Filed under: Software, Internet, Internet Tools
Mac Torrent clients reviewed
We all love OS X, but any Mac user with half a brain will admit that there are some areas in which the Windows world has us beat. When it comes to BitTorrent clients, Windows users have a veritable cornucopia of options to chose from, while us Mac users have a paltry 5 choices. TorrenFreak, always dedicated to excellence in the peer-to-peer realm, decided to take a look at all of the dedicated BitTorrent clients for the Mac. The reviewer considered the whole package of features, interface, and speed. As some of the more torrent astute readers might guess, Transmission and Bits On Wheels came out on top, with Tomato Torrent, Azureus, and the official BitTorrent client trailing behind.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Michel said 11:15AM on 9-04-2006
choices are not GOOD because there are choices.
choices are good when there are GOOD softwares WE can choose. nothing else.
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SW said 11:20AM on 9-04-2006
Bits on Wheels is vapourware. Transmission is great for the simplicity. Azeureus for those troublesome torrents.
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David Chartier said 11:21AM on 9-04-2006
Well said Michel. 5 doesn't sound so bad, as I've found one that works darn well.
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Bill I said 11:35AM on 9-04-2006
I was a die-hard Transmisison user...until it was banned by the tracker I used the most: OiNK.
So I went hunting for a replacement BT client, and after trying a couple (Azureus, and Tomato), I settled on Bram's official client. It's interface, although not as lickably beautiful as Transmission's, is at least *similar* to Transmission's. Aside from that, I tend to get better speeds with the official client than I did with Transmission (especially the 0.6 release), and I have the ability to create torrents.
So, if I had my choice, I'd use Transmission for it's zen-like interface and utilitarian feature set, but since I'm forced to something else, my vote is for the official client.
And, honestly, I can't completely understand why the official client gets such a bad shake? It's not a resource hog, it's interface is "good enough," I get decent speeds with it, and I can create torrents. Am I missing something?
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Noel said 12:19PM on 9-04-2006
I'm personally a long time Azureus user. It's always worked well and continued to get better over time with the inclusion of even more and more features. I'm tempted to give transmission a try though. I'm a little curioius.
It seems all the good torrent sites need a password these days. How would i get into OiNK or Demoniod?? Are there any other good sites??
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Bill I said 12:32PM on 9-04-2006
To become a member of OiNK or Demonoid you would need an invite (for OiNK) or an invitation code (for Demonoid) which can only be received from a current member of the service you're looking to join.
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E said 1:02PM on 9-04-2006
Transmission is a bit useless because it's banned from so many trackers (both public and private) for not adhering to the announce intervals and reporting back bad stats. The interface is excellent though. Bits on wheels and Tomato Torrent aren't worth mentioning (oops).
Azureus is the best around for OS X by far (this is not saying much). Sure, it uses up about 50MB of RAM and the interface is very Windows but at least it's not banned everywhere, supports encryption, is a universal binary and has selective downloading. It's as good as uTorrent really and it is my client of choice until something better comes along.
If the feature-set of Azureus could be married with the interface and memory footprint of Transmission that would be perfect.
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Liam Parkinson said 1:26PM on 9-04-2006
any chance someone could invite me to oink? parkinsonliam@googlemail.com
i would be very greatful :)
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fmem said 2:01PM on 9-04-2006
I've settled with the official BT client since I can use it everywhere, unlike transmission, and it doesn't make my ibook burst into flames like Azureus.
The big flaw of the official client, though, is that it can't limit download speeds! Honestly, what gives?
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jgjay said 2:08PM on 9-04-2006
"As some of the more torrent astute readers might guess, Transmission and Bits On Wheels came out on top, with Tomato Torrent, Azureus, and the official BitTorrent client trailing behind."
Umm... WHAT!?
Quote, from the article...
"Clearly, feature-wise Azureus is the winner. Bits on Wheels and Transmission are both great alternatives to BitTorrent OSX. If only Bits on Wheels would be updated more often and Transmission become standards-compliant and both of them allow Selective Downloading, they might start taking back some market share."
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Mephistophelian said 8:04PM on 9-04-2006
Tomato torrent for me. Simple, resource friendly and reasonably good speeds can be acheived. I just wish all my downloads could be shown in one window rather than many scattered over my desktop.
I also use the Applescript and Mail rule that auomatically opens Torrent files for me if I email them to my home computer from work.
It's been linked to before but here it is again.
http://www.bigbucketblog.com/2006/06/12/email-activated-torrent-downloader/
Well worth the effort, just modify the script to suit your Torrent client of choice.
M.
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Jamie said 10:49PM on 9-04-2006
Azureus is by far the best, and only decent torrent client for mac. For people running older, less powerful mac's I can understand not wanting to use it. All of the other torrent clients are woefully inadequate on the features front. As for download speeds azureus is faster than the others too, but only when properly configured, this is the key to azureus, you MUST spend the time setting it up correctly to get the best out of it.
Anyone saying any other torrent client is faster than azureus has not taken the time to configure it correctly.
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nexttimereadthearticle said 11:30PM on 9-04-2006
When you say : "As some of the more torrent astute readers might guess, Transmission and Bits On Wheels came out on top"
AND the article clearly states : "Clearly, feature-wise Azureus is the winner"
It shows that you are either :
a) not one of the aformentioned 'astute readers'
b) far too busy to research all that you blog
c) both of the above
keep up the ...er, work
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rol said 1:44AM on 9-05-2006
I use BOW and am very pleased with the download speeds, and have never experienced any malfunctions. Am I missing out on something? Is there truly something better out there? Really, what makes one client better than another? BOW consistently supplies me with what I ask for in an expedient fashion without any hassle. What else is there that I am missing out on? Please illuminate…
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John Gaskell said 2:13AM on 9-05-2006
I'd like an invite as well! mrgaskell gmail com
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Andy said 4:19AM on 9-05-2006
If your ISP uses traffic shaping to restrict your p2p bandwidth then use Azureus to encrypt and bypass ISP imposed limits ;-)
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Jens Offersen said 11:02AM on 9-05-2006
I have one word.... BitRocket http://www.bitrocket.org
Best Torrent app ever!
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mark said 11:49AM on 9-05-2006
I'm running Azureus as a daemon (headless) with a dashboard widget as interface.
I couldn't imagine a better torrent client, it just works perfect.
Not hogging my system at all and still have all the features Azureus offers.
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fmem said 3:55AM on 9-06-2006
How can I find info on this headless azureus?
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:: sninesix :: said 8:55PM on 9-11-2006
Azureus. Why? Only because I can use it on all platforms which makes it a lot easier to instruct others on getting started with the torrent world. Azureus does the job and with every release it gets better. On my 12" 1.5GHz G4 it does become a resource hog when transfer speeds heat up. a 160K/sec transfer will easily chew up 25% user cpu (menu meters are the best and everyone should have them installed).
It's great to be able to jump on a friend's Mac or PC (hell even a linux box) and set them up with Azureus and have it be completley familiar.
I will say that I'm excited to see the new release from David Watanabe (Acquisition fame) come about. Taking torrents to a true OS X integration. Not out yet and was just on Digg. Look for it!
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