How To: Download Torrents Through a Proxy/Firewall

You may find yourself in a situation where you’re unable to download *.torrent files onto the PC that you’re using. Perhaps you’re sitting in an Internet Café, public Library or other place that blocks the actual downloading (or opening) of torrent files to the computer. I know that some Universities do this, as do many non-commercial ISPs & corporate firewalls (proxies) at the workplace.

This works for both public and private BitTorrent sites, although the procedures vary slightly. “Public” is explained first, with some additional ‘private’ torrent tips to follow.

1.      Find a torrent: 

 Open your browser and visit a public tracker, such as thepiratebay.org. You may also be blocked from that site, as well — if so, visit http://anonymouse.org and enter the URL (http://thepiratebay.org) to get around it. Now, select a torrent that you wish to download, (do not use the green arrow quicklaunch); instead, click on the torrent title. Next, right-click where it says “Download This Torrent” and select “Copy Link Location

2.      Open µTorrent:

  Launch µTorrent, and select File > Add Torrent From URL…

The .torrent should now start in the BitTorrent client. NOTE: Sometimes it takes a few moments to update the tracker URL when importing torrents in this manner - not to worry, seeds/leechers are soon to be updated.

Alternative Method:

          It’s entirely possible that none of this worked for you. Here’s a second option:

Follow the same steps as above by copying the URL of the .torrent. But this time, visit http://txtor.dwerg.net/ and “Paste” the URL into the field there. Click “Download”.

Save the “…torrent.txt” file to your hard drive. Here’s the Firefox screenshot:

Once downloaded, simply rename the extension of the *.txt file to .torrent by removing “.txt” from the title of the file name. You’ll now be able to open the torrent in your BitTorrent client!

Tips for mininova users:

1. Click the title of the desired torrent:

2. This will open the torrent info window. Click on the “Details” tab:

3. In Firefox, right-click on “Download This Torrent” and select “Copy Link Location“.

4. You should now be able to add the torrent in µTorrent (Add torrent from URL…)