I find these torrent files?" you might be asking yourself. There are many websites you can use for this, or you could just "Google" it. A main site I like for it's clean layout and active user comments is Kickass Torrents. Always read what others are saying about a torrent before you download. The advantage to a big user base is that when a virus is found they usually will let ya know :)
Don't forget to seed!
What's next:
Fully Automated TV Show downloads using uTorrent and showRSS
Need a tutorial? Leave a comment below and we'll see what we can do :)