TorrentFreak

Considering the scale of the problem it comes as no surprise that dozens of organizations across the web have come out against the U.S. Government’s PRISM spying program this week. One of the latest additions is the team behind the Vuze torrent client. Condemning “stunning abuses and violations of our basic Constitutional rights” the team say that they fully support encryption tools such as VPNs for legitimate uses. In parallel, a major VPN provider is reporting a nice boost in business.

Many privacy concerned BitTorrent users are using VPN services to hide their IP-addresses from the rest of the Internet. This works well, until the VPN disconnects. Luckily there are some tips and tricks that can prevent one’s IP-address from being broadcasted over the Internet when this happens. Vuze is the only client that has this functionality built in, but for others there are alternatives available.

The main way for people to begin downloading content from BitTorrent is to visit one of the Internet’s many hundreds of torrent sites. There they can download either .torrent files or, in the case of The Pirate Bay, magnet links. This week it became possible to go on a YouTube-like “related video” journey through BitTorrent’s Distributed Hash Table to find similar content to that being already downloaded, all without visiting a torrent site.

While BitTorrent Inc.’s hugely successful uTorrent client grabs most of the headlines, there is another mainstream client that every BitTorrent user should be aware of. Vuze, previously known as Azureus, is a ridiculously powerful torrent client with more features than you ever knew you needed. Today we hand over to the guys at Vuze for a handful of power tips to transform straightforward downloads and improve productivity.

The Vuze team has announced that their software now integrates with thousands of external devices. The popular BitTorrent client has added support for DLNA devices, which means compatibility with products from 245 of the top global electronics brands including many of the latest TVs. Vuze made the news public just hours after its main competitor uTorrent set the first steps to device integration.

Fresh data on the market share of BitTorrent clients shows that uTorrent remains the client of choice for most BitTorrent users in the West. A sample of more than half a million unique peers further shows that Transmission is gaining ground, while the once so popular BitComet client slowly fades away.

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.