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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The 64-bit version allows for larger disk caches, something that may benefit the heavy-duty downloaders among us.

“Our beta testing has shown the 64-bit version to be at least as stable as the 32-bit, and more so for extreme users,” the BitComet team told TorrentFreak.

“Our analysis of crash reports has shown that there are many users who have used BitComet for extreme downloading where disk cache sizes were maxing out the abilities of any 32-bit app. So now BitComet x64 has ability to support disk cache up to 16GB, compared to 2GB for 32-bit apps,”

“The average user probably doesn’t really need it yet, but for those on very fast connections who want to run a large number of tasks that operate primarily within the disk cache, this new ability is perfectly suited,” the BitComet rep added.

BitComet 1.27 and a full changelog of all the new features and fixes can be found on the official website.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

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: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.