The site you mentioned is a torrent search engine. It's the equivalent of Google for torrents. When you search for a file, it will display a set of sponsored (paid for services) links, and underneath it will display a list of websites that index torrents relating to your search term. When you click on the link, it will direct you to the page containing the torrent. These websites are public, and often useless, riddled with advertisements and popups, and often the file is packed with malicious code/software. If you're lucky enough to find a clean file, chances are it will be poorly seeded, so the download speed will suck. I highly recommend you avoid these sites like the plague.
If you're serious about torrents, you should look into joining a private tracker. I will not name them, but a quick search will lead you to the (closed) doors of quite a few of them.
There are a number of reasons private trackers are (in my opinion) much more reliable than open trackers (or blogs that index torrents). Namely:
- They often enforce systems which prevent users from just downloading the file and deleting it, stopping it from seeding (often referred to as a Hit and Run system, or H&R). This forces users who download the file to seed (upload) the file for a specified period of time or to a certain ratio (usually 1:1, which means if the file you downloaded is 1GB, you must upload 1GB before you can stop seeding), meaning the file remains active for longer and in 99.9% of the cases, is well seeded, leading to better download speeds.
- In most cases, users have to apply to join a specific user rank (Uploader) to be able to upload a torrent. Generally, the requirements to become an Uploader are very strict, leading to good quality, trusted uploads. In most cases, if an anti virus identifies a virus in a file, it's a false positive (but that's not to say they are 100% safe, nothing is). They are, however, much safer than public trackers/blogs.
- Ideally, to justify joining a private tracker, unless you have a fast home connection and a lax ISP, you will need to invest in a seedbox. Seedboxes are basically torrent clients that are hosted on a VPS or dedicated server which allow you to remotely access them (either via SSH or HTTP), meaning you can download, create and upload torrents without ever having to use your bandwidth. Seedboxes provide (in most cases) fast speeds and reliable uptime, making it really easy to seed your downloaded torrents, leading to a better ratio. A seedbox is not free, however, so unless you're serious about torrenting and are willing to pay out for the privilege, I'd carry on reading towards the bottom of my post.
- The Seeder to Leecher (S:L) ratio can be upwards of 1,000% (meaning for every 1 person downloading a torrent, there's 1,000 people seeding it; although this isn't the most efficient way of measuring activity as it doesn't factor in a lot of variables), which again, leads to great download speeds. And as most of the seeders are seeding via a seedbox, the general life of the torrent tends to be much longer than that of public trackers.
- Generally once you're in on one private tracker, it's easy enough to join another. They often have active forums, with dedicated sections for sharing invitations to other private trackers, provided you can provide proof of your ratio and speeds. In all fairness, if you're registered on a decent general private tracker (by which I mean one that covers movies, TV shows, music, adult and games) then you don't really need to join any others, as the content is often mirrored between trackers by Racers.
There are a multitude of reasons why I personally prefer to use torrents as a download medium, but the above are the main ones that come to mind. If you're not all that serious about torrents and just want to be able to download a file quickly without much hassle or expense, then there's a few semi-public trackers (by which I mean their registrations are open more often than they're closed) and public trackers (again, a Google search will lead you to some semi-decent public trackers) that are available to use.
If you choose to go this route, then I'd advise you use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to mask your IP address. Treat these sites like hookers. You wouldn't spend a night with a hooker without protection, so you shouldn't spend a night on a public tracker without protection. Having said that, private trackers are by no means safe. There are literally hundreds of published articles about private trackers being taken down, having their servers seized and the information contained within the servers used as a means of prosecuting the members of the tracker. Think carefully about what you want to get out of torrents, what you're prepared to put in, and how you intend on safeguarding yourself against potential threats. The speeds can be just as quick in some cases, but in most cases, content is uploaded on private trackers prior to public trackers (although to be fair, there's not that much difference).
As a general rule of thumb, public trackers do not enforce any form of H&R system, leaving you free to download as many files as you want and delete them once they're done. Seeding on public trackers from a home connection will most likely lead to your ISP contacting you regarding your bandwidth usage. Most seedbox providers do not allow to you seed on public trackers due to the amount of bandwidth consumption. So, although considered good etticate to seed your torrents; I wouldn't even bother on a public tracker.
If you plan on using your home connection to download torrent files, I'd advise using utorrent (if you're on a Windows OS), or Transmission-cli or Deluge (if you're on a *NIX based OS). Both are widely accepted throughout torrent trackers as being reliable to use. There are many alternatives you can choose from, but I'd highly recommend the aforementioned. utorrent in particular is very actively developed, and is constantly updated with new features (most recently their decentralized Remote GUI).
I hope this helps. If you have any further questions, feel free to state them here.
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