Metropol

where do you download DVDs from on the internet? I've been playing with those bittorrent things but they are rubbish and keep running at about 2k.

Searching in Shareza (which is lovely) just gave me the torrent link again.

Brad - by now you've probably had more success on Shareazza - especially with Torrent downloads.

The key to it is patience. Sure you will find some things download faster than others, but you can leave your pc on for days and days and discover a folder full of treasures by the end of it.

As for electricity costs - your pc probably runs the equivelant of a 60w light bulb - far less if you turn your monitor off when you walk away - leaving it on standby uses a surprising amount of power too. You're looking at about 10p a day at that rate.

The more people who share the file, the faster you are likely to get it.

If you have a firewall running you may be able to fine tune your settings to allow faster speeds - although this isn't always necessary.

Thanks! I now have Shrek 2 and Bowling For Columbine (see thread in Computer Clinic). I am currently downloading the first series of Monty Python's Flying Circus, but at 2GB+ it's so far taken 24 hours with only 300MB downloaded! Girlfriend isn't keen on my leaving the PC on overnight as "it might explode". This from the same girl who thought a peice of spyware that attached a search bar to my browser was "very useful, stop complaining, it's free isn't ?"
Does the more downloads you have on the go at once slow you down, and other internet activities?

It does slow you down, but if you're only browsing the likes of here you wont notice too much.

My pc has been on continuously (apart from the odd necessary restart) for months. It was off while I was out of the country, but thats it.

Personally I wouldn't touch those progs with the worlds longest barge pole. I use only newsgroups.