[Eric D.V.H.]

BitTorrent is a really neat idea, and I support it as much as anybody: when large numbers of people are trying to access the same data from the same server, they can help out the original server out by forwarding it to each other. The problem with BitTorrent comes when hosts think "p2p software=I have no responsibility". They forget the second half of the idea, which is that there ALWAYS needs to be at least one seeder with the entire file for it to work reliably, so that when swarms of people aren't after the file then it works exactly like other technologies (that is, at all).

Every single time that I use a torrent that's more than about a month old the same thing happens. Gee, the original host isn't seeding it anymore, so it's COMPLETELY DEAD. Whenever I decide to use a torrent file, it's like pulling the handle on a slot machine, will anyone be seeding? will it just sit there doing nothing? will the transfer that's currently working suddenly cut out when the one random guy with the file stops seeding? No one can tell. This sort of sloppiness makes BitTorrent and similiar technologies seem less reliable than they really are, retarding their adoption and generally being antithetical to life, liberty and the pursuit of thrashedness.

This brings me to Mac Game Files' BitTorrent links. Now, the negligence I'm complaining about with torrents is hardly unique to MGF, so you guys can't really be blamed for doing some peculiarly heinous deed, but that's still no excuse not to do better (while MGF doesn't generally host its own files, the fact that nearly every listing is free of the kind of stupid B.S. that typifies many wintel sites like FilePlanet is a testament to your character). If every single one of your torrents were kept seeded on a continual basis, it would make the whole thing way less flaky and cause people to use it far more, cutting bandwidth consumption immensely.

I see no real reason for HTTP/FTP to be the default medium for file repository sites.

Eric,

[Tesseract]

I agree. A torrent link shouldn't be displayed if it isn't certain that there's someone seeding it.

[Lemon Lime]

The files that we don't host our selves on MGF are generally the small shareware/freeware games, and if the developer asks us not link to his site we put it on our own server. And we always host the big games/patches (like the latest quake 4 one for example).

In addition, if you are a IMG Pro subscriber you get to download the files that are on our own servers from our super fast Pro server.

What I'm getting at here, is that you really don't need the bittorrent on MGF as much as you do on other sites, but I do get your main point.