This page summarizes bittorrent access information for ProteomeCommons.org. Here you will find information about what bittorrent is, why we use it, and how you can take advantage of our bittorrent services.
Bittorrent is an incredibly popular system for distributing downloads (currently 1/3 of the web's traffic is from bittorrent!). It allows multiple computers to host a single file, and anyone can download that file or parts of the file from any of the other users. Not only does bittorrent let others keep copies of projects on their computer(s), but it lets people download the file (or parts of the file) from any computer that is using bittorrent and that has a copy of the file of interest. This often results in a huge increase in download speeds and it prevents primary servers (say ProteomeCommons.org) from running out of download bandwidth.
There are plenty of great guides on how bittorrent works, and you can freely download copies of the program for you own use. It is highly recommended that you use bittorrent to download and mirror your favorite archives, especially the big ones!
Using bittorrent with ProteomeCommons.org is as easy as clicking on any of the .torrent file links found with the archive entries. It is likely that your web browser doesn't directly support the bittorrent protocol, but if you have a bittorrent client installed it should launch and handle the download. Alternatively, you can simply copy the link to the .torrent file and use it directly with your favorite bittorrent client.
If you don't have a bittorrent client. It is recommended that you use the Java Web Start version of Azureus that you can run using your web browser directly from ProteomeCommons.org.
Azureus is a bittorrent client written in the Java programming language. ProteomeCommons.org has adapted this project to run directly from your web browser via Java Web Start (JWS is installed by default on most computers), making it relatively easy to use the bittorrent links we provide. If you already know about bittorrent and you have a bittorrent client on your computer, there is no need to use our version of Azureus. However, if you don't have bittorrent support, use the following steps to launch Azureus from your web browser and use our bittorrent network.
That is it. Using Azureus is relatively easy, and it is a great way to download large data files from ProteomeCommons.org or to mirror your project so that others will always be able to quickly download a copy.
If you'd like more information about Azureus, please check out their project on source-forge. The developers have made a great application, and they deserve credit for their work.
Our bittorrent network benefits from having as many people participate as possible. After you have downloaded a file from ProteomeCommons.org using bittorrent, you can leave the client open and act as a server for that file. The next time someone goes to download the file from ProteoemCommons.org they will have both our bittorrent clients and yours as options for places to download the file. The bittorrent protocol is smart and it will automatically take advantage of both clients (or more if they exist) when downloading the file. This can result in very fast download times for anyone using our network. Instead of limiting download times to the speed of our servers, downloads are limited by the number of people sharing files on the ProteomeCommons.org bittorrent network.
Helping out is as easy as downloading a file using bittorrent and the .torrent file hosted here at ProteomeCommons.org. Then leave your bittorrent client running. It is that simple! You can find .torrent files for each project in the archive, or you can find a completely, consolidated listing of all of ProteomeCommons.org's bittorrent files at the end of this page.
This is a listing of absolutely all the .torrent files we are hosting. If you wish to help with our bittorrent support, please start up a client for as many of these files as you can.