Ridiculously Useless Bittorrent Software

sharky
March 29, 2008
46
bittorrent,
software
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Every now and again, a software release comes out for BitTorrent that is truly revolutionary and revered. And other times, the source code should just be reduced back down to those ones and zeroes as quickly as possible. Here is a rundown of some of the world’s most useless BitTorrent apps.

With these software releases, you’ll swear the RIAA & MPAA are behind them, in the hopes to aggravate BitTorrent users into raising a white flag of befuddlement. Who needs MediaSentry with software like this?

Worst Search Software: TorrentSeek .NET v1.0

They Say: “It will search within entire Internet for Torrent links and display them after vereifying [sic] the target link existence / URL clean-up…much faster than other extraction software.” â€” TorrentSeek Team.

We Say: You’ll find torrents with TorrentSeek, all right. Just not the ones you want. You’ve a better chance at finding what you seek by loading up the mininova page, closing your eyes and just clicking wildly. If there’s an award for ugliest BitTorrent software, this one wins in a landslide. These guys don’t know torrents from tortillas.

The Truth: With over 4,000 recent downloads from softpedia.com… well, that’s 4,000 less people to compete with for those private BitTorrent sites, we reckon. In a “search” for ‘There Will Be Blood’, results included Finger Eleven, King of the Hill and DJ Tiesto.

Runner-up: Movie Torrent v1.6.0 (adware-filled).

Worst Toolbar – Torrent Search Bar v4.5

Thank goodness for Torrent toolbars – without them, how would anyone find torrents? You’ll find more than torrents with this one – it should have been called the “Torrent/Weather/Google Search Bar”.

They Say: “Links to the best private torrents communities. We will always get you the best secret torrent sites.” â€” torrent-search-bar.com.

We Say: Ooh, secret torrent sites – sounds exciting! TSB includes some not-so-secretive Google ads, weather bars and other shameless advertising stuffed onto your browser.

The Truth: The torrent search page doesn’t work and showed zero search results. Isn’t that supposed to be the marquee feature of the Torrent Search Bar? Without that, all it really is, is a browser bookmark of outdated torrent sites and advertising. Brought to you by the same group that gave us eXeem (the pay-to-use BitTorrent service).

Runner-up: P2P Torrent Toolbar.

Worst BitTorrent Client – TorrenTopia

They Say: “Finally you will be able to search again. Powerful queue system: choose all you want to download and let it work by itself” â€” torrenTopia.com.

We Say: At last, someone’s come out with a BitTorrent client that does the work by itself!

The Truth: TorrenTopia had an innovative & creative idea – and came up with a BitTorrent client with an integrated .torrent search engine! The major flaw? – the search doesn’t work! We tried a search for ‘mp3′ on The PirateBay and it came back with no results. Worse still, the BitTorrent side of it contains all the features of a bowl of jello. Now if only the search worked, we might be able to overlook its other shortcomings.

Runners-up: Artemis v2.5.7 (Azureus rip-off with removed features), Hermes P2P BT (adware), and other malware supported BitTorrent clients such as Torrent101, BitRoll, TorrentQ and GetTorrent..

Honorable Mention – PKTorrents

We Say: PKTorrents incorporates a nasty Trojan within the release, free of charge. Not only must you worry about malware in the torrents; they put it right in the software.

They Say: “The ‘So Called – TROJAN’ reported in PKTv0.1(beta) Was NOT! I Repeat NOT put in there on purpose to attempt to hack or screw anyone over.” â€” PKT website rebuttal.

Well, that about does it for this list. Stayed tuned for more, and stay safe!

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Purplemess

Thank god there are also GOOD BT-clients and search-utilities. Maybe make an article about them as a tribute? ^_^
aNILEator

Well, never heard of any of these, apart from the search site and GetTorrent, but you’ve most likely given them all the biggest advertisement that they have ever had to the most amount of people, your subscribers.

Shame it’s a slow news week it seems
Anonymous

lol wow
Anonymous

Epic lulz.
Chrono

Funny stuff :) :D
Anonymous

Thanks for the article. Interesting read with some humour =)
ANON

U TORRENT AND PRIVATE SITES..

GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEADS YOU EPIC FUCKING N00BS. I CANT BELIEVE I SHARE THE INTERNET WITH PEOPLE SO STUPID.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
elbeejay

just in case you didn’t know, being a loud basher isn’t communicating useful info to us others – be we dumb or noobs or whatever. we are all on here to learn from each other, so that we may graduate from our lowly status to that of less dumb and non-noob,
nevermind1534

Actually, the artemis appears to just remove the vuze, although I am sure that it removes other stuff, too. Actually, I think it would be nice if azureus was released without the Vuze video stuff in it.
Marcel

Torrentopia was a promising client, but its developer died or something :P. He was the same guy who made another promising software: Filetopia.
ArtyTorrent

Agreeing with 8. The slagging off of “n00bs” has to stop. Everyone was a newbie once, and we should be helping and encouraging them to get torrenting. Insulting new users doesn’t help the file-sharing community at all.
Fugazi

Someone should keep these programs around so that we can show our grandchildren what we had to put up with.

My favorite is

> Worst Toolbar – Torrent Search Bar v4.5

I wonder how their version v1.0 looked like. It probably only gave you a $20 Bonus!
sega01

I think I will stick with Transmission for now :-). Gotta love this blog, keep up the awesome posts!
Filepromptdotcom

Piratebays search used to bring up what seemed like random results, but has much imoproved lately

http://www.fileprompt.com
$hadow

The best application that i found out and its the best of all is one that shows you (imagine that!!!) shows you the torrent name!!! including the .torrent extension! its amazing! i never thought something like this could be done, you can find it here: http://www.youGOTTAbekidding.if.you.will.click.com
JackSprat

PirateBay search still sucks. Yeah, it’s improved but there’s so many better ones around (like most metasearch Bit sites). I always avoid using TPB for searching and choose Isohunt or Mini first. Not to take anything away from them – they’re a great site for browsing.
Assman

c’mon, no hate for BitComet or BitLord?
Daydreamer1

Bottom line is you still have to decide which torrents are genuine and which aren’t if you intend to download. Just a matter of common sense and maybe a bit of experience too – oops sorry what was that officer oh yes do come in – would you like a cup of tea – hehehe
Jeff

How about Shareaza’s implementation of
BitTorrent? I’ve read so much about it
not working right that I only use it
for Gnutella G1/G2, preferring to use
Azureus for torrents.
Darth_yoda

For all those that are interested the PK Torrents appears to be malware. Check the Virus total Results here: http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/63973b2c17f24d87719f72205ed84f7f
Bobarkinator

Best ever.
Nicky

Add PeerGuardian and you got yourself a list.
Yatti

Added some sites to the WOT (firefox addon)…. I love Peerguardian 2…
steveballmer

That would be all of it!

http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
man

[quote comment="322483"]Well, never heard of any of these, apart from the search site and GetTorrent, but you’ve most likely given them all the biggest advertisement that they have ever had to the most amount of people, your subscribers.

Shame it’s a slow news week it seems[/quote]

1. what kind of logic is this? ‘any publicity is good publicity’ doesn’t really apply to articles that start with “ridiculously useless”.

2. why do people always want to point out its a ‘slow news week’ when they disagree with a blog post?
Digger

Someone’s been posting this huge list of trackers on digg comments. Turns out they’re pretty useful and the biggest list of this kind I’ve seen yet:
http://singularweb.blogspot.com/2008/03/list-of-public-and-private-bittorrent.html

Anyone know any other lists like this?
gluestickchaos

@9 i still have azureus v2.5 install file. i got it when they went to vuze and were still offering it as a dl. i hate vuze with a passion its annoying. i also refuse to update to v 3.0 for fear of vuze i dont want it no matter how many times they say it wont be downloaded with the install. i wish the shadow would have finished bit tornado. last time i talked to him several years ago on filetopia he said he was working on one window for all torrents but it seems to have bit the dust, althoug i still use it from time to time.

@10 ive used filetopia for like 7 years off and on and never new the designer died. i rememeber when torrenttopia was released though.
anyway interesting read.
gluestickchaos

and if anyone would like azureus v2.5 install file you can reach me at gluestickchaos@hotmail.com and i can send it to you through filetopia at the least if not in several emails. this is a email just for this purpose so please post azureus v2.5 in the subject.
man

[quote comment="322708"]Someone’s been posting this huge list of trackers on digg comments. Turns out they’re pretty useful and the biggest list of this kind I’ve seen yet:
http://singularweb.blogspot.com/2008/03/list-of-public-and-private-bittorrent.html

Anyone know any other lists like this?[/quote]

this list was created after oink went down. almost every torrent site has a thread with the exact list in it stickied at the top so people stop posting it over and over and over.
also, great to see it on digg. that makes it a lot easier for the bpi/ifpi/**aa to pick another random site to shut down.
kidTHATthinks

[quote comment="322796"]and if anyone would like azureus v2.5 install file y…..[/quote]

i know one site where you can share it with everyone. http://www.thepiratebay.org

“Im please to announce that work on PKTorrentsV0.3(alpha) has begun.” cant wait :D
Ken Earwig

Slow news is good news. Besides I’m so glad the trojan wasn’t deliberate. That makes everything ok. Not that I’ve heard of any of those. If you really want to screw up your browsers, install ICQ. Toolbars and hijacking to the max. If you refuse it, the whole installation cancels, except for all the malware.
Ken Earwig

I like the Isohunt toolbar which actually works, plus it’s loaded with other features, and apparently doesn’t contain any adware or spyware, though you may have a different view. The worst thing is that I find it impossible to remove any added features, without disabling the whole toolbar. Plus a spyware ap tells me that part of it may be adware, though it says “low risk”.
Ken Earwig

Forgot to mention. Though it may not contain any malware, maybe the options allow you to add some to it.
Zeph

Anyone has experiences w/ tribler? To me appealed, that it is opensource, on the other hand, the whole concept that anyone can see what you have downloaded and what you are sharing seems to me bit dangerous and contraproductive. Opinions?
santoscrew

i only want to know who tested all those things.
slim

hahaha lol
ComeonComCast

*does chicken dance*
Viva La PiratByran Utorrenten
Fire3

They Say: “The ‘So Called – TROJAN’ reported in PKTv0.1(beta) Was NOT! I Repeat NOT put in there on purpose to attempt to hack or screw anyone over.”

They also say:
“AV scanners have been reported to pick up a php remote backdoor trojan, this is happening because of some source code i took from a different script, the script was in fact a backdoor trojan but was edited to be used as a base for the admin in PKTorrents.”

For some reason, backdoor code edited to be a useful part of some prog doesn’t convince me… :P
Anonymous

My first thought: Please, oh another article about Shareaza.
serrebi

um… torrenttopia is a few years old. It worked great in 2005 the last time it was updated. Seriusly, do some research.
Anonymous

what happened to worst tracker? what.cd
yes

[quote comment="323441"]what happened to worst tracker? what.cd[/quote]

i agree. i was banned for saying that the site being less than half functional at any given time was embarasssing and was ruining the reputation of the site (since all the bug report threads are answered with with “wait a few months for gazelle!”). i got a friend to send me the rules and that definitely wasn’t mentioned as even a warnable offense…
its amateur hour every hour of the day over at what.cd.
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boot2ben

f-ing piss wipes…Î¼Torrent rules
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