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This is an interesting space to watch. Over the years, we've seen the cycle happen half a dozen times, where the dominant Bittorrent client gets too big, bloat
by jasonkester 13y ago
This is an interesting space to watch. Over the years, we've seen the cycle happen half a dozen times, where the dominant Bittorrent client gets too big, bloated, and spywarish so somebody introduces a new one with an intentionally silly name meant to evoke just how tiny, pico, µ, (or in this case bare) it is and how it will never ever bloat out like that thing it replaced.
Then it starts adding features. Then it starts getting big. Then somebody starts offering enough ad money that maybe the idea of a tiny little banner ad isn't such a bad idea after all. Then a few years go by, somebody discovers a rootkit in the installer for the 300mb version 4.2.1.12, and gets annoyed enough to once again implement the protocol in 22kb, name it "scrunchyTorrent" and release it.
It's quite fascinating.
- lbenes 13y agoBoth qBittorrent and deluge both already fill this open source, minimalistic libtorrent space. There's actually over 20 other GUIs for libtorrent.[1] I've tried most of them and we don't need yet another µtorrent 1.6 imitator based on libtorrent. We needs more developers to help optimize the libtorrent library so it can download as fast as utorrent and help fix some of the core bugs and memory leaks. In addition, there is still no open source replacement for Bittorrent Sync or streaming torrents. Yes, some clients allow sequential downloading, but this is bad for the health of the swarm. Like most open source projects, it's easy to find GUI developers and hard to find volunteers to work on the difficult problems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libtorrent#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libtorrent#Applications
- tlarkworthy 13y agogenerally I find the libraries are good and the GUIs suck in open source, but I totally agree with you that in the torrent space its reversed. weird.
- wslh 13y agoDoes libtorrent include Bittorrent Sync or streaming? If not how much effort ($$$) is to add them?
- steeve 13y agoI'm using rasterbar's libtorrent for a project of mine and I find it already downloads as fast as uTorrent (likely because it implements uTP).
- mcdougall 13y agoI'm the baretorrent developer. > This is an interesting space to watch. Over the years, we've seen the cycle happen half a dozen times This is not specific to torrent clients. Feature-creep is common. Since this was posted to HN, there's been a couple of posts of the baretorrent forums (and I've received a few emails) about feature requests. Software does not necessarily get bloated because developers keep coming up with new ideas, it's mostly because every user wants something more. Saying no pisses people off, but I'm hoping I can move most of the requests over to extensions. > Then somebody starts offering enough ad money that maybe the idea of a tiny little banner ad isn't such a bad idea after all. Don't worry, I'll tag the source just before that happens so someone sane can fork it. [edit: also, I'm really sad that I didn't think of "scrunchyTorrent" before]
- equilibrium 13y agoany plans on making it retina ready?
- mcdougall 13y agoWhat happens to it on a retina display?
- equilibrium 13y agothe text is blurry, much like a lot of the apps that hand't had retina support when the rMBP was released.
- mcdougall 13y agoThis is going to be hard to test, as I don't have the hardware, but I'll look it up. Thanks!