To gain more insight into BitTorrent’s usage we’ve previously looked at the market share of various BitTorrent clients to spot emerging trends, and today we revive this initiative. To see where things stand two years after our last report, TorrentFreak asked the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology to find out which clients are being used in various popular BitTorrent swarms.

Although the new results show some interesting shifts in market shares, uTorrent remains firmly in the lead. Nearly half of the 557,536 unique peers (48%) that were spotted in the sample were using a version of uTorrent. The mainline client, also developed by BitTorrent Inc., came in at third with a market share of 13 percent.

Vuze, formerly known as Azureus, secured second place with 22 percent of the total users. This is an all-time high for the client which had just 14 percent market share in our last report. One of the factors that contributed to this rise is FrostWire’s move to become a BitTorrent-only client based on the Azureus code base. This means that a few percent of the downloaders that identify as using Azureus, are in fact FrostWire users.

Another client that gained popularity is Transmission, which doubled its market share in recent months and is now at 7 percent. A respectable figure, especially because Transmission doesn’t have a native Windows client. BitComet, on the other hand, continued its downward spiral and is now stuck at little over one percent, down from the 6 percent it enjoyed two years ago.

We have to note that the comparisons above are relative. The number of BitTorrent users has grown significantly over the past two years, so in absolute numbers Transmission’s user base may have even quadrupled, or more.

Below is the full list of all clients that have a market share over 1 percent. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up in the unknown ‘category’. As before, the research focuses on popular swarms listed on English language BitTorrent sites, which means that ‘foreign’ clients such as Xunlei are underrepresented.

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Transmission became the default BitTorrent client on various Linux distributions including Ubuntu, and it is also one of the most-used Mac BitTorrent clients.

This week Transmission’s development reached an important milestone as the stable version of Transmission 2.0 was released. Transmission, often praised by its users for being full-featured but lightweight, has geared up for the increasing demands of BitTorrent users today.

TorrentFreak spoke with Transmission developer Charles Kerr who walked us through some of the most notable improvements in the latest Transmission release.

“Transmission 2.0′s code is faster and smarter,” Charles Kerr said. “We’ve profiled the code for CPU bottlenecks and removed them. Startup, peer management, blocklists, and verifying local data are all faster. Transmission 2.0 is also smarter about detecting and handling network lag.”

“For 24/7 remote seedboxes, headless systems, and embedded systems, we’ve made Transmission-daemon easier to build, added hooks for scripting, and shrunk the memory footprint. Transmission-daemon has one of the smallest footprints — if not the smallest — of any BitTorrent client.”

Transmission takes pride in being volunteer-based and non-commercial, unlike bigger clients such as uTorrent, Vuze, and BitComet. Charles told TorrentFreak that this also comes with a downside, because future development relies on its community of volunteers.

“It means development happens only when volunteers are available,” he said. “For example, if any of your readers are Windows or ExtJS programmers who want to work on the Windows or Web clients, the Transmission team would like to hear from them.”

Indeed, you’re reading it right, a native Windows application is a serious option if there are skilled volunteers available. For now, however, Transmission’s expansion possibilities are limited to the other platforms while it has to settle for the title of the most-used BitTorrent client without a Windows version.

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However, the addition of Transmission to openSUSE was not straightforward. Since Transmission comes with DHT support – a technology that helps BitTorrent users to find peers – Novell thought that the application could possibly make openSUSE liable for copyright infringement under German law.

In order to avoid legal problems, Novell and openSUSE therefore decided to ship the operating system with a DHT-less version of Transmission while they tried to work out a solution with their lawyer.

“This month’s new release of their openSUSE Linux distro now ships with Transmission as the default BitTorrent client, but with DHT support removed at compile-time due to perceived German legal risks,” Transmission developer Charles Kerr told TorrentFreak.

After discussion with Novell’s German lawyer, it was agreed to include Transmission with DHT in future releases, but with an added popup informing users that they should only use the BitTorrent client for legal transfers. This means that the next openSUSE release will include a fully-functional BitTorrent client.

Charles Kerr told TorrentFreak that he is happy with the outcome, especially since Transmission will also add support for Magnet links in their upcoming 1.8 release.

“Magnet links are much more useful when DHT is available, so I’m glad it will be included in the next openSUSE release,” he said, adding that openSUSE have been very helpful and communicative, which is why there’s a better resolution in the works for the next openSUSE release.

Still, one can’t help but wonder if Novell had legitimate concerns, or was maybe a little paranoid in handling the DHT issue. That said, if BitTorrent indeed comes to rely more on trackerless torrents and DHT in the future, could BitTorrent clients potentially become a target for the entertainment industry?

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.

The open source client runs on various operating systems with the notable exception of Windows, and according to the developers was designed to offer functionality without bloat. It is now the default BitTorrent client on Ubuntu.

Windows users who favor uTorrent as their BitTorrent client have had the ability to control their torrents from a webUI (web user interface) for some time now. The webUI for Transmission is known as ‘Clutch‘. This additional software makes it easy to monitor and control torrent transfers remotely, from any web browser connected to the Internet, anywhere in the world.

Previously, Transmission and Clutch had to be obtained separately but with the arrival of new Transmission releases (v1.30 and v1.31), that has changed.

‘Gimp’, a Clutch developer explains: “We are pleased to announce the Clutch project has now merged with Transmission. There will be no more releases of Clutch on its own, from 1.30 onwards it is bundled inside Transmission. You can still download Clutch 0.4 from the clutchbt.com website if you need clutch for an older version of Transmission, however that release is no longer supported.”

The latest version of transmission now runs the JSON-RPC protocol. This protocol makes it possible for other applications, even windows based clients, to interact with the transmission backend. Other additions and improvements to the latest Transmission versions include:

- Ability to add and remove tracker addresses
- Ability to create .torrent files with multiple tracker URLs
- Support for HTTP/FTP seeding

Clutch can be enabled by finding the ‘Remote’ tab in the ‘Preferences’ section.

Finally, here is ‘Gimp’ again with a call out to the community: “Although it has merged [with Transmission], Clutch is still a very new project, and thus there are still a few bugs and a lot of features missing. This message is also an open call for people to test Clutch all they can, and please, please submit patches and improvements! Right now clutch does not have a developer with enough time to push it forward to the place we all want it at, so anyone with the experience, and time, is welcome to help out.”

Gimp can be contacted on the Clutch forums.

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

Transmission has gained a lot of popularity over the last year, and is considered to be one of the fastest and lightweight BitTorrent clients. It is an Open Source project, and the application is currently available on almost every operating system except Windows. Similar to uTorrent, it focuses on being lightweight, while including all the features a demanding BitTorrent user needs.

The Transmission team describes it as follows: “Transmission has been built from the ground up to be a lightweight, yet powerful BitTorrent client. Its simple, intuitive interface is designed to integrate tightly with whatever computing environment you choose to use. Transmission strikes a balance between providing useful functionality without feature bloat.”

Transmission uses little resources, and we’ve heard of people running it on their routers, NAS devices and even mobile phones. There is also a great WebUI for Transmission, called Clutch. With Clutch you can easily monitor and control your torrents remotely. Today, the Clutch team has released version 0.3, and instructions on how to get started are over here.

Downloads and more information about Ubuntu Hardy Heron can be found in the Ubuntu Wiki.

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

David Watanabe, the developer, has now released Xtorrent 1.1 (beta). Here’s what’s new:

Interface changes
Xtorrent has gotten what the developer calls a “newly refreshed user interface”. New, sleeker-looking toolbar buttons that resemble those in the Leopard Finder, including a number of other interface tweaks have been added.

Selective Downloading
What was one of the most requested features, followed by encryption, is the ability to pick and choose which files you want to download from inside a torrent. Xtorrent finally lets you do this. Up until recently, Azureus was the only Mac BitTorrent client that could do this. Transmission added the feature a few weeks ago.

File Prioritisation
You can now tell Xtorrent which files in a torrent you want to give more priority to and have downloaded first. This was another oft-requested feature, according to Watanabe.

Xtorrent is quickly becoming the uTorrent of the Macintosh. Not uTorrent Mac, which we gave you a preview of, but the Mac equiavalent of uTorrent Windows. It’s light, has many important features and has a pretty UI. The only difference is that Xtorrent is shareware and uTorrent is not. But it’s widely known that the Mac community is a lot more open to shareware than most Windows users.

Unfortunately, Xtorrent still has its drawbacks. Its intrusive shareware policy is still very much there, rearing its ugly head at people without licenses. And some popular private trackers explicitly ban Xtorrent from connecting to torrents and downloading them. OiNK, possibly the most exclusive private BitTorrent site, whose invites are highly sought after, and till they banned the practise, were auctioned off on eBay for ridiculous amounts of dough, has banned Xtorrent. Here’s the message OiNK users who try to download with Xtorrent get:

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