11 ms·

Show HN: Mabel – a fancy BitTorrent client for the terminal

86 points by figbert 4y ago

nr2x 4y ago
How many people are using torrents for non-piracy reasons?
- zahma 4y ago
  You can download some Linux distros and other open source software this way, but yeah…it is largely used for piracy.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    > "You can download some Linux distros and other open source software this way" … That's pretty much all I use it for. Great for grabbing the latest shiny Linux iso image.
- akdor1154 4y ago
  Yeah it makes me a bit sad.. torrents are technically really cool, and the casual anarchist in me likes how they remove the need for expensive infra/bandwidth to serve huge data. Yet the overwhelming use by far is just to pirate vids.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - heartbeats 4y ago
    People will use a technology for what it's best at. It's no different from how people use(d) Bitcoin mainly to buy drugs. BitTorrent is maybe slightly superior for legal file-sharing, but strongly superior for illegal one, and so it only dominates in the latter. I don't think it's anything to be sad about; people use it because it works. It would be much sadder if it weren't used at all.
  - lambdadmitry 4y ago
    Shouldn't the casual anarchist in you rejoice at people hitting back on predatory, monopolistic, customer-hostile business practices of Big Movie though?
- jpgvm 4y ago
  Installed ArchLinux from iso downloaded via BitTorrent just this weekend. BT is great for me because I live in Thailand and we don't always have the best mirrors but generally plenty of peers on fast domestic fibre links.
  - nr2x 4y ago
    That’s awesome, perfect use case.
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  I’ve used it once in the past to get a distro iso. Wish more stuff used it.
  - nr2x 4y ago
    Good point, I forgot that use case.
- Shank 4y ago
  Archive.org supports torrents for downloading huge files (i.e., >50gb archives of content) and the like. You can probably debate endlessly piracy, ethics, "backups of media that have been purchased but have rotted away due to disc rot", etc. But fundamentally torrents are just a mechanism for delivery of large files or large sets of files, and they work extremely well for things in the tens-of-gigabytes range.
- strken 4y ago
  The old WoW launcher used to use torrents for distributing the base game and for updates. For some reason they removed that.
- midasz 4y ago
  Another example is Facepacks for Football Manager, those are in the tens of GBs. Torrents are a great way to share them around.
- Akronymus 4y ago
  I occasionally use a torrent to simply move large files to a slow endpoint (essentially a 1:1 connection), so I don't have to keep the session alive for the whole file move. I know there are probably other, better, solutions for that, but it works for me.
  - jokethrowaway 4y ago
    magic-wormhole would be a better alternative it's durable (as long as the process is still running it will keep sending on reconnection) and more private
crtasm 4y ago
Looks interesting, why does it require a special font? Suggest you remove the examples of downloading copyrighted content and the yify website from your readme.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  If memory serves this was one of the things that bit youtube-dl in the ass with github: the documentation described/demonstrated using it to violate copyright.
  - crtasm 4y ago
    Not in their documentation. Two or three of the many videos used in their unit tests were music videos, and wouldn't have been used if youtube didn't serve them differently.
- tfsh 4y ago
  The custom font adds a number of glyphs which wouldn't otherwise be accessible. Specifically for the folder icon [1] and I'd have thought for the borders as well. Nerd Font is pretty cool, I'd give it a go - I don't know how terminals gracefully fallback if the glyphs don't exist. 1: https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png
- acherion 4y ago
  It looks like there's a few glyphs being used in this application (things like folder icons, etc) that normal fonts aren't going to provide.
  - crtasm 4y ago
    Ah - I'm not asking what it's for, I'm asking why isn't it optional. First time I've seen TUI software require installing a font.
    - acherion 4y ago
KennyBlanken 4y ago
I wish more HN posts about software releases were like OP, providing not just a who, but a what. OP: does this support version 2 of the spec?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tfsh 4y ago
  It's built on top of this - https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent - so your answers probably there.
- anacrolix 4y ago
  https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent/issues/175 https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent/issues/175
- figbert 4y ago
  Thank you! Unfortunately, we don't yet support v2. The upstream library we use (see: sibling comments) hasn't implemented support.
- fiatjaf 4y ago
  No one uses v2.
rakoo 4y ago
At this point torrent clients don't provide much if they don't have a really differentiating set of features: - torrents work if they are shared more than they are leeched, so it's just easier to have it run in the background. There's very little reason to not use the existing client/server models like transmission or tTorrent - indexing and search still relies too much on third parties. Integrate magnetico (passive indexing), bep 33 (dht-based scraping) and bep 51 (dht-based indexing) and the user gains an order of magnitude of autonomy because they don't rely on centralized authorities anymore - is there a possibility yo go further ? Make sharing files easier with bittorrent, or something like that ? Bittorrent clients should help with that Innovation in this sector doesn't mean nicer fonts, there are real avenues for meaningful change that actually improve users' life
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lambdadmitry 4y ago
  Do you actually use torrents day to day? I have a strong suspicion that nowadays most people in developed economies who might be interested in TUIs use private trackers, as they're much safer and usually much better curated. However, that means that a) ratios are usually enforced, you have to keep seeding b) DHT and PEX are disabled and explicitly forbidden. Which in turn means the features you are describing are anti-features, especially considering the rise to *rrr-family of tools aggregating centralised private trackers, and relative unpopularity of DHT for discovery. Without curation and entry barriers open systems like DHT are only going to get spammed and/or get the swarm members DMCAed by RIAA and friends. Edit: slight rewording
  - rakoo 4y ago
    I do use torrents daily, and I don't use private trackers because I subscribe to the idea of shared content available to everyone if the cost is nil. There definitively is spam, but it's not kazaa- or emule-level of spams: it's easy to find correct content as soon as it's not too obscure. With a fast enough connection, you can have a >1 ratio in a matter of hours at most, so your visibility is not very long. YMMV, of course.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
iqkznnft 4y ago
I hope this is a good place to ask: what do people in HN use for torrent client? I recently learned that transmission got hacked (more than once apparently) so I decided to stop using it. The alternatives seem to be deluge or qbittorrent. I picked the latter because it has labels (and supports moving finished downloads to different folders depending on label), which is a feature I'd always wanted in a torrent client. But my point is it seems to me all the torrent clients seems very similar, barring very minor features. Anyway, what do you people use and why?
- june11 4y ago
  I personally use qbittorrent, after ubittorrent got ads way back. I view torrent clients like a good saw/hammer, if it works and you know it well, that's all you need. Sometimes you don't need to put much thought into what software you pick.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Deluge for years. Since uTorrent was full of ads and crap (not sure if it still is)
- 0x38B 4y ago
  qBittorrent is great: set up qbittorrent-nox on a server somewhere in the world and you can do everything through the WebUI.
- hansel_der 4y ago
  rtorrent for a decade or so. i use it because of drm.
- thedougd 4y ago
  Transmission
- Akronymus 4y ago
  For me, Deluge is pretty much perfect. Altough, I don't really use any advanced features.
woleium 4y ago
How does this improve on rTorrent, or more recent forks like pyroscope: https://github.com/pyroscope/rtorrent-ps https://github.com/pyroscope/rtorrent-ps
memorable 4y ago
What is the font used in one of the screenshots ( https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png )? Looks rock solid!
- tanduv 4y ago
  Looks like Jetbrains Mono
  - figbert 4y ago
    It is! Highly recommend.
ngcc_hk 4y ago
Is there any state of union like link for torrent and other related protocols as mentioned? A bit outdated. And torrent site is not very reliable to get info.

86 points by figbert 4y ago

nr2x 4y ago

How many people are using torrents for non-piracy reasons?

zahma 4y ago
You can download some Linux distros and other open source software this way, but yeah…it is largely used for piracy.
- blooalien 4y ago
  > "You can download some Linux distros and other open source software this way" … That's pretty much all I use it for. Great for grabbing the latest shiny Linux iso image.
akdor1154 4y ago
Yeah it makes me a bit sad.. torrents are technically really cool, and the casual anarchist in me likes how they remove the need for expensive infra/bandwidth to serve huge data. Yet the overwhelming use by far is just to pirate vids.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- heartbeats 4y ago
  People will use a technology for what it's best at. It's no different from how people use(d) Bitcoin mainly to buy drugs. BitTorrent is maybe slightly superior for legal file-sharing, but strongly superior for illegal one, and so it only dominates in the latter. I don't think it's anything to be sad about; people use it because it works. It would be much sadder if it weren't used at all.
- lambdadmitry 4y ago
  Shouldn't the casual anarchist in you rejoice at people hitting back on predatory, monopolistic, customer-hostile business practices of Big Movie though?
jpgvm 4y ago
Installed ArchLinux from iso downloaded via BitTorrent just this weekend. BT is great for me because I live in Thailand and we don't always have the best mirrors but generally plenty of peers on fast domestic fibre links.
- nr2x 4y ago
  That’s awesome, perfect use case.
philliphaydon 4y ago
I’ve used it once in the past to get a distro iso. Wish more stuff used it.
- nr2x 4y ago
  Good point, I forgot that use case.
Shank 4y ago
Archive.org supports torrents for downloading huge files (i.e., >50gb archives of content) and the like. You can probably debate endlessly piracy, ethics, "backups of media that have been purchased but have rotted away due to disc rot", etc. But fundamentally torrents are just a mechanism for delivery of large files or large sets of files, and they work extremely well for things in the tens-of-gigabytes range.
strken 4y ago
The old WoW launcher used to use torrents for distributing the base game and for updates. For some reason they removed that.
midasz 4y ago
Another example is Facepacks for Football Manager, those are in the tens of GBs. Torrents are a great way to share them around.
Akronymus 4y ago
I occasionally use a torrent to simply move large files to a slow endpoint (essentially a 1:1 connection), so I don't have to keep the session alive for the whole file move. I know there are probably other, better, solutions for that, but it works for me.
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  magic-wormhole would be a better alternative it's durable (as long as the process is still running it will keep sending on reconnection) and more private

crtasm 4y ago

Looks interesting, why does it require a special font? Suggest you remove the examples of downloading copyrighted content and the yify website from your readme.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
If memory serves this was one of the things that bit youtube-dl in the ass with github: the documentation described/demonstrated using it to violate copyright.
- crtasm 4y ago
  Not in their documentation. Two or three of the many videos used in their unit tests were music videos, and wouldn't have been used if youtube didn't serve them differently.
tfsh 4y ago
The custom font adds a number of glyphs which wouldn't otherwise be accessible. Specifically for the folder icon [1] and I'd have thought for the borders as well. Nerd Font is pretty cool, I'd give it a go - I don't know how terminals gracefully fallback if the glyphs don't exist. 1: https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png
acherion 4y ago
It looks like there's a few glyphs being used in this application (things like folder icons, etc) that normal fonts aren't going to provide.
- crtasm 4y ago
  Ah - I'm not asking what it's for, I'm asking why isn't it optional. First time I've seen TUI software require installing a font.
  - acherion 4y ago

KennyBlanken 4y ago

I wish more HN posts about software releases were like OP, providing not just a who, but a what. OP: does this support version 2 of the spec?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tfsh 4y ago
It's built on top of this - https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent - so your answers probably there.
anacrolix 4y ago
https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent/issues/175 https://github.com/anacrolix/torrent/issues/175
figbert 4y ago
Thank you! Unfortunately, we don't yet support v2. The upstream library we use (see: sibling comments) hasn't implemented support.
fiatjaf 4y ago
No one uses v2.

rakoo 4y ago

At this point torrent clients don't provide much if they don't have a really differentiating set of features: - torrents work if they are shared more than they are leeched, so it's just easier to have it run in the background. There's very little reason to not use the existing client/server models like transmission or tTorrent - indexing and search still relies too much on third parties. Integrate magnetico (passive indexing), bep 33 (dht-based scraping) and bep 51 (dht-based indexing) and the user gains an order of magnitude of autonomy because they don't rely on centralized authorities anymore - is there a possibility yo go further ? Make sharing files easier with bittorrent, or something like that ? Bittorrent clients should help with that Innovation in this sector doesn't mean nicer fonts, there are real avenues for meaningful change that actually improve users' life

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lambdadmitry 4y ago
Do you actually use torrents day to day? I have a strong suspicion that nowadays most people in developed economies who might be interested in TUIs use private trackers, as they're much safer and usually much better curated. However, that means that a) ratios are usually enforced, you have to keep seeding b) DHT and PEX are disabled and explicitly forbidden. Which in turn means the features you are describing are anti-features, especially considering the rise to *rrr-family of tools aggregating centralised private trackers, and relative unpopularity of DHT for discovery. Without curation and entry barriers open systems like DHT are only going to get spammed and/or get the swarm members DMCAed by RIAA and friends. Edit: slight rewording
- rakoo 4y ago
  I do use torrents daily, and I don't use private trackers because I subscribe to the idea of shared content available to everyone if the cost is nil. There definitively is spam, but it's not kazaa- or emule-level of spams: it's easy to find correct content as soon as it's not too obscure. With a fast enough connection, you can have a >1 ratio in a matter of hours at most, so your visibility is not very long. YMMV, of course.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

iqkznnft 4y ago

I hope this is a good place to ask: what do people in HN use for torrent client? I recently learned that transmission got hacked (more than once apparently) so I decided to stop using it. The alternatives seem to be deluge or qbittorrent. I picked the latter because it has labels (and supports moving finished downloads to different folders depending on label), which is a feature I'd always wanted in a torrent client. But my point is it seems to me all the torrent clients seems very similar, barring very minor features. Anyway, what do you people use and why?

june11 4y ago
I personally use qbittorrent, after ubittorrent got ads way back. I view torrent clients like a good saw/hammer, if it works and you know it well, that's all you need. Sometimes you don't need to put much thought into what software you pick.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Deluge for years. Since uTorrent was full of ads and crap (not sure if it still is)
0x38B 4y ago
qBittorrent is great: set up qbittorrent-nox on a server somewhere in the world and you can do everything through the WebUI.
hansel_der 4y ago
rtorrent for a decade or so. i use it because of drm.
thedougd 4y ago
Transmission
Akronymus 4y ago
For me, Deluge is pretty much perfect. Altough, I don't really use any advanced features.

woleium 4y ago

How does this improve on rTorrent, or more recent forks like pyroscope: https://github.com/pyroscope/rtorrent-ps https://github.com/pyroscope/rtorrent-ps

memorable 4y ago

What is the font used in one of the screenshots ( https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png https://github.com/smmr-software/mabel/blob/main/desert.png )? Looks rock solid!

tanduv 4y ago
Looks like Jetbrains Mono
- figbert 4y ago
  It is! Highly recommend.

ngcc_hk 4y ago

Is there any state of union like link for torrent and other related protocols as mentioned? A bit outdated. And torrent site is not very reliable to get info.