Background

Torrenting is the protocol use to download files directly from another user rather than from a web server. Normally, if somebody else has a file that you want, they would have to upload that file to a cloud storage provider, like Google Drive. This is good for availability and download speed, as Google never goes offline and they have very fast servers. However, they have the authority to say "hey, we don't like this file, we're not going to host it any more." This is oftentimes what happens when a Hollywood studio gets wind that one of their movies is being hosted online for free download. They send a strongly-worded email to Google, then poof, that Spider-man 3 copy that everybody was downloading from Drive no longer exists. Torrenting solves this problem. In that scenario, Google is being a middle-man for you, holding onto files so you don't have to. What if you knew someone who had a copy of Spider-man 3, and could download it directly from their computer with their permission? That's a good idea--but if that dude has shitty internet, then it's gonna take forever to download. Well... what if a hundred people all have the exact same copy of Spider-man 3 and you can download it directly from all of them at once? That is what torrenting is. Since there is no single big target to go after, there's typically no way for those money-hungry Hollywood studios to get the file taken down.

Important Terminology

I will use the below image as a reference

Seeders: the number of other people who have the files and are giving you the green light to download from them. More = faster download.