What is "bittorrent"

In the Bittorrent network the files are broken into pieces of usually 256Kb. Unlike other networks, Bittorrent network users share pieces in random order, which can be reconstituted later to form the final archive. The sharing system optimizes overall network performance, since there are no queues and everyone shares pieces with each other, not overloading a central server, as with websites and download portals, for example. Thus, the more users enter to download a particular file, the more bandwidth becomes available.

Bittorrent greatly reduces server load because users download files from each other, not from the server. The colored bars indicate that the pieces are shared in random order instead of sequential order.