Torrent Basics

This is assuming you are no longer a torrent dummy.

While torrents may just be the greatest IT innovation since the dawn of the internet, it does have its downsides. There are hundreds of torrents out there with contain viruses, malware and spyware. These torrents are fake ones, pretending to be Movies, Games, Music and TV Shows.

There are a few ways you can avoid these fake torrents. It’s not a fool-proof method, but should be fine for most.

Download torrents from trusted sites.

I’d suggest using isoHunt, KickassTorrents and The Pirate Bay only, and in that order. All other torrent sites normally have loads of junk.

 Search properly

There are certain set syntaxes for various torrents.

Movies

You can just type out the movie name in the search box. No issues there.

The syntax used by Movie Torrents is <movie name>[<year>]<source>[<language>]-<uploader>

For example, "The Dark Knight[2008]DvDrip[Eng]-FXG"

TV Shows

If you are looking for the latest episode of a show, searching for the name of the show will work. For example, “How I Met Your Mother” will give you the latest episode and the most downloaded episodes/seasons.

If you are looking for an entire season, then just add “season <number>” after the name. For example, “How I Met Your Mother Season 2” will give you Season 2.

There is no set rule for entire seasons, so it might not be the same for all shows. But normally this is how it’s named.

For specific episodes, the syntax is well defined. It is the <name.of.the.show>.<season number><episode number>-<resolution>-<uploader>. For example, if you are looking for episode 6 of season 3 of the show How I Met You Mother, then you would have to type “How.I.Met.Your.Mother.S03E06” in the search box.

Games and Music

Here also it not very well defined. Just searching for the name of the Game/Artist/Album will give you the required result.

Read before you download

Most legit torrents have lots of seeds. Ones that don't are normally the fake ones

Read the comments. People would have commented if the torrent is legit or a fake.

Give back to the community

Once you download, don't just delete it. Keep it on your system for a while so other people can download it too.

If you happen to come across a fake torrent, go to the comments and say it is a fake. It'll help someone else out. You might need to register to post comments, and isoHunt is perfectly safe to register. They won't spam you. I'm not sure about The Pirate Bay though.