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28 December 2006

Ask MeCha: I need a new bittorrent client. Can you hope me?→[More:]I've heard of clients that allow you to select and grab individual files out of batches for download, and ones that allow multiple simultaneous torrent downloads. Any recommendations? (FYI, my download machine runs on win2k pro)

post by: pieisexactlythree at: 17:40 | 12 comments

dunno about the first requirement, but I use Azureus, which works well (although it is written in Java, hence needs a JVM and seems to use a lot of horsepower). This is a full-on GUI program which gives you the ability to manage as many simultaneous downloads/seeds as you want.

I've also used BitComet, but not very extensively. It seemed to work fine.

posted by deadcowdan 28 December | 18:06

I have really come to dig Utorrent, it has all the things you asked for and is darn simple to use.

posted by miles 28 December | 18:14

utorrent is really popular at Oink, but I have yet to use it. I currently use Azureus too, and it can do the single-file thing, but with some hoop jumping. I betcha either one of those is the way to go, pi.

posted by richat 28 December | 18:35

What deadcowdan said, except that I've never even heard of BitComet. Azureus, though, is aces.

posted by box 28 December | 18:40

thanks d00dz.

posted by pieisexactlythree 28 December | 19:01

Another Azureus user here. I run a mac and it does indeed take quite a bit of horsepower to run. To fix this I usually set up the downloads to happen overnight.

posted by LunaticFringe 28 December | 23:24

Overnight? Either you're downloading much smaller files or you've got some kickass internet access. Most of the stuff I download takes multiple days. Currently I've got about 2/3 of a 4.5GB file I started downloading on Tuesday.

posted by pieisexactlythree 29 December | 00:07

I've been pretty happy with BitLord. It's popular, but I just didn't like Azureus.

Download time depends on bandwidth, yes, but also on how many seeds and how many leechers you can get the file from. I'm on WiFi before I get to the net and I just downloaded a 700Mb file (typical 2-hour movie, natch) in about 2.5 hours.

posted by stilicho 29 December | 01:47

I tend to download whole albums which are usually around 100Mb or so and takes about an hour. Sometimes I'll download an artist's entire discography (1-2 Gigs) and that will usually take the entire night. I haven't downloaded movies in a long time so I have no idea how long that would take.

But, just to reiterate what stilicho said, it completely depends on the numbers of seeders and leachers.

posted by LunaticFringe 29 December | 09:47

Azureus is great untill you realize you can run utorrent off a single executable without installation without ever utilizing more than ~5MB of memory resources. AZ stalls at 30-60MB quite frequently, whenever I downloaded 4GB+ torrents with it would simply buckle under the weight of all its fancy java voodoo. Go UT and don't look back... there's a reason BT bought them out.

posted by appidydafoo 29 December | 09:51

I've used both Azureus and uTorrent. I've enjoyed uTorrent approximately 95% more.

posted by muddgirl 29 December | 14:28

uTorrent. uTorrent. uTorrent.

Only way torrenting could be simpler and better designed is if Apple released iTorrent.

posted by Rock Steady 30 December | 19:04

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