Downloading torrents is one of the most popular activities in recent years on the Internet and every day many users start in this world. If you are one of them, you may be having several questions such as the difference between a magnet link and a torrent or how you can open them from any browser. Well, we are going to show what these magnets links are and how we can open them in Chrome or other popular web browsers .
Although magnet links and torrent files go hand in hand, they are not exactly the same. In fact, if we use a magnet link, it is not necessary to download a torrent file to start downloading certain content.
Let us remember that a torrent is a file that we download with the information or route map to download certain content or file from the Internet. The file is not downloaded from any online server, but is downloaded from the computer of the user who shares it. However, when we use a magnet link , it is not necessary to download this information that torrent files require, since the download this time is more direct, we just have to open the link and the download will begin.
The structure of a magnet link is made up of the following elements:
- magnet: the way to identify the file to download.
- xt = urn: this is where the network is indicated. If the link is torrent we would have xt = urn: btih: but being a magnet it would be xt = urn: ed2k:
- The next thing this file would have would be the value that defines it, that is, the hash .
- Later, if the file name were indicated, it would be necessary to look like & dn =
This is the way that magnets are more comfortable and direct. Most clients like uTorrent or BitTorrent are capable of opening and executing these types of files.
Open magnet links in Google Chrome
However, it is likely that when trying to open a magnet link in our browser we will not be able to. If this happens in Google Chrome, then what we have to do is check, in the browser settings, that it allows the opening of these types of links.
- To do this, we open a Chrome window, we go to Settings from the menu button.
- Once there, we go to the Privacy and security section.
- Now we click on the Site Settings option .
- At this moment, all we have to do is go to Additional permissions , expand it and click on Controllers.
- Next we will be shown a page where we will see the option Allow websites to become default protocol controllers (recommended) , which we must activate using the switch shown.
Now we can try to open a magnet link from Google Chrome. At that time, a message will be shown to us offering to open the link from our program or Torrent client, which we can choose to associate with this type of links.
Open magnet links in Mozilla Firefox
In Mozilla’s browser we can also associate the magnets files, but in a slightly different way than what we have done in Google Chrome. It is not that it is a difficult process to carry out, but it is a bit more confusing, so we are going to explain it as clearly as possible.
- We open the Mozilla Firefox browser and write, in the same area where we put the web pages we want to access, that is, in the address bar, about: config and press Enter.
- At this moment we have to write in the search bar where it says Search, network.protocol-handler.expose.magnet
- Now we must make sure that the Boolean option is checked .
- Then the moment to press the + button that is on the right side of the whole.
- We will see how the new entry has already incorporated us, but now we have to change its value. For that we click on the symbol with two arrows (one pointing to each side) that you will see on the right side of the image, to change said value from true to false .
- Now it only remains to restart the browser for the changes to take effect.
Now we will see how when downloading a magnet file, the browser automatically identifies it correctly and asks us with which application we want to run it. Remember that if we check the Remember my choice tab for magnet links , it will no longer ask us and the file will open with the program we have chosen directly. This is to everyone’s taste.
We also have another option to assign an action to a file:
- We must go to the browser options menu (gear that appears at the top right), click on General .
- Then look for Applications and look here for the type of file we need.
- Now by clicking on the right side, in the Action menu, of said file we can configure it and choose whether to always use a specific application, whether to always ask before opening it or if we want to configure another software other than the one we already have.
Open magnet links in the rest of the browsers
If what we want is to open magnet links in other browsers and we already have a Torrent client, the process to associate magnet links in other browsers is similar to that of Chrome. We simply click on a magnet link from whatever browser it is and if it asks us if we want to open it with our Torrent application we indicate yes and the association will be made .
In case it does not show us this message, then we have to open the Windows registry and make some changes. We tell you how to do it step by step.
- To go to the Windows registry we must write regedit in the search box on the taskbar . Next, we select by clicking on the first result, that is, Registry Editor .
- At that time Windows will ask us if we give it permission to modify, to which we must answer Yes .
- Now we have to look for the following path in the left column of the Windows registry. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTMagnetshellopencommand .
- Once there, we must edit the default value and indicate in Data the path of our Torrent program, for example ” C: Program FilesqBittorrentqbittorrent.exe” , followed by “% 1” / SHELLASSOC.
