BitTorrent & Firefox

Written by Ernesto on November 20, 2005 

Firefox has some great advantages when it comes to browsing and downloading torrents. Of course Firefox is just a browser, but if you use it the right way, your daily bit of torrent will get a lot easier. Let me explain.

No annoying popups:
A lot of torrent sites use annoying popups. They probably have a good reason for it, but it doesn’t make me very happy. Fortunately, Firefox has an excellent built in popup killer. I use Firefox for quite a while, and the amount of popups decreased to almost zero.

However, since Firefox’ is getting more popular, ad company’s are trying to built new ads that are harder to stop. Layer ads for example. If you go to Seedler.org, everything seems just fine until some stupid layer ad shows up after 5 seconds. But here comes the good part. Just install the adblock extension, enter the url where the layer (or other) ads come from, and the ads are gone. In the case of seedler.org, the ads come from “layer-ads.de”, so just add “http://layer-ads.de/*” to the configuration window of the adblock extension and you’re clean.

Opening torrents
Why save a torrent to your hard drive if you can open it directly with Firefox? In Firefox you can customize the way file extensions (.torrent) are handled. When you click on a torrent file, Firefox asks you what you want to do. You can either save the torrent, or open it directly with your favorite torrent client.

If the “open with” box is greyed out for some reason, I advise to download the mimetype extension. This extension allows you to edit the way all filetypes are handled.

Direct search
One of my favorite things about Firefox is the search bar. There are a lot of useful torrent search plugins available for Firefox. This makes searching torrents a lot easier. You don’t have to browse every site, just put your keyword in the search box and go. If the results on a particular site are not satisfying, just select another one and hit go…

I have bundled Firefox search plugins for the most popular sites in a simple installer. So if you want to add some nice torrent search plugins, take a look over here. You can select just the plugins for your favorite sites, or just install them all.

Customize websites
The great advantage that Firefox has compared to for example IE is that it is far more customizable. I already talked about some of my favorite extensions, and Greasemonkey is another one. Greasemonkey allows you to install all kinds of useful user scripts so you can customize the web to your own needs (in a sense).

Some of my favorite, torrent related scripts are:
Imdb torrent linker
Last.fm torrent linker
Remove crap from Torrentspy
Hide seedless torrents on Piratebay

It is not even that hard to edit those scripts to your own needs, or create scripts of your own. This excellent site has a nice overview of things you can do with Greasemonkey, and more important, how to.

Integrating
Unlike Opera, Firefox does not have a built in torrent client. But there is an extension that adds a torrent client into Firefox (still very Beta). Personally I prefer a standalone client, but I will keep an eye on their latest improvements.

Now get Firefox!

Previously: uTorrent, a great torrent client

Next: Less popular artists profit from filesharing

49 Responses

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26 Jan 09, 2006 at 01:23 by Mac

Dear all,

I find that my downloads through the FireFox Browser are exceptionally fast. I am looking for a Plug-In that will allow the same speed for downloading P2P or Torremt files. My Limewire downloads are always so slow… But the FireFox download manager seems to pull information down so much more quickly. Any ideas? Is there a good Plugin or stand alone program that offers the same spped?

27 Jan 15, 2006 at 07:21 by jerry

what is this bullshit? WHAT is this bullshit? what IS this bullshit?
actually I have nothing against you, I just like the way “what is this bullshit” sounds like, in fact that’s how I found this page, googling the phrase

28 Jan 26, 2006 at 20:04 by MS Fan

IE ist best browser!!!!
what the shit is tabbt browsing ?
If I go to a site I first write http://www.

29 Jan 26, 2006 at 23:37 by SAN

IE can also open a file without saving it, just like you describe FF can!
But besides that good artkel.
I use FF myself!

30 Feb 07, 2006 at 06:57 by daniel harkrider

cool

31 Feb 07, 2006 at 20:32 by Sethalos

I dl’d Firefox 1.5, and to be honest, I decided to go with Opera 8 (9 when out). Everything I need is already included and I find it faster. I’ll keep trying FF though, anything but IE.

Seth

32 Feb 08, 2006 at 20:32 by ss

firefox rocks

33 Feb 15, 2006 at 19:30 by Jay555

i am usin firefox and adblock, but i didnt no about moztorrent, gonna be cool

34 Feb 28, 2006 at 00:16 by allan

ff is the best.it really rocks…………

35 Feb 28, 2006 at 00:19 by fotlos

great job ff….

36 Feb 28, 2006 at 07:55 by psylon

The Fox Rox

37 Mar 04, 2006 at 14:55 by .broken.

you forgot to mention the adblock filterset - saves you from having to manually block stuff. check out http://www.pierceive.com

38 Mar 19, 2006 at 12:33 by Martin Nilsson

The best way to get rid of ads is a well configured router. I just ad the word adserv and a couple of other words as well as some direct addresses. See, no more ads =) All my torrent sites are clean, with the occasional blank boxes here and there.

But I run FireFox as well. Best browser there is. Only problem is when I use IE at my school…I’m not used to all those ads =P

39 Mar 21, 2006 at 15:40 by harini

i’m a complete amateur when it comes to bittorrent.i just got bittornado installed.but i need to route the thing through mozilla firefox.could you help me out,please?

40 Mar 30, 2006 at 04:38 by Billie

Firefox is great! I love the adblock feature, just one question if anyone can help…..I am using bitcomet (which you can use as a browser) when I select the option to open urls outside of bitcomet (to make the most of my adblocking features, as it seems most torrent sites are filled with crappy ads!), it opens IE as the default…is there anyway I can change the default to firefox?

41 Apr 15, 2006 at 22:32 by mynameis

lol at morons saying IE is best, if your not happy with the fox use Opera. And at Billie, {in Firefox}click tools, click options, make sure general tab is displayed, in the “default browser area” click to tick the box than click “check now”

;)

42 Jul 30, 2006 at 09:51 by tony

[quote comment="9"]A veggie and damn proud… there is no god.. because IE exists.. Firefox pwns[/quote]
[quote comment="2033"]lol at morons saying IE is best, if your not happy with the fox use Opera. And at Billie, {in Firefox}click tools, click options, make sure general tab is displayed, in the “default browser area” click to tick the box than click “check now”

;)[/quote]
[quote comment="617"]firefox rocks[/quote]

43 May 29, 2007 at 23:20 by anomi

Silly Firefoxers, just use Opera! The integrated bitorrent is great, I don’t miss the advanced features of my standalone client. PLUS try the Torrent PowerSearch widget - most major torrent sites searched simultaneously! Oh yeah, you can block ad banners in Opera as well.

44 Jul 05, 2007 at 05:05 by ms SUCKS! oss PWNZ!

IE (and M$) sucks, use open source stuff like FF!!!!!!!! the only reason i still have windows installed is for certain software like games…. but at least linux has UT2004, q3, q4, americas army 2.5 (they should release a newer version 4 linux) and or course emulators

45 Jul 05, 2007 at 05:16 by ro551ck

m419k

46 Oct 25, 2007 at 17:00 by hula chic

you forgot about Torrent Finder Toolbar
http://torrent-finder.com/toolbar.php

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