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Streaming is an absolutely essential feature of uTorrent and is the only reason to still use it (well, maybe not after the scene shifted away from XVID and to m
by hack_edu 14y ago
Streaming is an absolutely essential feature of uTorrent and is the only reason to still use it (well, maybe not after the scene shifted away from XVID and to mp4). Let's spare the discussion of whether or not it is healthy for the torrent; its plenty fine on torrents already well seeded.
Are there any other torrent apps that offer comparable streaming or front-loading of specific files. I've tried a couple abandoned open-source options but they were absolutely unusable.
- gsa 14y agoqBittorrent [1] can download pieces in sequential order. [1] http://www.qbittorrent.org/ http://www.qbittorrent.org/
- benjoffe 14y agoMost clients don't allow this option as it makes the network less efficient. The swarm is efficient due to the fact that users download the pieces randomly and therefore are able to re-seed pieces that a low percentage of other users have.
- huhtenberg 14y agoDo you know of any research on this? It seems intuitive, but it'd be interesting to look at the numbers, simulated or not.
- gcr 14y agoIt's not random. Clients generally download the rarest pieces first. That way, the torrent is less likely to break when the swarm disappears. If everyone downloads the most popular pieces first, then as the swarm shrinks, clients will soon only have pieces that everyone else has and nobody's downloads would finish.
- huhtenberg 14y agoThe essence of uT is its ability to download. In that I'm perfectly fine with uT supporting in-order downloading, but any content-specific functionality is a feature bloat. It's a slippery slope that it is just all too easy to follow.