Give web site TorrentRelay the URL of any torrent on the internet and it'll automatically download it for you through your web browser. Not only does that mean that you can download files over BitTorrent without installing a new BitTorrent client if you're on someone else's computer, but it also means you can download torrents directly to hardware that doesn't support BitTorrent clients, like your Wii, PS3, or even iPhone. Currently TorrentRelay downloads are limited to 400MB. For a similar solution, check out previously mentioned BitLet.

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Dear Lifehacker,

Do you know of any online services where you can specify a list of torrents, and your credit card number, and you can have a disc set mailed to you with the results? Sometimes I can imagine this being faster than a download and certainly less hassle for some people. I searched Google with no luck, but I thought if such a thing exists, Lifehacker will know about it.

Signed, Pressed For Time, Hungry For Torrents

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Windows only: Want to direct your non-torrent-savvy friends or relatives to a download they really need to check out? Free web utility Torrent2Exe takes torrent download links—the kind you'd normally pass to your favourite BitTorrent client—and creates tiny .exe programs that do all the download work for whoever double-clicks them. You can also grab a link to post on your own site (or Twitter stream) that lets others download the same self-running torrent grabber. Great for distributing your own files to a select group of downloaders, or helping Linux-curious friends grab the right disk images. Torrent2Exe's downloaders are for Windows systems only.

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Linux only: Free IP-filtering application IPlist protects your BitTorrent downloads from third-party snoopers and blockers by controlling which IP addresses can and cannot connect to your system. The default blacklist installed with IPlist is a pretty good start to protecting your torrent privacy, and an "Update" button adds the latest known addresses with bad juju behind them, but the app also lets you add ranges, specific addresses, and other kinds of traffic to allow and block. Simply fire up IPlist before running your BitTorrent client, and the app will do its work. IPlist is a free download for Linux systems; hit the link below for prerequisites and installation help with Debian/Ubuntu and Fedora systems.

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To be honest, BitTorrent aggregator LookTorrent wouldn't be much of a competitor for its Ajax-powered counterpart YouTorrent, except that YouTorrent has dropped most of the popular torrent sources in anticipation of a squeaky-clean sale. What LookTorrent does is provide a top frame to search for torrent download links, and links to 25 sources, one of which will likely have even the most obscure files. If nothing else, LookTorrent's home page is a nice catalog of sites to look through while you're on the hunt for that special download.

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BitTorrent search sites like The Pirate Bay can help you find recently-released tunes, flicks and video games, but deciding which are worth the hefty downloads usually involves digging in more mainstream channels. Enter PickyPirate, a mashup website that matches scores from review compilation sites Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes to download links from torrent search sites The Pirate Bay and Mininova. For casual torrent browsers like myself, the site could be a nice reminder of what's floating around and save a few clicks on the way to a download.

Torrent how-to site TorrentFreak has a simple tutorial on how to create your own torrent for a variety of BitTorrent clients. The process differs slightly from client to client, but overall, it's pretty simple— and especially convenient when you're looking to send something big to more than one person. Have you created a torrent? Share your special torrent how-to sauce in the comments.

Search through over a hundred different BitTorrent sites with CompleTorrent, a torrent metasearch engine. All the big BitTorrent sites are included here (Demonoid, Isohunt, Mininova, etc.) along with many smaller sites. This is a great jumping off point for all those educational documentaries you've been meaning to watch. Not sure about this whole BitTorrent thing? Try out the beginner's guide to BitTorrent and you'll be a pro in no time at all.