Xtorrent and Inquisitor officially out of beta
When it comes to 'lickable' interface design, there's no question that indie Mac developer David Watanabe is a top practitioner. His latest projects, the BitTorrent client Xtorrent (discussed here in beta form) and Safari search extender Inquisitor v3 are both debuting as full-fledged, bye-bye-beta products today. Inquisitor is free, and Xtorrent's Pro mode will set you back $20; the unregistered version has a download speed throttle among other limitations.Xtorrent's journey through the beta process has resulted in some criticisms leveled: for the use of open-source code from the Transmission project that may cause problems with some torrent trackers, and for Mr. Watanabe's sometimes brusque approach to customer service. While I can't speak to the tracker issues (in general, if one torrent client doesn't work for you, try another), we have an example of good end-user experience handling with Xtorrent and a point raised by our own David Chartier about the rather harsh phrasing of the license entry dialog (over here on this Flickr thread, of all places). The developer responded to the criticism not only with a rephrased dialog (requiring a new build) but also with a license code recovery page on the Xtorrent website. Well played, sir.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mat Lu said 1:36PM on 3-26-2007
Just for the record: I bought and use Xtorrent and whatever you want to say about DW, it works extremely well for my searching and downloading purposes.
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morgan said 2:20PM on 3-26-2007
i too bought xtorrent, as i find it extremely easy to use and better than any other torrent program i have tried. however, DW's registration message was unacceptable.
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Word Diggity said 2:31PM on 3-26-2007
Hm. It's nice to see him actually respond positively to user feedback, but I think I'll stick with Azureus unless and until a Mac version of uTorrent shows up.
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maique said 3:06PM on 3-26-2007
i've been using it for some time and, apart from the ocasional crash, works great.
yesterday, after i noticed the download limit (via warning that it was no longer beta) i bought it.
i paid for the lifetime option, let's see how it goes.
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ChrisD said 3:51PM on 3-26-2007
I stop using NewsFire some time ago, switching to Vienna. Why? Despite the fact that I'm a paying customer, support issues went unanswered.
Having said that, I paid for an Xtorrent license. Why? It's the nicest Mac Bittorrent client I've seen.
Dave truly does good work. It is unfortunate, though, that he only responds to user pressure when the pressure becomes very great and very public. Responding to individuals doesn't seem to be the 'right thing' for him to do...
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divid said 3:19PM on 3-26-2007
I bought Xtorrent last month because it was so easy to use. I never really used torrents, but the app is open all the time. I think it was worth every penny. The only thing I would like to see is single-file-downloading in a multiple file torrent.
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Julien said 3:28PM on 3-26-2007
Out of beta, back to Azureus, even if it's suckier, xtorrent isn't worth 20 bucks, at all.
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Linh said 3:43PM on 3-26-2007
I got this before I knew how bad the Transmission library was and how it was banned by so many trackers.
I really do like the interface, but that fact above keeps me w/ az. I will give utorret in parallels a shot, but it seems a little impractical to have an entire windows VM running for torrents.
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Dave Chartier said 3:50PM on 3-26-2007
I just bought Xtorrent and absolutely love it. I don't do a *ton* of torrenting, but I haven't run into any tracker issues though. What happens? Are you simply not allowed to download something? Or do you not get ahold of as many seeders to download from?
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Roberto Felgueiras said 4:33PM on 3-26-2007
Personally, as much as I like the program, I think it's stupid to force users to buy the "Pro" version of your app. He is trying to pitch the "Pro" version as an upgrade, yet all Xtorrent is demo version of the pro, with caps on it. It's a shady way of pitching your wares, I'll be looking elsewhere, thank you.
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Peter said 4:36PM on 3-26-2007
Yes! More charging for open source software.
He's such a dodgy guy...
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Mat Lu said 4:42PM on 3-26-2007
I seriously don't understand this. Even if the underlying engine is defective in some ways (whether because it's banned or because DW supposedly "stole" it, or whatever) the simple fact of the matter is, I can go to Xtorrent, search for what I want in the search field, find it, click download and leave. A little later I get a Growl notification that says it's been downloaded. No fuss, no muss. It's the best torrent experience out there for casual users like me. I know that hard core bittorrenters much prefer other options (I myself used to use Azureas), but I like Xtorrent and I put my money where my mouth is EVEN if DW is sometimes a bit of a ****.
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Tyrone Rugen said 5:16PM on 3-26-2007
Well thanks to MR's subtle link, and the 10kbps cap Xtorrent introduced yesterday, I am now the happy runner of BitRocket. As another casual user, I can quote Mat Lu above: "I can go to [BitRocket], search for what I want in the search field, find it, click download and leave. A little later I get a Growl notification that says it's been downloaded. No fuss, no muss." Sure, it won't search all your sites simultaneously, nor within the program—but a small price to pay, to pay no price at all. If it really bugs you, put your time where your mouth is—that's what open-source is about. And it's still a little lickable too.
Why doesn't the Xtorrent demo function like the Acquisition demo? Why doesn't clicking the magnifying glass re-search like in Acquisition? I don't know, but I'm not much interested anymore.
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Donovan said 2:47PM on 3-27-2007
On Inquisitor:
"It’s free, it will always be free..."
Except for those who paid for it weeks before it was made free. Sadly, even a credit equal to the former value of Inquisitor towards another one of his apps and another potentially happy user was far too much for DW to be bothered with.
Now, I wouldn't buy another one of his apps even if it was worth the price. Smart service.
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starwxrwx said 9:25PM on 3-26-2007
You just can't beat Azureus :) No I don't find it to be a memory hog at all.
Paying for not being able to select individual files in a torrent? That's just crazy talk.
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Yoshi Likes Boys said 10:53AM on 3-27-2007
So many shareware developers on the Mac are so nice, stand behind the product, and embrace the right ideals of the platform, and then there's crap like this and VISUALHUB (the worst ever, because the first thing a registered user wants to hear is a synthesized voice at his computer saying "hey, why are you using pirated software?") that exemplifies all the WRONG things about indie software development. I will happily shell out cash for professional companies (Speed Download being my gold standard) who do business the right way, but I'd rather shoot myself in the face than pay DW or Techspansion another cent.
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Biffo said 10:43AM on 3-27-2007
In my humble opinion, there is nothing here that is worth paying for.
In fact the disadvantages of using any client based on libtransmission, far outweigh the advantages.
And that's before you factor in the point that Watanabe's an a$$hole.
Personally I'm looking forward to the day when this gets available on the p2p networks, just for the irony of it :D
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