Bittorrent

Bittorrent is an internet transfer and communication protocol designed for distributing and sharing files. It was created in 2001 by Bram Cohen. Unlike http(s):// or ftp:/ which use a centralized server-client model, Bittorrent is a distributed Peer to Peer protocol. The protocol has gained a lot of imfamy due to how often it is associated with Piracy and malware. Reputation aside, using the bittorrent protocol or torrenting is secure and perfectly legal. It is also safe with a bit of common sense.

History

Bram Cohen is a computer programmer that has been coding since he was a child as his dad was a computer scientist. He dropped out of college in the mid-90's as he was already getting job offers. He began working for several dotcom companies. Eventually, by 2001 he winded up at a startup company called MojoNation. MojoNation was creating a backup and distributing tool that could be used by corporations for confidentual, encrypted files. The idea was dividing a file into chunks and storing it on nodes hosted on different computers. MojoNation introduced there own in-house peer to peer protocols called EGTP(Evil Geniuses Transfer Protocol) and the Mojo Economy framework. Bram Cohen alledgedly conceptualized bittorrent over frustration with the time it took the File Transfer Protocol to tranfer a large file on a peer to peer network. He took a liking to the concepts he saw at MojoNation as he felt that it was perfect for digital file transfers. He refined those ideas and applied it to start bittorrent in April of 2001. He ended up quitting his position at MojoNation which later on ended up failing as they ran out of money. He focused solely on his new protocol and had a working implementationg that he could show off by July 2001.

Rise of Bittorrent

It is often used for so-called Illegal Sharing of Content such as Hollywood Films and Music. Torrenting was very common during the golden age of internet piracy aka the early to mid 2000s. It also got a reputation for malware as lots of people didn't take a good look at what they were downloading.

Bittorrent clients

Avoid

• µTorrent Proprietary botnet filled with ads. Only reason it is popular is because during the golden age of internet piracy as it was one of the first torrent clients out there. It stood out against others as it was user friendly and filled with quality features. Open source alternatives have since surpassed it.

/g/ approved

• qBittorrent is written in C++ and based on qt. Daemon version is called qbittorrent-nox.
• Deluge is written in python, has gtk, web and tui interfaces. It is highly extensible via its plug-ins system. Has a thin client mode feature, which allows you to switch between availible deluge daemons easily through gtk gui - remote qbittorrent, transmission or rtorrent clients are supposed to be controlled through web ui. Deluge is notable for having originated the particular method of protocol encryption that is currently in use by every major BitTorrent client.
• rtorrent is a tui bittorrent client written in C++ and based on the based libtorrent-rakshasa, often used with ruTorrent web front-end. The /g/entleman's choice, notable for not introducing back-up-botnet-np-door support.
• Transmission is a forever featureless, meant for uboontoddlers bt client that won some benchmarks, written in C. Has a native ""mac app"", official qt and gtk interfaces are semi-gui-less and very different. Has tui.