TorrentFreak

After LimeWire was shut down last year FrostWire took over as the leading file-sharing application on the Gnutella network. But this didn’t last long. Today FrostWire announces that it will leave Gnutella entirely and focus on BitTorrent instead. This decision may very well signal the end of the once-mighty Gnutella network, while existing BitTorrent networks will only grow stronger.

MediaGet, an all-in-one BitTorrent client developed in Russia, has become increasingly popular recently. Despite being just one year young the BitTorrent client has already been downloaded more than 18 million times. At the moment the majority of its users come from Ukraine and Russia, but the MediaGet developers have translated the client and are ready to conquer the West.

The uTorrent development team officially released version 3.0 of their popular application today. The milestone release adds many new features including torrent ratings, comments, streaming, and drag-and-drop sharing. One of the main goals is to appeal more to novice BitTorrent users, who often drop out after using uTorrent only once or twice.

In a time where BitTorrent users are increasingly concerned about their privacy, BitComet has added a long-awaited feature to its BitTorrent client. Originally intended to speed up downloads of users with limited upload capacity, BitComet’s VIP service now adds support for fully anonymous downloads to prevent outsiders from monitoring users’ transfers.

Developed at the University of Washington, OneSwarm is a BitTorrent client that allows users to share files “anonymously” or with a specific group of friends. These features give users more control over their privacy, while maintaining a decent download speed. The client operates from within an Internet browser and is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

BitTorrent Inc. has released a major update of their mainline client. After introducing Apps about a year ago, the latest beta version of the popular client now adds ‘personal content channels.’ These channels function as small social networks that allow users to easily share content with a group of friends. An interesting concept, but also one that may eventually come at a cost.

A brand new BitTorrent-related project entered Mozilla’s MoJo contest this week. Named SPARKD, the P2P-powered video streaming platform promises the public a novel anti-censorship tool. It’s intended to give citizen journalists the ability to avoid censorship and stream video to millions of people anonymously, but the underlying library of tools might have other interesting use-cases for the P2P community too.