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BitTorrent is one of the greatest inventions ever created. It's right up there with mIRC and Kazaa :D Unlicensed anime and manga are available through BitTorrent. Licensed stuff are available on BitTorrent too, but that's a different story that won't be covered here --_--;
BitTorrent is a file-sharing system created by Bram Cohen. It uses all downloaders' upstream bandwith. It starts up with these files called torrents, which contain instructions on how to download the file. If BitTorrent is installed in the computer, opening a torrent will start the download of the given file. The donwloader can then just go about his or her business while the BitTorrent download window happily sits on the desktop and gets the file.
While a user is downloading, the program uploads the acquired file bytes to another downloader's computer. Then the program in that other downloader's computer uploads the acquired file bytes to another downloader's computer, and so on. Essentially, BitTorrent allows users to download and upload the given file at the same time. Faster uploads typically mean faster downloads. One reason for BitTorrent's popularity is that it uses all downloaders' bandwidth, which are typically underused. It may be kind of slow to get files through BitTorrent, but it typically makes steady progress.
It is good form to leave the torrent window open even after the download is finished. This is because once a file is completed, it becomes a seed. More seeds mean faster downloads of the file. As courtesy to others, users would usually leave the torrent windows open 24 hours after the downloads are finished, or until the download/upload ratio is 1:1 for the given file.
You can download the program from the official BitTorrent website at http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/.