Asus Uses BitTorrent to Boost Software Downloads
Written by Ernesto on July 20, 2009Asus, one of the leading computer product manufacturers, has recently started to offer BitTorrent powered downloads to its customers. With BitTorrent the company says it can speed up downloads and get software to its customers in less time.
BitTorrent is without doubt the fastest and cheapest way to distribute large files online. Still, there are only a handful of multinationals who actually use the technology – computer manufacturer Asus is one of them.
With a net profit of close to a billion US dollars in 2008 Asus is one of the big players in the computer business. They are also no stranger to BitTorrent, as they’ve been making BitTorrent supported hardware for years, including the first BitTorrent router.
Recently the company decided to embrace BitTorrent even further, and use it to boost the download speeds on the tens of thousands of downloads they offer on their website. It is currently enabled on all larger downloads listed on the official website.
“In order to speed up software download process, ASUSTek is now implementing BitTorrent DNA technology. Through this technology, the software you need can be delivered to you with less time,” Asus informs their customers.
Consumers looking for drivers or software will now see a P2P download link next to the regular http downloads. When the P2P link is clicked Asus explains the process to first time users, after which they will be asked to download the BitTorrent DNA client.
Asus is offering BitTorrent boosted downloads
DNA stands for BitTorrent Delivery Network and is developed by BitTorrent, Inc. The software runs in the background on your computer and uses BitTorrent to speed up regular downloads, which means that customers will share the files they’ve downloaded with people who are downloading the same content.
Of course we would rather see regular .torrent links instead of the closed DNA software, and that is also the main disadvantage to Asus’s implementation. In the past BitTorrent’s DNA has been causing problems for some people and although these issues have reportedly been resolved, it still leaves a bad taste with some people.
Nevertheless, it is good to see that billion dollar companies are interested in, and willing to take advantage of BitTorrent. In the end it comes down to a classical win-win situation for both parties. Consumers get faster downloads and Asus a reduction in bandwidth costs.
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56 Responses
That can’t be right, bittorrent is evil everybody knows that right?
Nice to see business getting involed in the support for Bit torrents
Asus Rocks
it is good to see a software companyfinally gettinga practical use for the protocol
Good idea. Download speeds of their driver updates are too horrible.
Always found it odd, like a mega corp like ASUS can’t afford some decent servers…
But this helps. Good job ASUS
good for them and us. hopefully asus starts a trend with the big businesses with this announcement.
This is old news they have been doing this for atleast 12 months.
Yawn
Glad to hear that a big company like Asus is showing BitTorrent some love.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with BTDNA, you can find some info here:
http://www.techloid.com/2009/07/asus-shows-bittorrent-some-love.html
tried this the other day, total crap, got 5kbps, and u cant use ur own client least i could’nt find a .torrent file to upload, its all done within this DNA thing, canceled it and started a normal http download. shame really as it would of sat on my server for a while
Well done ASUS.
Heck i’m in the market for a new PC anyway.. guess i’ll show them some support.
“Always found it odd, like a mega corp like ASUS can’t afford some decent servers…”
It’s not the servers, it’s the connections, I believe.
“Always found it odd, like a mega corp like ASUS can’t afford some decent servers…”
It’s not the servers, it’s the connections, I believe.
Blizzard has been doing this for years.
BitTorrent is open source, BitTorrent DNA is not. While it’s very nice of Asus to show DNA some love, I would have preferred regular .torrent files; I’m not going to install proprietary stuff on my computer.
Kudos to ASUS. The bit torrent concept is brilliant, and the technology is a fantastic advance in the efficient migration of digital files across the network.
Too bad there are so many selfish pricks ruining privacy for everyone else by using it for infringement, illegal distribution and digital theft of all kinds.
Very, very true just take a look at the copyright laws and you can see an ocean of thieves hiding behind it to steal things and crying like babies when they don’t get their way.
hum.. why share(seed) something i DESERVVE to have? wasting bandwidth imo -_-”
they should improve their servers/connections or wtv..
cant stop thinking all they want is MORE money
i might be wrong so please enlighten me
@14 (NoOne) I’m with you on that one. I spent a lot of hard work getting my computers free from proprietary crap and don’t intend to go back.
Also, Asus spends too much time in Microsoft’s hip pocket for me to care about their products.
Great job ASUS! Others companies will follow your footstep soon. ASUS computers rock too!!!
last i checked (over a year ago) Nero does the same thing. except they use .torrent files
not anymore. guess torrent are really evil
i did the right thing to buy from ASUS :)
Screw BitTorrent DNA, and ASUS for using it.
Yeah, piracy has really damaged the reputation of BitTorrent. Because it is so intertwined with illegal filesharing, it is generally seem as something evil. Really, piracy must have held back BitTorrent technology almost a decade.
Bittorrent DNA is really bad. Not only you can not use your trusted client, you are forced to use a black box which keeps eating your bandwidth until you kill the process and uninstall it. There are no options whatsoever, icon or anything at all indicating that its running, except you notice your bandwidth being eaten.
Bittorrent DNA is much closer to a Trojan rootkit than a friendly p2p client. Avoid!
Asus is great
So do many open source outfits. Big deal. Nothing new from my POV.
As for nothing new; I walk into retail establishments and they’re endlessly playing dated tunes, like a broken record, like at the grocery store I just returned from: ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me’ by Culture Club. Meanwhile we’re talking about Metallica here.
I was irritated enough to forget the milk, so I have to go back. I’ll post the tune I hear when I return. Can’t wait.
TAIWAN REPUBLIC OF CHINA REPRESENT!
Ironically, here in Taiwan, most of our downloads are throttled, upload caps are horrible, and if you nailed for copyright, it really is a pain to deal with, because Team America, World Police, aka the MPAA, and RIAA have our Government in their pocket, ironically they also agree with One China Policy, go figure… real piracy is mainstream in Mainland China.
Asus is awesome! I hope they continue helping legitimize the bittorent protocol.
@ 24
if it were not for the free digital library (what you call piracy, even though that is not the proper definition) Bittorrent would not come to existence.
Piracy is the definition of making a profit off of copyrighted works that you don’t own copyright too.
P2P is sharing the work without any [U]profit[/U].
Other then that Its nice to see even more corporations embrace bittorrent.
@Reasoned Mind/neostyles
“Too bad there are so many selfish pricks ruining privacy for everyone else by using it for infringement, illegal distribution and digital theft of all kinds.”
Cute. There you go again with your psychotic little delusion that filesharing is selfish. What a shame that sharing is an inherently unselfish act in reality.
Well… It’s a shame for you, anyway. The rest of us get to point and laugh at the sad clown. :D
By the way, “digital theft” can only take place if you take the digital thing in question away from its owner. For example, gaining access to somebody else’s Paypal account and transferring $20 to your Paypal account would qualify as “digital theft” because you now you have $20 in Paypal and they don’t. Likewise, copying a file from somebody else’s computer to a USB stick and then deleting the original file would qualify as digital theft because the owner has been deprived of said file.
Filesharing fails as “digital theft” because it merely copies, and never destroys or takes away the original file.
ASUS are PIRATES! They use BITTORRENT!
The evul entertainment industries WILL force all ISP’s around the globe to BAN BitTorrent!
Some are throttling are canceling the BitTorrent protocol already, what will happen when its BANNED because of STUPIDITY and GREED?
It will happen eventualy, with LOBBY organisations infiltrated in POLITICS and JUSTICE systems.
I love CAPS when used right!
OH the last one SHOULD be: RIGHT!
Asus weren’t that smart to use Bittorrent DNA, but atleast some company is trying to use torrents in some way, realizing that Bittorrent is useful.
Sorry… it’s good that companies are embracing BT, but it’s not FOSS and so I won’t use it.
On a somewhat related note, Asus (maker of Eee computers) lost a bunch of my respect when they dropped Linux in favor of their “It’s Better With Windows” campaign. Like hell it is.
@anti-copyright trolls: You’re wasting your time.
Hope Asus now can start making Windows 7 drivers. Still waiting for them..
WTF!
http://digg.com/tech_news/The_Pirate_Bay_To_Build_a_Base_on_The_Moon
While bit-torrent has it’s place in technology I’m kind of sick of companies using OUR bandwith for THEIR profits.
I’ll be running a port scanner regularly from now on and shutting down the ports that they use. They can fuck off and pay for their bandwidth like the rest of us rather than pocket the savings and add to their profit margin.
Best news ever. I usually download at under 10KB/sec from ASUS.
Replace “anti-copyright trolls” with “anti-piracy trolls” in my previous message.
I suppose it would be helpful if I actually learned how to pay attention as I type. ^^;
Why is everyone acting as if this is so revolutionary? It’s been around for ages (I’m an Asus customer, so I regularly get driver updates from the site) and it’s not even that good. Crap speeds. HTTP does the same job, better.
@ #40 :
yeh you’re right mate, as tf said, it’s cheap and you get ridiculously slow downloads. with http, you max out your bandwidth. so why bother with torrenting when there’s an http alternative?
Really? Bittorrent Inc’s DNA?!? No thanks, when Asus starts using regular .torrent files, then I will use them.
I remember they did this on the PS3 for the Metal Gear Online BETA….using bittorrent to transfer the many gigs of game content. It sorta worked…
So they are trying to save money letting the users pay the bill … clever …
And guys, if you want the pirate bay to stay free, sign the petition @ http://www.ruinedpiratebay.com!
@29 TFB: Piracy has nothing to do with BitTorrent. Had piracy not existed, BT would have gone out to be a mainstream form of file transfer a long time ago, instead of a pariah that’s blocked bit nearly almost all webfilters.
Asus’ http downloads are fast enough. It’s creative who should be using BT…
@46 Jul 21, 2009 at 14:41 by BioShockerT81:
What do you think “Grid Computing” means?
Bittorrent it’s just one form, P2P would exist regardless of piracy. Why?
Because people find uses for it and because it reduces cost, if it wasn’t for piracy maybe there would not be 1 or 2 dominant protocols but many so get off your highhourse and join the human race.
yeah i noticed that P2P link the other day when downloading drivers.. thought that was pretty cool
GOOD! Asus site has been slow like shit for years, chinese crap.
WTF? I believe this is actually very bad! It will not legitimize BitTorrent because no-body except tech-freaks knows that it’s BT under the hood.
The BT DNA, as many before me said, is more like trojan eating up your bandwith without any statistics or options what, when and how you want to share.
This is absolutely illegitimate use of BitTorrent. Asus is commercial company and if I want their drivers that means I bought their product so should get approperiate support! Why should I give up my bandwith on top of that? On a closed-source rouge client distributing the file without my knowledege?
This is totally outrageous not some kind of “good news”. This should be condemned unless they distribute .torrent files which you can use with any client of your choice and inform every downloader that their bandwith is further used to distribute the file!
This is more like bandwith theft!
I too believe they should simply give .torent files on their site and skip the rootkit .exe file. Sure Asus is some huge company but they are still one of many. Once some knockoff mobo company ALSO does bit torrent and does .torrent files hopefully they’ll remove the .exe.
Thanks but I have a torrent client. It’s called utorrent and it works great.
Good baby step forward though. They almost got it this time. :)
My bandwidth is worth spending for faster speed (to me anyways). It’s what my oversold ISP SAID I could download! :P
Sure hope the CRTC lays the smackdown up here for consumer rights vs the ISP’s bs (offtopic but important)
uhhh….yay Asus? Keep trying and you’ll get there.
Not only do ASUS make great motherboards and laptops, but they also have a web department with brains in their skulls.
Much love, Asus.
@51: Whining about bandwidth costs for a driver? Jesus man, at max they are no more than a couple of megs in size. It’s not like their trying to distribute hi-quality movies, I wouldn’t stress about bandwidth. This actually will save them bandwidth costs, and hopefully those saving will be passed onto us, the consumer, in lower prices.
@52: They use an .exe? Not a .torrent? I think the stupid people infiltrated the web development meeting at that point, and if enough of us complain to them, I’m sure they’ll switch.
Good stuff. Glad to see Asus going down this road!
Chris
http://faaipdeoiad.com
Crap! I tried it via VirtualBox and it took over an hour just for the installer to download the DNA software! Less than 80KB/s. Not good!
Takes longer to download the damn client then it did to download the software I wanted. lol
Epic failure!! So yeah pretty lame!! And indeed should use plain “old” .torrent files not this DNA crapware.
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