Features

Thanks to a straightforward, uncluttered interface BitTorrent appears as a user friendly torrent client that beginners will feel comfortable with. We particularly appreciated the integrated search box to look for files on the BitTorrent website. Once you’ve found the torrent you want, download it to your PC, open it up inside BitTorrent and let the client do the rest. The speed at which you download will depend on the number of seeds, that is people who have the complete file and are sharing it. The more seeds there are the quicker files will download.

You can set multiple torrent downloads and the downloading speed is fairly quick. It’s easy to configure the client and we suggest choosing the right port and setting upload and download rate limits to avoid hogging your bandwidth. It’s also good to set your downloads by priority to monitor more precisely how your torrents are doing.

Using BitTorrent

The file you want to download is cut up into small segments shared by users, creating what is called a swarm, and does not go through a central server, significantly reducing the bulk of file transfers. The BitTorrent client is actually the first P2P application to use this technology and became immensely popular when it was released. Torrents are considered by online users as a great way to download recently anything from movies to operating systems.

Competition

Compared to the exhaustive Azureus, BitTorrent is very simplistic. It doesn’t provide half as many statistics and doesn’t let you customize the interface. Integrating a search box is a great idea, but it limits searches to the BitTorrent website, not considered the most thorough source by torrent aficionados.

Conclusion

If you’re a newbie to the torrent world, BitTorrent is a good bet. It’s safe, stable and sharp. Associated with the huge database of legal torrents that is the BitTorrent website, it makes for a very rich P2P experience. Advanced users will probably frown upon its lack of options but others should give it a try.

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Vuze’s interface is a complete shake-up to what Azureus users are used to. The BitTorrent developer has decided to focus on online multimedia content and introduce user participation. The first thing the user sees is a "Find, Download, Play" screen to introduce you to Vuze. You can browse files by using the left side menu, divided in time, main channels and tags. The menu at the top also links to hot and new content. Vuze takes the web 2.0 road and you'll see that most of the files have tags. You can write out a comment and leave a rating. The program also makes it a no brainer to send a video by email and link to content directly from your blog or website. Additionally, there are social bookmarking links for each file.

Downloading torrents is as simple as using the search bar, which the gives you options to search the Vuze site and results from the major bittorent sites such as Btjunkie. You can also easily add more sites to that list if you wish.

We won’t expand on the qualities of the Azureus client, for which you can read a review here. Vuze tries to innovate by adding social tools to the program and providing legal content in the Vuze HD Network. There are numerous channels to choose from, yet we were disappointed with the content in general. On some channels there's very little to watch and on others you don't necessarily find what you were hoping for. Much of the content feels cheap and throwaway, even if it is in glorious HD.

On the downside Vuze does nothing to atone for Azureus's principal drawback: the overuse of your RAM and DSL connection. Yes, Vuze is still a resource and bandwidth hog, and there's nothing you can do about it.

The whole interface is really simple, though the program is so heavy you will get some slow down, and the amount of legal content is still limited, Vuze is a promising application for sharing and enjoying legal content.

If you're already hooked on the original Azureus bittorrent client, take a leap into the future with Vuze.

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uTorrent Portable is the standalone version of this reliable, lightweight torrent client. Like its older brother, uTorrent Portable lets you have a few files downloading simultaneously while still using the computer, without much lag.

The program's interface in uTorrent Portable is identical to the desktop version. You have different areas to track the list of active torrents, check extensive data for each one of them and organize your downloads with user-defined labels.

uTorrent Portable makes it easy for you to look for downloads. You can search for new torrents in the box on the top right corner of the interface, and also make use of the RSS feeds reader to receive information directly from your favorite torrent sites.

In short, uTorrent Portable is as good as its regular, installable version: a lightweight, incredibly fast, highly customizable torrent client that makes your downloading experience as simple and automated as possible.

uTorrent Portable lets you enjoy the power and ease of use of this great torrent client anywhere, anytime, without installation.

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A simple user interface goes a long way to making eMule a cinch to use. This doesn’t mean it lacks depth though, and its features are some of the most advanced we’ve seen in a P2P client. For instance, eMule lets you view all manner of information on machines you’re downloading from, call up charts outlining downloading stats and check download status through an advanced progress bar.

The fact that eMule uses a large network of servers means the search results are abundant, but there’s one major annoyance with the client – it’s very slow at downloading files. This is largely because of the way it handles download priority, which takes into account the number of servers you’re connected to, the connection speed, and size of the file. eMule also relies heavily on a ‘credit scoring’ system, whereby people who use the service a lot are rewarded with faster downloads. While some may champion this as being in the true spirit of file sharing, the system makes it awfully frustrating for users new to eMule who are penalized with ultra slow downloads.

Having said this, it’s not difficult to see why eMule has become the most popular P2P app, and if you’re prepared to break the law and download music over a network it makes for the perfect accomplice. If you love downloading, you'll love eMule.

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The application is significantly easier to use than many of its rivals, however, BitSpirit disappoints compared with its peers when it comes to tracking active downloads. If you would like to access information on your current download then you need to access the torrent itself, rather than relying on the application to provide you with this information.

That's not to say that BitSpirit is a total failure though, and the application boasts many assets to challenge the other contenders in the market. For instance, the app uses very little PC resources, leading to quick, smooth transfers that occur without any annoying program restarts. The program is very easy to pick up and use and save for a major bug when utilising the UPNP, BitSpirit is smooth and effective.

Originally a Chinese program, the app includes some horrible menu translations, making it often difficult to select the right menu option to access your download. That said, managing file download locations and tweaking options are both really simple operations. You are furnished with plenty of flexibility for accessing your downloads, giving you a host of options for choosing the source location and destination of the file.

If you're looking for a BitTorrent client that gives you access to files quickly through a simple interface, then BitSpirit is a worthy app. However, if you want a larger selection of files with a minimal chance of file corruption or hanging then you'd be better off sticking with the more reliable uTorrent or BitComet.

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The good thing is that this program requires no installation. Simply decompress the file and run the program and you're off. The next step is to select the hub that you want to connect to. The hub looks very much like DC++ but with some important improvements. For example, you can now download from simultaneous multiple users without corrupting the file, it can distribute the parts of files that are not completed and can assign the download speed according to the sources available and the dozens of possibilities in customization of the interface. The improvement of the simultaneous downloading makes a significant improvement to download times and it's much safer than normal single source downloading. The developers point out that segment position and size are decided by file size and chunks speed. You can also set sounds, change the colour scheme or icons, show popup balloons, see emoticons and much more.

A sophisticated P2P application although it's a shame there aren't more users as you won't get many hits on the files you're looking for.

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uTorrent Turbo Booster is specifically designed to help improve uTorrent's functionality by increasing the download speeds of multimedia like ebooks, music, games, movies and documents, to name just a few. Even better? uTorrent Turbo Booster does this without increasing your resource consumption, meaning your other PC programs shouldn't get sluggish during download time.

uTorrent Turbo Booster comes with a nice menu feature to let users customize the settings of their specific download preferences. Every time you make changes, they're automatically saved for the next time you use uTorrent. In addition, uTorrent Turbo Booster can resume paused and broken downloads automatically or, in the event it's unable to complete the download, will remove failed download entries, as well as downloads that have been completed.

Initially, it might take some time to learn all of this helpful little add-on's features and get used to how it works with uTorrent.

Once you get the hang of it, uTorrent Turbo Booster is an incredibly useful plug-in for uTorrent.

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Stream Torrent brings the best of internet video streaming and P2P technology together; it's a free app lets you both watch and broadcast live video on the web.

Like other similar tools, Stream Torrent makes use of the P2P protocol to broadcast video online, helped by thousands of users worldwide who share the workload by sending and receiving data at the same time.

The Stream Torrent interface is simple in design and easy to use. First of all, you need to add channels to your list by clicking the Search button and selecting a keyword from the drop-down menu. You can then add them to your personal menu and open any of them with a double click.

As with any other app of this kind, results can vary a lot in Stream Torrent. The quality and stability of channels depends on signal strength, number of people tuning in to that channel and other factors.

Stream Torrent allows you to enjoy hundreds of streaming online video channels, though their quality varies a lot.

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Morpheus (support has now been discontinued) once aimed to turn the P2P client into the ultimate multimedia application. The application window is divided into 4 tabs: search results, my files, podcasts and Morpheus Online. A pane on the left side allows you to create playlists or keep track of searches and videos. Morpheus also lets you sync all your downloaded files to import them automatically to iTunes. Oddly enough, the chat tool is hidden at the top of the interface, next to help and preferences.

Morpheus wants to be a multifaceted app, not just a simple P2P program. It includes an embedded browser, Morpheus Online, from which you can check out the internet or find new files to share while you’re downloading. This is particularly useful when you’re looking for new podcasts. By clicking on the podcast page button in the podcasts tab, you will be taken to Morpheus’ own podcast library. While it’s not as star-studded as the iTunes library, it’s full of varied and original content.

Morpheus' podcast tab is wisely divided into podcast and episodes, so you can browse through what you’ve downloaded. However we were quite confused by the podcast downloading procedure, as the progress bar is hidden in the file window of the My Files tab.

Morpheus has also beefed up its security. You can now select your antivirus application to automatically scan downloaded files. The program also includes solid parental control. You can also add a password to make sure you control who has access to Morpheus. The application also introduces UDP technology to improve the performance of downloads and allow secure file sharing between 2 firewall protected PCs.

Morpheus comes with interesting enhancements, but not enough to get us overexcited. Add to that the many drawbacks we found in the application. The interface is way too clunky. The My Files tab has an additional file window at the bottom, which adds to the confusion on the interface. The one-click burning function is something we were eager to try out, but it was nowhere to be seen.

However hard Morpheus tries at integrating cool features like web browsing or podcasting, we figure the application should only be used for what it’s good at i.e. P2P downloading. The program gives access to all the P2P networks, even Bittorrent, and the new version introduces safer and quicker transfer thanks to UDP technology. The other extra features in the application like the library structure or web browser feel a bit awkward, and therefore failed at turning the program into a true multimedia application.

Morpheus is a solid P2P application, but doesn't make the jump to multimedia super-app.

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