Slashdot Mirror


Long-Awaited BitTorrent 4.0 Released

wintermute1974 writes "After sitting at a stable release of 3.4.2 since last spring, Bram Cohen's official BitTorrent client has been upgraded to version 4. In addition to its existing, rock-steady functionality, BitTorrent now sports a new queue-based UI. The revision details are on the BitTorrent site. Packets are now marked as bulk data too, which is significant considering that about a third of all Internet traffic is currently torrent data."

24 of 521 comments (clear)

  1. Good to see progress... by ratsnapple+tea · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The OS X client is still at 3.4.2. Is anyone working on an update? (I'd offer to help, but I don't program :p)

    1. Re:Good to see progress... by Coryoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The OS X client is still at 3.4.2. Is anyone working on an update? (I'd offer to help, but I don't program :p)

      It's in python so you should be able to just grab the source and use btdownloadcurses.py in Terminal.app (or whatever it is). Do you need a pretty GUI, or do you just want the new functionality etc.?

      Jedidiah.

    2. Re:Good to see progress... by rsmith-mac · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Do you need a pretty GUI, or do you just want the new functionality etc.?

      In all seriousness, it's a Mac. The userbase is not going to accept an application that doesn't have a "pretty GUI" because the GUI is much of what the platform is about. Just see OpenOffice for an example of software that's underutilized for its lack of an effective Mac GUI.

    3. Re:Good to see progress... by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I use the command line under screen on my mac, in fact, I ssh into my mac more than sit at the desktop. My wife will be playing World of warcraft on it, and I'll just ssh for irssi/bt underscreen.

      There are alot of new users that see what OSX is, a kick ass unix box with a great multi user desktop.

    4. Re:Good to see progress... by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Insightful
      There are alot of new users that see what OSX is, a kick ass unix box with a great multi user desktop.
      Yeah, and I'm one of them -- but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a good GUI too!
      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    5. Re:Good to see progress... by clarkcox3 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Better yet, now that BT 4.0.0 uses GTK instead of wxWidgets (as per the release notes), will this hamper the OS X frontend?

      The OSX client never used wxWidgets in the first place. It's a Cocoa/Python application. Besides, I always use the curses client anyway (very handy to run under screen so that I can check my progress remotely via ssh)

      --
      There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
  2. Re:Trying to get more users? by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Most people started switching away with the intrusive pop-ups.

    Sites like IsoHunt have some features that are supported in some clients and not in others like multiple trackers with backups so if the main tracker goes down it will switch over.

    He's not trying to implement any sort of eXeem crapfest at least.

    I'm a bit confused about the bulk packets thing.

    Yea there are people who will want to use over their neighbors wifi and will need some stronger restrictions (when it spikes to 300 down neighbors internet goes kablooie) but I'm not sure that making it mandatory is the best solution.

  3. Re:yep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Mac users are second-rate. There's maybe 1 of them for every, say, 20 Windows users.

    Why should Mac users be at the front of the line? Because they paid more?

  4. Linux needs a gui alt to azureus by Sark666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've tried to like azureus, and I actually still use it as there is pretty much no alternative gui wise in linux, but I really wish there was.

    Basically it brings my system to a crawl. Java vm (and yes i'm on 1.5) feels like a pig imo. We need a native gtk/qt gui that's in c/c++.

    And please don't be a smartass and point out there is the basic gui that the official comes with. It's way too lacking. AFAIK, the only way to throttle is by using the ncurses one. Never mind that you can't set ratio's (I set all of mine to 1:1.), or bind all torrents to one port instead of needing all open. Pretty much all of the other clients do that now, except the official so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

    So as you see, there are quite a few things lacking in the official client. I've checked freshmeat periodically but couldn't find anything for linux. I know there is bitorrando and some others but they require access to a mysql server wtf?

    My windows friends used to use azureus and didn't fair much better performance wise but now they pretty much all use bitcomet.

    I don't mean to knock the azureus team, cause as it is they've made a pretty good functional gui, but java just brings the performance down too much.

  5. Who cares? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The official client has been miles behind most of the unofficial ones, and as far as I know nobody with any sense uses it anymore. And as far as I can see, this new version only makes it slightly less inferior. So why does it matter that it's been released? For that matter, why was it even made?

    I don't see the point in reinventing the wheel as far as clients go when there are far better alternatives already out there. Let other people write the clients, and concentrate on improving the protocol.

  6. In related news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    ...new versions of eDonkey and the NMDC client have been released. I can't wait!

  7. Re:yep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    The fact that the parent was marked insightful ever so briefly underlines the fact that for every idiot there is on Slashdot, there is someone equally as stupid who is willing to say "me agree with this post, duh."

    The Mac development community supports itself very well, thanks. The OP was stupid to expect immediate version parity when not every developer in the world has access to multiple platforms, and often the missing platform is a Mac. But it is also quite unintelligent to dismiss that there is even a Mac version in the first place (from a developer that probably doesn't even own one). Or that a current version is likely forthcoming very soon. Or that there are good reasons that many prefer Mac OS.

    There, not too hard to avoid coming off like an ass, no? Just keep your mouth shut and you'll have no problems.

  8. Re:Favourite torrent sites? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Answer this question correctly, and insure the loss of your favorite site. Three can keep a secret when two are dead.

    The fewer people who know about a site and who can access the torrents, the slower and less healthy the torrents will be.

  9. Re:Great! I Love BitTorrent. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Mack the wrong choice some Friday evening and you may with you had....

  10. Re:Link and Changelog by Storlek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The GPL and BSD-like licenses are at least understandable for a non-lawyer.
    I can see how people can't understand the GPL; it's fairly long and "lawyery" looking. But the BSD license? It's about six sentences long! It pretty much comes down to "do anything you want with it, modify it or don't, distribute as source or binary, we don't care, as long as you give credit where it's due, don't use our names to endorse your product, and don't blame us if something goes wrong."

    --
    Bears don't normally eat things that talk and move backwards.
  11. Re:Azureus rocks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately BitTornado runs in Python, which can get almost as slow as client-side Java when you have a lot of stuff running. I'd recommend the pure C++ BitComet.

  12. Re:Favourite torrent sites? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    On the other hand, the more people that use and talk about a site, the more likely the various *AAs and such will discover it and threaten/sue the hell out of it.

  13. Re:yep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah. Second-rate, late, half-baked software that makes all of your books, all of your magazines, all of your movies, all of your newspapers, all of your music ... and that also sequences your DNA to help keep you alive. And, just for fun, does any aspect of your life depend on Oracle or Sybase? Does your employer use either of them? Do you use a bank, for instance, or do you ever buy airline tickets? I ask because in the past 2 years, both Oracle and Sybase have switched to Mac OS X exclusively for the development of their products.

    It always makes me laugh when people shit on the Mac, because it just goes to show that they don't understand just how much of their world depends on Macs.

  14. What about the iPod? by b00m3rang · · Score: 1, Insightful

    PC users had to wait almost a year. It's not possible to complete PC and Mac versions of software at the exact same time, and they would lose money for every day they wait in order to make the releases concurrent. Windows = majoriy = more profit.

  15. Re:yep by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Well, in countries such as mine (Spain) we have rules to deicde whether the period goes inside or outside the quotation marks. If the marks contain the full sentence, the period goes within the marks (and no additional period is afterwards needed), otherwise it doesn't.
    1) They said "We are the knights who say Ni."
    2) They repeatedly said "Ni".

    I don't know very well because it's not my native tongue, but it wouldn't surprise me that English has some similar rules. And when I say rules I mean as established by good English language literature...

  16. Re:...ever feature except speed by zonker · · Score: 1, Insightful

    i'd say that review would be accurate if you were reviewing 1) an older version of azureus and were using 2) an older version of the java library. the performance of azureus is directly related to the version of java you have.

    that said, there is still one issue that i have with any of these types of clients and that is when they do their final checksum on the downloaded file it usually snags a large amount of horsepower. in my opinion it should use very low priority doing that final check as quite frankly i don't care if it were to take 5 minutes to do the check if it didn't steal power from me while doing something important. i'm not usually in that big of a rush to get something to give up the juice...

  17. Re:The 'bulk data' tag by garbletext · · Score: 2, Insightful

    6881 to 6888 are not mandatory. you can do any port range you desire in most clients; it'll just choose random free ports in the range to use. You need a packet shaper to chose BT traffic effectively

  18. Re:Favourite torrent sites? by tooth · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You forgot to add:

    Yours truly,
    The MPAA


  19. Re:Azureus rocks... by Matt+Perry · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I'd recommend the pure C++ BitComet.
    The fact that BitComet has downloads of MPAA movies queued in their screenshot don't help to legitimize BitTorrent. I'm not bashing BitTorrent but I am bashing the BitComet people for not putting up a less incriminating screenshot. We're having a hard enough time convincing lawmakers that there are legitimate uses of BitTorrent and that they shouldn't outlaw P2P without making their case for them.
    --
    Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.