TORRENT file extension

The torrent file extension is generally related to BitTorent service and used for small configuration files used to initiate the download via a Torrent Client.

BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file-distribution protocol, that lets users download fast large files without putting too much load on one single download server.

Although frequently referred to as "downloading", the BitTorrent protocol relies on all users to be recipients and distributors of the .torrent files. While the users are downloading the content of the BitTorrent archive, they are also also helping to distribute it to other users. It is not possible to download without uploading, although you can of course set restrictions on bandwidth usage.

The .torrent files are essentially very small files that simply contain some textual data about the downloaded file itself. Thus, downloading the *.torrent file itself takes only few seconds, but the file is not downloaded from a P2P network. Instead, these *.torrent files are typically hosted on a standard web servers and can be even passed via email or as simple intra-application process in some clients.

When these files are opened with a BitTorrent compatible client, the downloading process is started with the use of the information contained in the torrent file.

Also many other software games, especially those whose large size makes them difficult to host due to bandwidth limits, extremely frequent downloads, and unpredictable changes in network traffic, will instead distribute a specialized, stripped down bittorrent client with enough functionality to download the game from the other running clients and the primary server (which is maintained in case not enough peers are available).

Many major open source and free software projects encourage BitTorrent as well as conventional downloads of their products (via HTTP, FTP etc) to increase availability and to reduce load on their own servers, especially when dealing with larger files.

MIME types:
application/x-bittorrent