What is the Best Open Source BitTorrent Client?

qbittorrent

Most of the internet users are already aware of BitTorrent and how it works. It was created in 2001, and it’s basically a P2P file sharing protocol. It can be used for sharing large amounts of data online, and there’s no need for that data to be stored on any centralized servers.

Even though there are literally loads of clients that can provide you with BitTorrent, but even so, we’ve decided to create our own list of which you might find some of them. We couldn’t have covered every one of them, of course, so we apologize if your personal favorite isn’t on the list.

qBittorrent

qBittorrent is not as big or fully featured as others on this list, but it has many pros, which means many reasons to be used. It’s fast, has resources and the creators really did try their best to provide a full service. It also allows torrent querying, torrent prioritization, selective content download, remote access, torrent creation, has RSS subscription and even offers a built-in search and a media player. It also has no ads, and installation is as easy as it can possibly get. It can be used on many platforms, including Linux, Mac OSX and, of course, Windows.

Transmission

This one, as well as qBit, is a completely free, open source and lightweight. It’s been used by Linux and Mac users for a while now, and many of those users were thrilled by its beautiful interface. It has many features that are greatly appreciated, including watch directories, webseed support, tracker editing, speed limits (both global and per-torrent), and many more. It does offer a protocol encryption, but it’s worth saying that it’s nowhere near VPNs when it comes to protecting your privacy. It does offer add-ons, though, for example, XMBC plugin and RSS tools. It’s available on Mac OSX, Windows, Linux, Gentoo, FreeBSD and several more, so try it out, you won’t regret it.

Vuze

Vuze was once one of the most popular BitTorrent clients, and back then it was called Azureus. However, it made a mistake when it included ads, and then offered to remove them if you got a paid version called Vuze Plus. Even though it did come with an antivirus, play now support and DVD burner, it would appear that many didn’t think it was worth €28.90 EUR per year.

These days, Vuze looks pretty old, especially when compared to its competition. Another bad thing about it is that it’s trying to install so-called crapware during its own installation, which isn’t a big deal if you’re paying attention. However, if you’re willing to overlook those few flaws, you’ll discover that it offers one of the biggest packages ever when it comes to its features, including conversion for different devices, a variety of visualizations and statistics, content discovery through subscriptions, remote management, media player and even more.

One of its best features is a rarely possessed ability to bind it to your VPN adapter so that it can only be used when your VPN is running. This helps a lot with protection and privacy. It’s also great as an ad-free Android app so that you can torrent even on your tablet or phone, and you can also use your device as a remote control for the desktop version.

When it comes to availability, you can use it on Linux, Android, Windows, and Mac OSX.

PopcornTime.se

PopcornTime has revolutionized the use of torrents when it first appeared since all the rest of them had you download files in order to use them. PopcornTime started streaming movies and shows and thus rivaled even Netflix, especially after it started streaming in high quality, no matter the internet speed. Even though it still stores content on your local disc, it truly revolutionized the process and it’s a real revelation when it comes to instant video pleasure.

It’s available on Linux, Mac OSX, Windows as well as Android.

Deluge

Yet another 100% open source client, Deluge even has an addition to its full version, which is a portable one that doesn’t even need to be installed. It offers less than others, but it still has everything that you need for successful torrenting.

Another choice for the 5th place on our list was μTorrent, but we still decided to go with Deluge mostly because μTorrent is now covered in ads, and it’s a closed source and doesn’t even offer that many features to be worth it.

Luckily for Deluge, it doesn’t come with and crapware or ads, and it can be used on Linux, Windows, Mac OSX as well as FreeBSD.

Issues

BitTorrent protocol has lots of uses, since it can transport data around so efficiently, and thanks to things like that, it has become a tech of choice for piracy. So much so, in fact, that it has actually become synonymous with the activity, which many users think is unfair. It’s important to know that if you use BitTorrent protocol for downloading something, everyone else who downloads the same thing can see your IP address. Because of this, it would probably be a good idea to get a good quality VPN that might be able to protect you and give you privacy and safety while torrenting. We suggest TorGuard, or IPVanish, since the speed is very important to both of them, just like to you too.

How to P2P download using BitTorrent?

  1. Pick, download and install a BitTorrent client, and if you need suggestions, check out those we talked about above.
  2. Make sure that you have a VPN and that it’s running and that it supports torrenting. It’ll both hide your activity, and also allow you access to blocked content.
  3. Go to a BitTorrent website, and there you can search databases and find torrents that you’re interested in downloading. After you find a file you want, just click on the magnet link, or on the download via torrent link. Somewhere you’ll find both, somewhere only one of those, it doesn’t matter, it’ll do the same thing.
  4. After clicking the magnet or torrent link, your client should open and offer you to choose where to download the file. After choosing, just click OK and wait for the download to finish.

Even though it’s 16 years old already and that it’s put aside since the streaming became popular, BitTorrent is still one of the best ways of sharing or downloading large files, so find yourself a good VPN, choose a torrent client and try it out yourself.

Passion for Cyber Security and Technology.

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