In April of this year BitComet was the first of all major BitTorrent clients to offer a stable 64-bit version. The 64-bit version allows for larger disk caches, something that may benefit heavy-duty downloaders.

A few months before that, BitComet introduced another noteworthy feature called VIP-downloading, which enables users to download torrents that are accelerated by BitComet’s servers. The service is basically a private connection to a high-speed seedbox which accelerates the downloading process of healthy swarms.

Today, this VIP service is expanded with the option to download all torrents anonymously. Instead of only accelerating regular BitTorrent transfers through Bitcomet’s servers, the “anonymous” downloads will be handled by BitComet’s VIP servers exclusively, hiding the IP-address of the user.

“If VIP members enable anonymous downloads our remote servers will initiate all peer and tracker communications and download the data on behalf of the VIP member, so the member’s actual IP address isn’t shared with any of the peers or trackers,” BitComet’s spokesperson told TorrentFreak

“Our VIP servers are state of the art commercial servers on some of the worlds fastest connections. There are no imposed speed limits, the only account restrictions are on a flat-rate basis,” TorrentFreak was told.

The catch, and yes there’s always one with anonymous downloading, is that the service comes at a cost. Aside from the free trial, BitComet offers plans with 10GB and 100GB limits for $4.99 and $19.99 respectively. Depending on one’s download behavior this could be a good deal, but heavy downloaders who are only interested in anonymity (and not acceleration) may be better off with an unlimited BitTorrent proxy or a VPN account.

Starting today, anonymous downloads are supported by the latest Beta versions of BitComet. Thus far there’s plenty of interest for the VIP service. In fact, huge demand for the VIP free-trial accounts initially crippled BitComet’s servers which forced the developers to temporarily limit the offer to long-time BitComet users. We assume that the demand will only increase with the added anonymity feature.

If no significant issues arise in the coming weeks, anonymous downloads will be added to the upcoming 1.28 release of BitComet.

Source: BitComet Adds Support for “Anonymous” Downloads

Today’s report is based on data from over 17,221 unique users in a few dozen public BitTorrent swarms, collected by the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology.

The results in the table below show the market share for each individual client. In common with our previous reports, only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 14 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up in the unknown ‘category’.

The changes in market share compared to our September report are also included, and these show some interesting trends. First of all, uTorrent extended its user base and now has a massive 60 percent market share. Vuze, BitComet and BitTorrent’s Mainline client all lost market share.

Transmission, on the other hand, keeps on growing. Its market share increased 23 percent and might take over BitComet’s fourth place soon. More on this in our December report.

Source: uTorrent Userbase Grows, Vuze takes a Dive

Today we present our second report based on data from over 165,000 unique users in more than 400 public BitTorrent swarms. The data for this BitTorrent client comparison is collected by a researcher known as ‘xXx’ of the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology.

The results in the table below show the market share for each individual client. In common with the June report, only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 20 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up the the unknown ‘category’.

The changes in market share compared to our June report are also included, and these show some interesting trends. First of all, uTorrent kept its dominant lead and even extended its market share to 56.81 percent. BitComet – ranked fourth again – is this month’s loser with a drop of 38 percent, falling from 6.50 to 4.71 percent market share.

On the winning side we see gains for Transmission and Vuze. Transmission’s market share increased to 44 percent and may move up a few spots if it maintains this growth rate. More on this in our October report.

Source: uTorrent Still on Top, BitComet’s Market Share Plummets

Today we present a more robust report based on data from over 150,000 unique users in more than 400 public BitTorrent swarms. The data for this BitTorrent client comparison is collected by a researcher known as ‘xXx’ of the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology. The research team will continue to supply TorrentFreak with bi-monthly updates so we can discover new trends and shifts in the usage of the different clients.

The results in the table below give the market share for each individual client. Only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 19 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up the the unknown ‘category’.

Both uTorrent and the third placed mainline client are developed by BitTorrent Inc, meaning that the company holds an impressive two thirds of the market. The only main contender at the moment is Vuze, formerly known as Azureus, with nearly 17 percent. BitComet, which used to be a major contender, is in fourth place with just 6.5 percent.

The data also gives us more insight into the size of the BitTorrent ‘network’. In December we reported that uTorrent had 28 million unique users a month, and based on this figure that might have grown even higher in the recent months. It is safe to say that there are roughly 50 million active BitTorrent users on the Internet.

It will be interesting to see how the market share of the clients changes over the coming months. Will uTorrent be able to keep its dominant lead? What will happen to Transmission’s market share when they release their Windows version? Will there be any new clients to compete with the top three? Lots of questions that we hope to answer in the future.

Stay tuned!

Source: uTorrent Dominates BitTorrent Client Market Share

We’ve restricted the results to a few of the most used clients plus ‘seedbox’ for the hardcore torrenters. If you’re not using one of these, please let us know what your preferred BitTorrent client is in the comments.

Source: What is the Best BitTorrent Client?

The graph clearly shows that Azureus was the most searched for client until the beginning of 2007, followed by BitComet. From then on, uTorrent took over and it continued to grow while BitComet and Azureus searches slowly decreased. Search statistics are of course only an indirect measure of the popularity of a BitTorrent client, but the graphs seem to follow the same pattern as actual usage statistics which we have reported before.

Worldwide

Another measure that is worth looking into is the geographical distribution of the searches. It is interesting to see how popular BitComet is in Asia. Currently, it is (based on searches) the preferred client in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong. However, uTorrent is most often searched for in most countries, especially in Moldova. Azureus, on the other hand, is a popular search term in Greece.

US

If we take a closer look at the US (you can do this for any country), we see that pretty much every BitTorrent client is popular in California. The graph shows that most uTorrent searches (relatively) come from Kentucky and California, Milpitas in particular. Azureus seems to be quite popular in Ohio, specifically in Salt Lake City. BitComet is the least searched for client of the three, but gets most search traffic from New York and California again, Monterey Park on this occasion.

Overall I would say that based on other statistics, the search data is a pretty close match to the actual BitTorrent client preferences. Google’s insights on the regional differences certainly have something to add to what we already know, but keep in mind that they are only search statistics. Most of all, it’s a fun tool to play around with on a Sunday afternoon when there’s not much news to go around.

Source: Google’s Insights on BitTorrent Clients

BitComet used to be the most used BitTorrent client, but its popularity has decreased over the years, and it is now in fourth place after uTorrent, BitTorrent mainline and Azureus. The decline in popularity is, among other things, due to the negative press BitComet has received over the years.

It all started in 2005 when BitComet was banned from several private BitTorrent trackers for ignoring the “private flag”. Even though this issue was resolved relatively quickly, the image of BitComet was permanently damaged.

In the years to come, more and more horror stories popped up, from spreading junk data, to disobeying BitTorrent rules. Last year, BitTornado developer Shad0w even went as far as banning all BitComet users, because the client allegedly exploited super-seeds.

Last year however, Robb Topolski, a networking and protocol expert with more than 25 years of experience researched most of the claims against BitComet. He concluded that the client was not best suited for initial seeding tasks but at the same time refuted all other claims.

“BitComet is a worthy download client, providing some advantageous features not found in any other current BitTorrent client. Some of these features are confusing and are poorly implemented, but they are not detrimental to a BitTorrent swarm, nor do they take unfair advantage,” Topolski wrote.

“None of the typical accusations against BitComet, those that are provided as reasons for trackers or users to “Ban BitComet,” have held true. It is my professional opinion that the bans of BitComet are based on misunderstandings and falsehoods, and not on good data,” he added.

People should of course decide for themselves what they think of BitComet, but one thing is hard to deny. The client has turned into one of the most feature rich clients, currently available in 43 languages, which still has a great appeal to beginning and intermediate BitTorrent users.

Source: BitComet Reaches Milestone with v1.00

BitComet Lite

Most people know BitComet as a standalone BitTorrent client, but the BitComet team also offers other tools. BitComet Lite is one of them, it’s basically a small BitTorrent client with a .torrent file included. With the BitComet Lite maker you can select a torrent file to include with the application and customize it with your own graphics. The application then compiles an .exe file that you can send to your BitTorrent illiterate friends. When they open the file you shared with them they can select the download location and the file will start downloading.

It is possible to resume downloads with BitComet Lite, which is ideal for larger files that can’t be downloaded at once. The user doesn’t have to configure anything and the download speeds are pretty decent. The only limitation is that the application is for windows users only.

BitLet

BitLet is a very neat web-based Java applet that allows you to download .torrent files without having BitTorrent client installed. The web based BitTorrent client is ideal to share a torrent with less tech-savvy friends. It works pretty simple, just append the link to the torrent to this url http://www.bitlet.org/?torrent= and send it to your friends, here’s an example. If people click on the link a popup window will appear, and the download starts immediately.

It is possible to resume downloads, just click on the link again and safe the file in the same location. BitLet also has a very useful code generator so you can offer BitTorrent downloads on your blog or website so that people can easily download, even when they don’t have a BitTorrent client installed.

Personally I prefer BitLet over BitComet Lite because it is costs less time and it is platform independent. The advantage of BitComet Lite to some might be that you can brand the application with your own images, which may look more professional.

Do you know of any other ways to share torrents with BitTorrent novices? Let us know and leave a comment!

Source: How To Share Torrents With BitTorrent Illiterates

For every file in a multi-file torrent, BitComet includes a padding file by default. This overcomes the problem of ending one file and beginning another on the same BitTorrent “piece.” The feature was added to support finding sources from http/ftp/ed2k services on multi-file torrents.

For example, if BitComet users are downloading a set of .mp3 files, it tries to get some of those files from a non-BitTorrent source if possible. This is good both for the (BitComet) user and the swarm. However, the implementation of these padding files create problems for non-Bitcomet clients and the web sites that carry information from the *.torrent files.

Why is this a problem?

Unfortunately, BitComet’s development team sprung these padding files on to the rest of the community. If they had been more communicative, such as pre-publishing a specification, client makers and administrators of Torrent sites could then program their systems to mask them.

It impacts people who use uTorrent, Azureus or any other client than BitComet. The padding feature is enabled by default, so if a BitComet user created a .torrent, non BitComet users have to download these useless padding files. A padding file is created for every file in the .torrent, so if you download a collection of 100 MP3s you’ll be forced to download 100 (useless) padding files (see example). The average added overhead for an MP3 album will be around 3%, not too bad, but annoying because its junk data to most people. However, it is possible in rare circumstances that the amount of junk data caused by these files might exceed 10%.

The padding file feature might come to bite BitComet users. It has been reported that a malicious user could create a torrent with a fake padding file. This means that Bitcomet 0.85+ users will never be able to complete their downloads without switching to another client.

Some BitTorrent users are starting to get annoyed by these (for most people) useless padding files. “Fuzzier,” who has been leading the charge on several forums (including Wikipedia), sums it up:

“I and lots of my friends don’t use BitComet, and many others stick with older versions of BitComet. We see more and more useless padding files in torrents, and it gets really inconvenient — delete them then we cannot pass hash check and cannot seed; and no matter what, we get a bunch of wastes especially our precious upload bandwidth.”

Unless this practice becomes more widely adopted in the BitTorrent community, BitComet might consider disabling this feature by default, and suppling client makers and administrators of BitTorrent sites with the specs so they can decide how to deal with them.

Source: BitComet Pollutes BitTorrent with Junk Data

Bitlord is now developing alongside Iphant which is also a BitTorrent / eDonkey client. The addition of eDonkey support makes it possible to use both networks to download a file which might speed up BitTorrent swarms that have only a few seeders. If the .torrent includes ed2k hash it is downloaded via BitTorrent and eDonkey, if not, it can be joined with the wizard you can find in the file context menu.

The fact that Bitlord is no longer based on BitComet 0.56 which by itself is a great improvement. The client is spyware free but it does contain adware. Currently is has a banner on the bottom of the application, and some advertisement for the Bitlord pro version, which is basically the UseNeXT client that is advertised on many BitTorrent sites.

Throughout its existence Bitlord has always been a controversial client. Like BitComet, Bitlord is banned from quite a few private trackers because it allegedly disobeys the BitTorrent etiquette, and bullies other clients. However, Bitlord is now moving in the right direction and according to the Bitlord developer it should absolutely be accepted by private trackers. We’ll see what the future brings.

Source: Bitlord V2 Released, Now Supports eDonkey

The report is based on data supplied by BigChampagne and PC Pitstop. BigChampagne is a company that tracks online media, it also provides provides Billboard online music charts. PC Pitstop gathers data by “inspecting” the computers of users that try their free online virus / spyware scanners. The data used in this report are collected from Windows registry and table entries of 1.5 million PC’s through these online diagnostic tests performed by PC Pitstop.

The results. The percentages in the table indicate the install base of the P2P applications:

In the report we further read that the once almighty “Kazaa family” is now only installed on 1.3% PCs. Newcomers like FrostWire and Pando are included in the report for the fist time with a 0.2% and 0.3% install rate respectively.

As said before, the usability of these figures are doubtful. Here are a few concerns. First of all, install rates do not equal usage. The fact that someone installed a P2P client does not mean that they actually use it. So the report can’t say much about the popularity of a filesharing network or application. They do not make these claims, but the way the data is presented is a bit misleading, to say the least.

For example, uTorrent is by far the most used BitTorrent client. Over 50% of the peers in an average BitTorrent swarm use uTorrent. It could be that uTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline are installed on almost an equal number of PCs, but that the BitTorrent mainline client is hardly ever used. For instance, novices may start with the mainline client, but move on to better BitTorrent clients later on.

Another remarkable point is the uTorrent data collection for this report. uTorrent doesn’t install itself, and even the installer doesn’t use the Windows registry. So how did they come up with these statistics on uTorrent then?

It is also funny to see mIRC in the top 10 of most installed filesharing application because it is so much more than this. Most people I know use mIRC for other purposes than sharing files.

The concerns raised here show that “power” is not always in numbers. They might have collected data from millions of users, but is this really valuable if you have no idea if they actually use the application? A survey among 10.000 users where you actually ask if, and how often they use these applications is probably more useful.

And on a final note, people who want to read the report, but don’t want to pay $195 might want to try Google’s backdoor. Doubtful statistics, doubtful security.

Source: LimeWire Most Installed P2P Application, BitTorrent Clients Runner up

The maximum upload speed is by far the most important setting. It might sound strange to some, but you should always cap your upload speed to reach the best download speeds. Your connection is (sort of) like a pipeline (or tube if you prefer), if you max out your upload speed the pipe will be fully used, which means there’s not enough space left for the files you are downloading. The calculator recommends to set it at 80% of your maximum, I agree with that. People with high-speed connections might go a bit higher, and set is at 85% or even 90%.

Some people find that when they are seeding, browsing the web becomes sluggish. This is due to a badly configured upload speed in their BitTorrent client. When you have the correct upload speed entered into your client, browsing the web is noticeably quicker and seeding becomes almost transparent.

How to configure your maximum upload speed?

uTorrent: options > preferences > connection
Azureus: tools > options > transfer
Bitcomet: try this ?

Here at TorrentFreak we also wrote some post about optimizing BitTorrent download speeds, might be worth the read if you want to know more.

Read more on optimizing your BitTorrent Speed.

Source: Calculate Your Optimal BitTorrent Settings

Recently, BitComet started to exploit the super-seeding procedure, an invention by Shad0w that is also implemented in other popular clients like uTorrent. A super-seed detects peers that efficiently distribute data to other peers, and rewards them by sending them more data. This technique speeds up the overall speed of the swarm, and all other users benefit from it. However, not if it was up to the BitComet developers.

Shad0w explains, “When BitComet games super-seed, it induces the seed into thinking that the BitComet peer is very efficient at spreading data. As a result, the peer downloads faster than the rest of the peers, and typically doesn’t share that data as efficiently, costing the rest of the peers a lot of download time.”

The continuous efforts of the BitComet developers to cheat the system made Shad0w decide to ban all BitComet users. “Since BitComet has proven itself to be a harmful codebase, and since they have forced me to take steps I’d rather not have, I will also be banning connections from that client to my own client and tracker codebases. Should the BitComet developers decide to remove the exploitation code from their client, I will reconsider this decision.”

People may question whether it is a good decision to ban all BitComet users, but I think it is a wise one. In general, BitComet users are not the sharing type, so my prediction would be that it is more likely to speed up downloads, than to slow them down.

I’m with Shad0w on this, and I seriously hope that BitComet stops cheating, and will become more BitTorrent friendly in the future. I’ve used Shadow’s BitTorrent client for quite a while myself, and Shad0w is one of the most dedicated BitTorrent client developers around.

Source: BitTornado Bans All BitComet Users

1. How to Make a Torrent
Torrents are great, they are the best way to share large files with your friends, or even with people you don’t know at all. But surprisingly enough, not many people create torrents when they need to share something.

2. How to find Torrents
10 Great Torrent Sites + Firefox Search Plugins.

3. How To Encrypt BitTorrent Traffic
More and more ISP’s are limiting and throttling BitTorrent traffic on their networks. By throttling BitTorrent traffic the speed of BitTorrent downloads decreases, and high speed downloads are out of the question.

4. How to Optimize Your BitTorrent Download Speed
BitTorrent can be fun, as long as you get decent speeds. Not satisfied with your current speeds? These suggestions might help yo optimize your download pleasure.

5. How to Speed Up Bitcomet and uTorrent
90% off all people use the default settings on their client, and that’s a problem.

6. How to Protect Your Torrent From Failing Trackers
Nothing is more frustrating than your download getting stuck. The fact that a torrent has stopped downloading can have several reasons.

7. How to Use RSS & BitTorrent to Download TV shows
Are you tired of scanning several BitTorrent sites for the latest episodes of your favorite TV show? You should definitely try using RSS feeds then. RSS and BitTorrent are a perfect match.

8. How to Make a Custom TV Torrent Feed
How to create a personalized TV torrent feed, and have all your favorite TV torrents in one feed.

9. How to Use Gmail to Search Torrents
Gmail is more than a useful email service. In just a few steps you can turn it into your personal torrent search engine. And by using labels and filters you can keep your inbox clean.

10. How to Run uTorrent on a USB Stick
A portable version of uTorrent may come in handy when you’re with friends, at school, or at work. It will fit perfectly on every usb-stick, iPod, mobile phone, or any other device that is recognized a “removable disk”.

11. How to Run uTorrent in Mac OS X
uTorrent is currently only available for Windows. But that doesn’t going to stop us from running it in OS X.

12. How to Use Firefox to Remotely Control uTorrent
The uTorrent WebUI can be used to access uTorrent from an external computer. This Firefox extension will make it even easier.

Have fun!

Source: BitTorrent Tutorial Roundup

A comment posted on Mostly Muppet yesterday (the 27th) has brought up the issue once again:

Dreamhost shut down my BitTorrent set-up before I even got a chance to use it. I have 3 personal videos that I made and was planning to distribute. I installed broadcast machine and was in the middle of uploading the torrents when dreamhost shut me down.

Frank, the commenter tried to run the EFF‘s Broadcast Machine, a tool many podcasters use to distribute their content over BitTorrent, on his server. A huge benefit of offering media files for download over BitTorrent is that it takes the load off your server and decreases the chance of your site becomming inaccessible due to excessive bandwidth consumption. It can become quite a costly affair if you surpass the bandwidth limit set by your host.

He contacted Dreamhost’s support with his problem. Here’s an excerpt of their reply:

BitTorrent is strictly forbidden, both as a client and as a server right now. Although we are looking into it, it’s forbidden. I believe the misunderstanding, was that what you just pasted hinted at a policy of “If we don’t notice, go what you want.” Although some people can get away with that, it is still something that is not allowed.

It seems like there’s a lot of confusion over at Dreamhost HQ on whether running a BitTorrent tracker is or isn’t allowed. After the whole escapade last year, Dreamhost said it would update its Terms Of Service to accomodate the technology, sadly the agreement still says that the use of “BitTorrent software [is] not encouraged.”

Source: Dreamhost Back to Blocking BitTorrent?

Thepcspy compared the three most popular BitTorrent clients. And it seems that uTorrent is indeed entitled to be called “the lightweight client”.

The mean boot time of Azureus, Bitcomet and uTorrent were compared on a Windows XP Pro clean install.

However, to put things into perspective, Norton Internet Security 2006 caused a 57.78% slowdown.

Source: How BitTorrent Clients Slow Down Windows

V1.0 is expected soon.

Source: Bitcomet Rushing To V1.0

Other changes:
- GUI Bugfix: chat user list is removed temporarily
- Core Bugfix: fix the bug that the play button doesn’t work after click stop button in task preview window
- Core Bugfix: fix the bug that unable to seek continous when preview avi/rm file

Download Bitcomet

Source: BitComet 0.64 Released

Encrypting protocol headers is needed to fight ISP’s that are using bit-shaping applications to throttle the traffic that is generated by BitTorrent.

It should only ne a matter of time before other clients are going to implement this “new standard”. It is doubtful if the official clients is going to support it since Bram Cohen was not really enthusiast about these developments.

Links: Azureus, Bitcomet, uTorrent

Source: Bitcomet follows Azureus and uTorrent

Check it out.

More speed tips:
Speed up Bitcomet and uTorrent
Speed up your torrents
Speed up your torrents II

Source: Torrent Client Settings Optimizer

changes:

GUI Improved: add the ability to fetch remote channel xml file and display its items in favourite bar
GUI Improved: adjust the toolbar position of embedded browser
GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that sometimes the embedded browser can’t handle BCTP link properly
GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that sometimes the task name displayed as the http link of torrent file
GUI Bugfix: fix the bug that sometimes the task status displayed as failed after DHT torrent download finished successfully
Core Improved: user favourite data file changed from .\fav\my_fav.xml to .\Favourite.xml
Core Bugfix: fix possible crash when exit program while hashing
Core Bugfix: fix possible crash when detects WMP version at BitComet startup
Core Bugfix: fix possible memory access violation when remove task after DHT torrent file download finished

Source: Bitcomet 0.62 Released

So ScT Torrent, Midnight Torrents, UkNova and TorrentIt.com can embrace Bitcomet users once again.

Source: Bitcomet 0.61 Released

Currently ScT Torrent, Midnight Torrents, UkNova and TorrentIt.com will not accept Bitcomet users.

Source: Private Trackers Ban Bitcomet