Limewire, one of the world’s most popular peer-to-peer filesharing applications, has received a lawsuit from the RIAA, who are demanding $115 million in damages, claiming the application promotes the infringement of copyright. Similar applications like Grokster and Kazaa have been forced to go legal and there is speculation as to just how long Limewire will resist until they have to buckle and pay up. The existence of the popular P2P application is not under threat, but if you haven’t given it a try yet, here’s just what makes it a standout program.

In terms of file sharing, Limewire is the cream of the crop, offering the essential peer-to- peer tools in what is probably the friendliest interface of applications in its class. Beginners will appreciate the search bar, which allows you to select the type of file you’re looking for, video, image, audio, program or file. Limewire has a “what’s new” button to check out what popular files users have recently exchanged. We also enjoyed the direct connect option. If you know the IP address of one of your friends, type it in the box and Limewire will browse that user’s files. This is a quick way of sharing files with someone else and can come in handy when working on a project and exchanging documents. The only little snag we have with direct connect is that it doesn’t let you enter the username, much simpler than looking for your friend’s IP address.

Downloading with Limewire is very intuitive. After you’ve searched and found the file you are looking for, double-click on it to start the downloading process. The speed of your download depends firstly on the quality of your connection (broadband is a minimum), if you’ve correctly opened your router’s ports and whether you’re downloading a popular file or not. We would like to point out the effort that Limewire takes to make itself accessible to beginners. Not only does a tip pop up every time you launch the application, the help option also leads you to Limewire’s support centre, FAQs and a forum to get in contact with other users.

The lawsuit carried out by the RIAA is all the more surprising because of the measures Limewire takes to keep you in the realms of legality. If you decide to download Limewire from its website, you will first have to agree you will not use it for copyright infringement. When you’re configuring the application, you can set content filters, to avoid downloading files that copyright owners do not want you to share. To avoid embarrassing situations, make sure you tick the “block adult content” box, which will filter out any pornographic files from your searches.

The best way of checking the quality of the audio or video you’re downloading is via Limewire’s mini player. It’s fairly basic and to par with the players you find in similar filesharing applications, but we appreciated the way it was integrated in the application.

If there’s one thing that we’re still expecting from the Limewire team, it’s that it finally decides to jump on the BitTorrent bandwagon. Torrents are the way forward when it comes to peer to peer file sharing because of the speed, the security and freshness of downloads. Large files like movies or complete seasons of TV series are much easier to download via BitTorrent. We were also annoyed by the “buy the PRO version” window that popped up every time we started Limewire.

For its wealth of possibilities and huge base of users, (more than 4 million simultaneously on the Gnutella network) we encourage you to give Limewire a test drive. Because of the controversial nature of the application, you should always make sure that you aren’t using Limewire for illegal activities like copyright infringement. However don’t be scared off by the legality issue. Limewire, like most P2P applications is one of the most exciting possibilities that the internet gives us. It would be a shame not to give it a try. You should also check out Frostwire, the not-for-profit project of the Limewire development team.

Download LimeWire Basic 4.18.6 in Softonic

Following the release of new versions of both Internet Explorer and Firefox, the infamous 'browser wars' are flaring up again. Despite both Firefox 1.5 and the Beta of IE7 making significant strides, it would be be foolish to think this was a two-horse race. While gaining a good reputation with geeks and power users, Opera has long been a bit-part player among the big boys of the browser world. However, if this preview release is anything to go by, the Norwegian-built browser could finally be ready to punch with the heavyweights.

Opera has been pioneering new ways of browsing the web for some time. It has had tabbed browsing since the days before tabbed browsing was cool and developed the innovative 'mouse gestures' control system, where you navigate through the web just by holding the mouse button and flicking your wrist. The developers even dabbled with a multi-pane interface for viewing several pages within one interface.

The good news is that Opera has lost none of its appetite for innovation, and version 9 is packed with new goodies that will have the programmers at Mozilla and Microsoft choking on their doughnuts. For starters the app runs much quicker than the previous release, making it arguably the quickest browser around (except perhaps for Safari) at rendering pages. Incredibly, despite this boost in performance, the program appears to use less memory than version 8.5, making it far less draining on system resources than Firefox and IE.

In terms of features Opera is the gift that keeps on giving. New to the program comes OSX Tiger-style 'widgets', allowing you to check news, convert currency, view the weather and so on through a series of draggable pop-ups which anchor themselves in front of the browser. Although there aren’t many widgets to choose from at present, this is sure to change once the tech-minded Opera fans start developing more.

Another great addition to Opera 9 is BitTorrent support, allowing you to download torrents directly within the browser – a feature that amazingly no one had thought of before. This system works very smoothly, which makes us wonder why RSS feed reading support in Opera is still so poor.

Among the other new treats within the program is a nifty new search feature which lets you add any search engine to the search bar in the main toolbar. This means you can instantly access searches within your favorite online destinations (Softonic, for instance).

Tabbed browsing remains, although some users may be annoyed to discover that Opera has added close tab buttons to the tabs themselves rather than as a separate button. Having said this, the new web page preview thumbnails that appear when you rollover a tab are a real masterstroke. Mouse gestures are still there too, along with the addition of Total Recall-style voice commands – another example of how cutting-edge this browser is.

Opera's developers have been keen to ramp up security features too, and although they aren't highly original, the new content blocking and pop-up blocking functions serve their purpose effectively. What's more, it's refreshing to see a browser that embraces the latest web standards so freely, with the latest release boasting support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 tags.

The browser is remarkably stable and is far better behaved than Internet Explorer 7. Combined with its speed, innovative features and standards support, Opera is undoubtedly web software's best-kept secret, and the final release may prove to be even better than Firefox. Don't say anything though, or everyone will want it.

Download Opera 9.52 in Softonic

With the release of Vuze, Azureus is jumping onto the legal torrent bandwagon. This application features the classic and extensive Azureus torrent client and adds to it an online platform from which you can download and submit legal audio and video content.

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 list of thumbnails of the latest videos uploaded to Vuze. You can browse these 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. There’s also a little diggit tag for each file, to submit them to the ultra famous social news site. It’s still a shame that Azureus omitted all the other famous social networking sites like del.icio.us or reddit. Maybe in a few months?

If you’re only interested in using Vuze as a torrent client, click the “Advanced tab” and you will be taken to the original Azureus interface. You can open up the gazillion configuration options that have come to define this as the most exhaustive bittorrent client on the planet. There’s even access to extra plug-ins like 3D view, RSS feed scanner or share exporter.

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. There’s up to nine channels to choose from, be it Tony Hawk’s Boom Boom Sabotage the Film School or Travel, 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. The trailers channel for example, offers new video games trailers instead of releases of movies. However, with Azureus striking up a partnership with the BBC, you’ll soon get Dr Who, The League of Gentleman and Invasion Earth and surely other content providers will flock to Vuze. Taking this into account, Vuze also includes a special tag to let you know if a file is High Definition or not.

On the downside Vuze does nothing to atone the principal drawback to Azureus: the over extensive use of PC memory. Yes, Vuze is still a bandwidth hog, and there’s nothing to do about it. We also find the new interface to be incredibly cluttered. The old downloads and currently downloading windows are too similar to have to be separated and we don’t understand why Vuze includes a Library tab when you can access content straight from the Home tab.

While the whole interface felt a bit clunky, and the number 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.

Download Azureus (Vuze) 3 1.1.0 in Softonic

uTorrent has quickly become a favorite among torrent users worldwide thanks to an innovative interface, minute CPU usage and extensive download details.

The program is undoubtedly one of the most reliable torrent clients on the market, thanks to an ultra quick installation process and a minimal use of PC resources. You can have a good number of torrents downloading and still be able to use your PC without suffering any lags.

The interface is simple to use and is divided into the list of torrents and extensive details like peer data, download and upload speeds, file pieces and blocks, or a graph of your current speeds. In an attempt to help you structure all your torrents, the application allows you to set labels to your individual downloads. You can also view the torrents according to whether they are downloading, completed, active or inactive. If you download a good deal of torrents at a time this is a good way of keeping track of the progress of them all. Furthermore, you can easily set up the web interface for uTorrent, which allows you to check your torrents from any PC connected to the internet. All you need is to have one PC taking care of the downloads and set up access to the interface of your uTorrent session.

uTorrent makes it easy for you to look for new downloads without opening up your browser. You can search the main torrent sites by typing the name of the file you are looking for in the box on the top right corner of the interface. uTorrent also includes an RSS downloader to receive feeds of your favourite torrent sites. This little feature is great to check out all new torrents in one click.

The first time you launch uTorrent it lets you check your connection settings online and verify whether your ports are functioning properly. The preferences menu is also replete with tweaking possibilities. You can customize queuing, scheduling and downloading. Setting the location of downloaded files is the only bit that could confuse users as uTorrent makes a difference between new downloads and completed downloads.

You might have guessed it, here at Softonic we have a soft spot for uTorrent. Not only does the mini torrent client use up very little memory, it also comes with loads of information and customization features to make your downloading experience as simple and automated as possible. If you’re tired of the bandwidth hogging Azureus or bored of the basic Bittorrent client, check out uTorrent.

Download uTorrent (µTorrent) 1.8 in Softonic

Torrent Finder Firefox Toolbar enables all Torrent Finder search functions from your own Firefox browser, so that you can locate any torrent files you're interested in while browsing the Internet in your favorite browser.

This is what this extension has to offer:

Open sites in Firefox tabs with (previous|next) buttons for easier navigation

• Flexible popup menu width to fit screen width
• Search all Torrent Finder sites gathered or by single site
• Toggle between showing and hiding sites logos
• Navigate between sites using site's first letter
• Arrange Sites list with easy drag and drop form
• Easy show/hide option with context menu for the dockable toolbar
• Resize search area for to save more space
• Holding CRTL key searches the remembered last searched single site
• Search history for all searched keywords with optional auto-completion
• Highlight searched terms on the page button
• Search words button to find single word on the result page
• Context menu search option for the selected text on the page

Download Torrent Finder Firefox Toolbar 1.2 in Softonic

If you’ve ever had to publish, send or receive particularly large files sizes, you’ll know that it can throw up all kinds of problems – crashed servers, blocked inboxes and transfers that suddenly just hang-up. Pando aims to take the pain out of this process and according to the developers, 3 million people agree that it does exactly that.

Pando is based on a P2P network that enables you to send files of up to 1GB in size by e-mail or by publishing it to the web. It supports all multimedia file types including video, audio and photos meaning it’s great for people who deal with audio-visual files regularly.

For most users, the major benefit will be with e-mail attachments and the good news is, there's no need to change your existing e-mail client. Pando works by creating a torrent-like link file which you can then send in the body of your e-mail for the recipient to click on. There’s no need to be online when the recipient downloads the file and there’s no compression, FTP or dodgy web uploading applets to deal with. The reason you don’'t need to be online is because Pando sends files to its "super-node" servers, which means that there's always at least one "seeder" online at any given time. This seed is guaranteed for 14 days so even if you log off, your recipient can still view it. Obviously, the more people that share it too, the faster the download.

For those unfamiliar with FTP, Pando is fantastic since it works on the same principle as a Bittorrent client. Once the small interface is opened, you can drag and drop or select “add-file” to create a ".pando” file which you can then e-mail to whoever you want once it is uploaded.

The main drawback is that the recipient has to have Pando installed to receive the file. If you transfer files to someone regularly, this is not a problem but if it’'s just the odd file you want to send, then it could be a nuisance to ask someone to install it just to see your file. Be warned also that Pando cannot guarantee security although the developers assure that Pando has 256bit AES end-to-end encryption built in making it technically one of the most secure ways to transfers files online today. The only way that someone could realistically compromise your security however is by hacking into your e-mail account.

Whilst Pando is obviously open to abuse by sharing illegal files, most people go to the major Torrent sites to do that, meaning Pando is refreshingly free of any copyrighted material flying around and causing problems. Overall, it’'s a great solution for those unfamiliar with FTP who need to send big files regularly.

Download Pando 2.1.5.5 in Softonic

Deluge is a popular Linux BitTorrent client that has now been ported to Windows while keeping its ease of use and excellent transfer speed, the two main features that have contributed to its success.

First of all, bear in mind that this app was originally written for another operating system, which means that the Windows version, according to the author's own words, is not as stable as the original one. In fact I got the odd error message while testing it, but other than that, the program worked fine. Transfer speed was excellent, along with the array of tools the program puts at your disposal to handle torrent files. Also, the program was totally unobtrusive for the user and very light on resources.

Deluge features a clear, uncluttered interface where you can easily manage all your file transfers and see information about each one of them. Also, the program's configuration settings enable you to tweak its behavior in great detail: you'll be able to limit bandwidth usage, configure a proxy server and also enable special plug-ins to add extra functionality to the program.

In all, Deluge is a powerful, easy-to-use BitTorrent client that's worth a try and will hopefully improve its stability under Windows in future releases.

Download Deluge 1.0.0 RC 3 in Softonic

From slow beginnings, BitComet has risen to become one of the most popular torrent client downloads on Softonic. For users accustomed to the often sparse interfaces of torrent apps, BitComet surprises with its flashy icons and multitude of options that give you more control over your downloads. For those that want a no-fuss client, the extra features may simply get in the way.

Once a torrent is selected for download with BitComet, a dialog pops up allowing you to determine the location to save to and select exactly which files in the torrent you want. Once downloading, the regular stop, pause, cancel, update etc options are all available plus a handy “remove torrent & all files” option which removes all trace of an unwanted torrent from your PC. Many users report the download rates are good although note no particular difference with other client speeds. The best feature however is a ‘preview media’ option, which forces the torrent to download sequentially instead of randomly thus allowing you to preview any multimedia downloads. It’s a great way to avoid broken links, but, on the downside, it will slow down your download considerably.

Another interesting feature is the ‘intelligent disk cache’ which really comes into its own on high speed connections. If you are lucky enough to get download transfer rates of 500 kb/s or higher, activating it allows BitComet to cache the data to access the disk less frequently. The result of this is that it doesn’t slow down your PC as receiving large amounts of data can sometimes do.

Forum reports from foreign users suggest that the program has not been translated properly from English, yet this doesn’t affect the capacities of BitComet. The other downside is that the uninstall procedure is not particularly clean. The application directory remains as does the registry entry although you can remove the former manually and the latter with any good registry cleaner.

There are simpler clients out there, such as uTorrent uTorrent and Azureus that offer the same download rates but with less fuss. If you have a particularly fast connection, can’t wait for your files to download before watching them and enjoy a torrent client with lots of whistles and bells, BitComet might be for you.

Download BitComet 1.03 in Softonic

uTorrent is one of the most popular BitTorrent clients out there, and is now providing you with the possibility to test its latest version, though still at a beta stage.

uTorrent Beta features a very similar interface to that of previous versions, with a compact, intuitive design. It also keeps the main characteristics that have made of uTorrent a fast, reliable BitTorrent: an extremely easy setup process and a very smart management of computer resources.

Despite its reduced size, uTorrent includes pretty much all the tools you need to manage your torrent files in an easy, handy way. You can easily browse between downloading, completed, active and inactive transfers, and also check out a full-featured information sheet about each file you're downloading, right on the bottom pane of the program's interface.

A couple of things uTorrent is missing, in my opinion, is a download organizer to classify your files in different categories, and also an improved built-in search tool. Other than that, this beta is definitely worth a try.

If you're an uTorrent fan, take the chance to test this beta version and start enjoying its latest improvements.

Download uTorrent (µTorrent) 1.8 RC4 in Softonic

If you regularly download torrents then you’ll know that it’s quite time consuming to keep going back to the torrent sites and scan through them to see if your favourite ones have been released yet.

One tool that can make your life easier is Torrent Episode Downloader (TED). The small program is a Java application that combines RSS channels and BitTorrent downloads. It allows you to subscribe to torrent RSS feeds and also configure key words as to which ones you want to download. In a nutshell, it does the hard work of tracking and downloading torrents for you without the need to even visit a site.

It works on a similar principle to the way iTunes subscribes to podcasts except that with Torrent Episode Downloader, obviously the file will be sent to your BitTorrent client rather than being played. This application is particularly useful if you’re following a series of torrents based on the same subject which are released on a weekly or monthly basis. Just make sure you’ve got enough space on your hard drive as it’s easy to forget that while you’re working, it’s busy downloading content.

If you're based in Europe and want to be first to see the latest TV episodes and releases, Torrent Episode Downloader can do the tracking hard work for you.

Download Torrent Episode Downloader 0.92 in Softonic

If you're not satisfied with your Torrent client and feel that you could squeeze some extra mileage out of your connection, then you should give BitTyrant a go.

BitTyrant uses a different type of torrent protocol that's compatible with BitTorrent and is optimized for fast download performance. Now, the big selling point of this client is speed although this cannot be guaranteed depending on what type of connection you have, how many seeds a torrent has etc.

However, the developers claim that it's up to three times quicker than Azureus and much fairer in the way it rewards uploaders rather than downloaders. In terms of interface however, there's little difference - BitTyrant looks exactly like Azureus although there are a few optional features to display statistics relevant to BitTyrant’s operation. There is however an underlying difference between it and other clients. BitTyrant differs in its selection of which peers to unchoke and send rates to unchoked peers. In this way, it theoretically means that bandwidth speeds are used more efficiently and fairly although as I say, much will depend on your own connection and ISP provider.

If you're happy with Azureus then there's no big reason to change to BitTyrant but if you've been experiencing declining download speeds or connection issues, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Download BitTyrant 1.1.1 in Softonic

Large files are always difficult to share online. Free file sharing sites are a pain, not everybody has an FTP server to share stuff and sharing them by email can take ages – if your email server can handle a 10MB email attachment at all.

Fortunately now there's another way to share big-sized files using email: Podmailing. Of course it doesn't work the usual way (message plus attached file) but more like as a P2P client or maybe I should say P2M client, which is the right way to name this file sharing protocol. The idea is not new (see Pando) but Podmailing has launched to add more choice to the P2M market.

The program is really easy to use. Simply click on the "New" button, select the files or folders you want to share, enter the email addresses and add a message. That's pretty much everything, although bear in mind that you must leave the program open (and your Internet connection on) in order to send the file.

The addressees of your podmail will receive a message in their inboxes with a link to download the file, which they'll be able to do very comfortably from their own web browser without the need for any third-party apps. Anyway, there's also the possibility to download the file via Podmailing or using the BitTorrent protocol (which also works with Podmailing, as this program is also a torrent client).

The main drawback I found is that you have to wait until the file is completely uploaded before starting to download it directly from the browser, so if your friend wants to share a 9GB file you'd better be patient. At least you can always start downloading it right away by using the Podmailing app or any BitTorrent client, which don't require the file to be finished uploading. Also, uploaded files are saved for 30 days on the Podmailing's servers.

Podmailing is a new client for the P2M protocol with which you can easily share large-sized files on the Internet. It may not be the fastest method but it's reliable and above all, very easy to use.

Download Podmailing 0.10.0 in Softonic

Although P2P networking still survives as a means of downloading video, audio and software, many people are now turning to torrents as a means of getting hold of their entertainment. While BitTorrent and BitComet rule the roost in terms of on-the-fly downloads, there are a few other pretenders to the crown that are worthy of a mention. BitSprit is definitely up with the best of them, allowing you to grab hold of torrents quickly without any fuss.

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.

Download BitSpirit 3.3.2.352 in Softonic

Image burning is one of the fastest and most efficient ways to save large amounts of data to DVD or CD.

Images are increasingly popular on torrent sites and other download portals because they allow users to download high volumes of data in a relatively small file. What's more, it's instantly ready for DVD or disk burning. ImgBurn is an ultra-lightweight CD/DVD/HD/DVD and Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit. It has several 'Modes', with each one performing a different task.

These include "Read" which reads a disc to an image file; "Build" which creates an image file from files on your computer or network; "Write" which writes an image file to a disc and "Verify" which checks whether a disk is 100% readable. With this last option, you can also ensure that the data is correct by asking ImgBurn to compare your disk against an image file. Finally, you have "Discovery" which puts your drive to the test to find just what kind of speeds and disk types it can support.

If you are experiencing any burning problems, it may be that your drive is not fast enough to handle the settings you have configured or that you are using the wrong kind of disks.

A very lightweight an powerful image burner that requires little experience but will ensure all your images are burned in a flash.

Download ImgBurn 2.4.0.0 in Softonic

Emule remains one of the most popular downloads in the world due to it's ease of use and the ability to share your files with millions of users worldwide.

However, it's not so good when it comes to handling torrents which is why TorenKey is an interesting innovation. To look at it, you'd think it was exactly the same as eMule which is no surprise - it's been made by the same developers and it even connects to the same eD2K network. Where it differs however is in it's ability to handle torrents with ease for high speed downloading. While giving you access to the ed2k network, it also harnesses the power of BitTorrent to provide a truly impressive torrent client so really it is two programs in one. In feel, use and look, it differs little from eMule and it even includes it's own IRC client. What does differ is the search system. TorenKey's search utility is linked to Mininova which means that you get a huge number of results back when you search for a certain torrent. However, it does seem that many of these are fakes and TorenKey provides no method for screening-out these files. In addition, you can't preview downloading torrents so there's no way of checking whether it's real or not that way either.

With support for RSS so you can keep track of the latest torrents and harnessing the look and feel of eMule, TorenKey has the potential to be a really successful torrent client.

Download Torenkey 1.0.0.30 in Softonic

There are so many TV torrents now available that it's hard to keep track of your favourite ones especially long running series.

The problem I find is that all too often, you wait ages for a torrent to appear and then the minute your back is turned and you've lost interest, someone posts the exact torrent you were waiting for. This torrent tracker provides the perfect solution if you're a TV torrent downloader and it supports all mainstream shows such as 24, Lost, Topgear, Desperate Housewives, the Simpsons, South Park, Grey's Anatomy, Battlestar Galactica, etc and more. Adding your own shows is very easy courtesy of a simple wizard and you'll find that you download less fake torrents because it can detect which torrents are genuine and which are not. By defining keywords, you can instruct the program which programs to ignore or keywords to filter out. In addition, the program utilises "break schedulers" which optimise torrents to ensure that you're getting the best out of your bandwidth. Saving torrents is easy as you it takes them directly to your hard drive asking you which torrent client you'd like to download it with. The only problem is that it doesn't seem to distinguish between languages when downloading torrents so if you don't want to watch Battlestar Gallactica in German, then double check the torrents as they are downloading.

A very useful torrent tracker which any TV series fan will find saves them time, effort and fake torrents.

Download ted 0.92 in Softonic

TorrentForage is a search tool that lets you browse and query several torrent sites at the same time, saving you work, time and extra typing.

The program is very simple both in design and functionality. There are no options, no extra tools, no settings menu: just a list of torrent sites and two text fields to enter the keywords for your search and some optional filters respectively. You can choose which search engines to use and which not, but apart from that, there's basically no other way to tweak the program's behavior.

Global results are presented using a color code, each color representing the results from each separate site, which is a nice way to categorize results. Double clicking on each entry will open your default web browser with the correspondent torrent site. From this moment on, that is, if you really want to download the file, you'll need a torrent client.

TorrentForage offers you an easier, faster way to search for torrent files, but it ends up being too simple. Some extra tools would have been nice.

Download TorrentForage 1.5 in Softonic

The torrent phenomenon is one of the most hyped about in the world of technology among Peer to Peer (P2P) users. It consists of sharing large files, like movies, software, or games anonymously and quickly with other peers. 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 released movies or tv shows.

Thanks to a straightforward, uncluttered interface Bittorrent appears as a 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 its job. 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.

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.

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.

Download BitTorrent 6.0.3 in Softonic

Torrents have rapidly become one of the quickest and easiest forms of file sharing and VIP Torrent aims to take this trend to the masses in style.

Like all the best torrent sites and engines, VIP Torrent is based on the Bittorrent protocol although it relies heavily on Java which makes it rather sluggish at times. However, it does connect with hundreds of different P2P networks at the same time meaning that you get a decent amount of hits and download options. The program has a simple wizard to help you configure and setup the client. The main aim of this is to ensure that the ports are opened because without this, you're not going to have very fast downloads. Despite the Java, it still manages to be fairly light on CPU power. The application tries to appeal to a wide range of users by allowing you to select from beginner, intermediate or advanced settings. In each mode, you are presented with a different levels of options based on your expertise. Whatever your level though, probably the most useful innovation is that it displays the "health" of your downloads whilst they are in progress. It's also useful for those that can't wait for a program to download or are worried about fake downloads as it allows you to preview files as they downloading. In addition, it allows you to chat and e-mail other users from which are downloading very easily. It features a very useful health button which allows you to see the status of each of your download file and also a send-to-friend button which enables this option via e-mail, blog entry or webpage.VIP Torrent is a client P2P to share and download all kinds of files.

This is a brave attempt at making an e-mule style client dedicated to torrents although you may find that it still can't replace traditional torrent sites and downloading through a dedicated torrent client in terms of both number of hits and speed.

Download VIP Torrent 1.7.0.0 in Softonic

Halite is yet another open-source BitTorrent client and is based on the excellent libtorrent library from Rasterbar Software. What makes Halite stand out is its remote control interface allowing you to monitor and control the program from a mobile phone. It supports the following features:

• Multiple downloads.
• Displays more detailed information for the selected torrent.
• Connection limits both global and per-torrent.
• Transfer rate limits again global and per-torrent.
• Trackerless torrents (using the Mainline kademlia DHT protocol).
• IP filtering with eMule ipfilter.dat import.
• Minimize to tray with transfer rate summary.
• Association with ".torrent" files.
• Option to limit the number of instances to one.
• Estimated time remaining indicator.

Download Halite 0.3.0.2 RC in Softonic