What is a seeder & a leecher?

If you often frequent P2P or FTP download websites, you may have come across the terms seeders and leechers. This tutorial will explain to you what these terms mean and when they are used. The term "seeders" refers to users who have the complete file and are sharing it. In other words, these are the people who are uploading the data.

What is the difference between a seed and a leecher?

A user who has downloaded a file and is letting others download it from them as well is a seed. You do not have to have downloaded the whole file in order to share it with other users. So it is common when torrenting files that are both large and sought-after to seed and leech simultaneously. A seed is the opposite of a leecher.

How does a leecher work?

Leechers only have bits and pieces of the whole file. Once your download is complete you go from a leecher to a seeder automatically. Most people close the torrent when it's done because uploading is the riskiest part of torrenting, hence why people are always encouraged to seed as a way to "pay" for the free content.