With "seeding" and "leeching" and "ratios", things are now clarified.  I asked fellow porn-lovers at work
how torrents worked and either they didn't know or found fault with the whole set-up(s).  About
"passkeys" I am still vague.  The business about downloading a .torrent file first and then a full (e.g.)
.avi file is completely out of my ken.  (Yes, I know what the difference is between the two.  But when
I click on "download" after a file search, I am getting the full file, am I not?

I followed advice and downloaded utorrent as my torrent client, but found no way to actually utilize it;
my regular download manager took over without the option to use utorrent instead.  I canceled the pop-up
window from the download manager but it reverted to my own computer; the "Open with" option did not
contain utorrent as an available choice.  I tried dragging the upload link to the utorrent icon and what it
downloaded was the title of the file.

Well, I have dial-up connection, living in a "hole" where DSL is not available and cable/satellite internet is
not yet affordable for me, so clearly I have no place in a file-sharing group!  I wonder whether I would live
long enough to upload an entire file [ha-ha!].  I am still downloading my very first file - and this is the 5th
day (or is it the 6th)?  Won't I be crushed when it fails to play!

As for big brother's comment that he is watching hugecigar - watching WHAT? [LOL]

Greg
(hugecigar - yup, I smoke the biggies)