BitTorrent Clients Reviewed

prostoalex writes "PC Magazine is running a review of several popular BitTorrent clients. They review uTorrent, an app that 'packs an outstanding array of features in 107KB, and doesn't even create a folder in your Program Files' and give it 4.5 stars. BitTorrent Client from BitTorrent.com, 'whose clean interface has three basic elements: a large progress bar for each torrent you're working on, a slider that controls your maximum upload rate, and a link to the BitTorrent Search engine', gets 4 stars. BitPump 'features an attractive interface that sacrifices a detailed feature set for BitTorrent tweakers in favor of simplicity and ease of use' and gets 4 stars. Finally, Azureus, 'a favorite with advanced users, who enjoy its plug-in system and huge range of tweakable settings', gets 4.5 stars. An interview with Bram Cohen from BitTorrent is available as well."

Comments

Eeeeeyyyyyyy, Azureus!

[Orrin Bloquy]

Selectively remove unneeded files from an archive? Sweet.

Re:Eeeeeyyyyyyy, Azureus!

[kuzb]

uTorrent does this as well (when you have a torrent selected, in the lower pane, select the "file" view, and right-click on any file), is smaller, lighter, easier on system resources, and has no additional dependancies.

I don't understand why people use Azureus on Windows anymore, uTorrent is far superior to it. Someone should make a uTorrent clone for Linux so we can escape this plauge they call Azureus.

bah

[EngMedic]

screen + btdownloadcurses.py is all i need. Fie on your graphical programs. Fie, i say.

4 stars for everyone?

[cbc1920]

Does anyone find it annoying that every program gets only 4 or 4.5 stars? What is the point of reviewing 5 different programs if they all get essentially the same score? Azereus is by far the better client, yet it only gets an extra .5 stars for this distinction. Its features and usability are far beyond the others I've tried, and it's open source/java to boot.

A vote for uTorrent

[bheer]

This app shows why platform-optimized code will _always_ beat generic XP frameworks (Java/Python). There is no earthly reason a BitTorrent client has to be big and slow. I like Azureus (especially its DHT) but it drags my machine down compared to uTorrent (which you don't even feel is running). If uTorrent supported Azureus' DHT instead of mainline-DHT I know I wouldn't use Azureus at all.

[1.1GHz Pentium M with 512MB RAM, yes I know that's not a lot but I'd still like to be doing other things when my BT client is running.]

For convenience... Shareaza

[spoco2]

I know Shareaza isn't the absolute greatest bittorrent client out there... but it seems to work fine for me, and the fact that it's also a Gnutella2 and eDonkey client makes it just too damn good for getting all those 'latest and greatest' BitTorrent things, as well as those hard to find things you only get via other P2P networks.

Plus... if your tracker goes down it looks for alternat Gnutella2 sources... sweet. :)

Oh... and it's open source... that's good... right? :P

The author is a noob.

[ltwally]

In refernce to the stock BitTorrent client, v4.2.2:

"This client is clean and simple; it requires JRE (Java Runtime Environment) 1.5."

Bittorrent is written in Python, and currently uses the GTK for its interface (though prior versions had used wxPython). This isn't the kind of mistake that someone who actually knew anything about the subject he was writing about would make. Seriously.

One little problem:

[thepotoo]

Azureus is a real RAM hog. I'm not trolling here, I used it for a while (still do on my linux computers), but a java app that eats half your RAM while you download something?
Yuck.

I use Bitcomet now instead whenever possible. Sure it's not geek-friendly (no linux support), but it offers the same stuff as Azureus (that's file selection, advanced options) at a lot less RAM and CPU usage.
I am dissapointed not to see it reviewed here.

Ugh, that's annoying.

[twitter]

The author, stuck in the non free world of Windoze, feels compelled to tell us:

Once again, using BitTorrent in and of itself is not in the least bit illegal. Of course, neither is using a VCR to tape a television show. However, a huge number of people use BitTorrent to share materials that are copyrighted. The array is vast, from MP3s to first-run movies, and even entire seasons of TV shows zipped up into a single large file. And once again (say it with us), downloading copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal.

Replace BitTorrent with http, ftp or the web and you see how tiresome this kind of comment is. A huge number of people die driving. A huge number of people are murdered with pointy pieces of steel. A large number of people might not give the world's big publishers their money, with or without another internet protocol. The vast majority of musicians get ripped off.

Let me see if I can say it clearly. Sharing with your friends is not dirty. Cooperative systems add value.

People in the non free world just don't get it and covet all the wrong things. The value of source code is much greater than that of a binary file. The value of a live performance is much greater than a recording. A movie is worth about four dollars. What he values is something that's dead, things with greedy owners. The value of the internet is the exchange of free information, not dead stuff.

I've got a closet full of old crap he might consider valuable. I've got CDs, albums and tapes, which were worthless to me until I ripped them and stuck them on an sftp server. I've got shelves of DOS, Win3.1, Win95 and Windoze 98 software, all good for painful installations on obsolete hardware. The actual content made has been moved to free software systems when I was no longer able to access it with non free software. I keep it, some old books and even a working system or two around like museum pieces. The cost of replacement for my non free software is about 1 hour of install and download time, or a $500 trip to CompUSA. Mobility adds value to information and exposes the true value of non free information.

Will I use bt to share music and movies? Sure, if they are free. Those that are free are worth much more than those I can't share.

Do I share my own work? You bet I do.

Re:BitComet anyone?

[Cramer]

DHT networking is a truly peer to peer protocol meaning you are slightly safer with your illegal downloading from the aut[h]orities.

WRONG!!!! In order for you to download content, you must be able to find other peers. And likewise, other peers must be able to find you. DHT does not magically make this requirement disappear. It's actually easier to find peers within DHT because there's no restrictions on accessing the swarm. With a private tracker, one must access that tracker to find the peers within the swarm. With DHT, anyone can find the peers for a swarm. DHT is more easily monitored making it much more dangerous.

The entire problem with BitComet was it's turning to DHT when the tracker was unavailable despite the torrent being marked as private. Some may call that a bug. But those that know bitvomit will suspect it was intentional...

You are completely mistaken about the reasons for a private tracker... illegal content is just as easily found on public trackers as well. The motive for a private tracker is fostering a community where people give back instead of take, take, take, and take some more. Remember suprnova, where there were swarms with thousands of peers yet the best anyone could download was a few kbps? Yet even on small "private"[*] trackers where swarms are just a few dozen peers (at best) download speeds were hundreds of kbps.

[*] "private" as in "registration required", but anyone can signup

Re:Congrats!

[laughingcoyote]

Hrm...troll indeed? Alright, I'll bite. I'm aware of BitTorrent's excellent ability to copy information, but I'd never heard of a case where someone used it to steal something. How would you go about that?

Bear in mind-stealing involves taking away from or depriving(requirement 1) the rightful owner of a possession, of that possession(requirement 2) without that person's consent(requirement 3).

Even if we presume true (and many do not) the tenuous arguments that the person whose file the computer resides on is not "really" the rightful owner of the data on it, and doesn't have permission to say what may or may not be done with it, only requirement 2 and 3 are satisfied. Requirement 1 is never met-copying something doesn't involve taking it away.

Now, on the other hand, you might have mistakenly referred to copyright infringement as theft. Many (though not all) uses for Bittorrent do indeed meet its definition. But I'm sure no one around here tries to substitute an incorrect, inflammatory word for the proper term for something, thinking it strengthens their point!