Filed under: Software, Internet, Software Update
Transmission .90 released
Transmission - the open source, lightweight BitTorrent client that is the closest alternative to uTorrent that us Mac users can get - has just released version .90.New features added in this update include:
- Encryption support (finally!), with an option to ignore unencrypted peers
- The ability to ban peers that send too much bad data
- Reporting only downloaded and verified good data to the tracker
- Improved BitTorrent compliance and more
For OS X users, specific updates include:
A per-torrent action menu, optimizations to decrease memory usage, and general changes/updates to the interface to make managing files easier and to provide users with more options.
Note: Users upgrading from version .72 or earlier will lose any data from uncompleted downloads, so please beware and either move your torrents to another program or finish downloads before installing the upgrade.
[via Digg]

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Pete said 11:40AM on 10-24-2007
Might have to give it a go now but only if it can seed from two different drives (internal and external) at the same time.
Can anyone comment?
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Christina Warren said 11:52AM on 10-24-2007
Pete, I know you could in version .82 -- I haven't tried that specifically with .90 (I haven't had a chance to do more than open it up and look at the new interface). I'll try to get confirmation for you.
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Waldorf said 11:53AM on 10-24-2007
This should work fine.
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mikel egurra said 12:02PM on 10-24-2007
i updated, not from .72, and had three crashes on the first hour. had to leave after that, but i'm not too happy with the upgrade.
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Dannel said 12:15PM on 10-24-2007
I'm sorry to be the troll but...wow...comment #1 didn't even make a bit of sense. I'd actually like to see an example of a torrent client that isn't threaded or allows you to select a space on the visible filesystem.
Seriously wow, I'm going to go shake my head now. I know this isn't a helpful comment, but wow.
In any case, I kind of like that encryption is forced on by default. I don't see a reason people wouldn't encrypt their transfers to begin with.
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Kishen said 12:15PM on 10-24-2007
can someone explain the encryption feature? Does it mean that snoopers can't tell what you're downloading?
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liam said 12:22PM on 10-24-2007
on the first post,
you can with the previous version. i am seeding something that's actually on my network server, over wireless right now. so it is possible to do, you just have to change the setting in the preferences pane to ask where you want things to be saved. otherwise it saves in the folder the torrent file came from.
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Az vs Tm said 12:23PM on 10-24-2007
I really like the interface and small footprint of Transmission, but I just can't get any speed out of it. I have a 6mb connection and I can get speeds over 350+ kB/s within 15 minutes of opening a well-seeded torrent with good swarm speed when using Azureus.
Transmission sits for hours at 35 kB/s before spiking up, if it does at all. It just won't connect to enough seeds and peers. What a waste.
I have all my settings fine tuned, all needed ports opened and a great ratio. Transmission is just slower and it's a shame.
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joe said 12:27PM on 10-24-2007
this is GREAT news.
in the past month, Clearwire has been throttling my download speed pretty hard. 2 weeks ago downloaded Azureus/Vuze reluctantly so i could use encryption. Man, what a POS that is - just SO slow, even though my download speeds were back up to par.
Tonight i'll go upgrade to Transmission 0.9 and erase every bit of Azureus off my Mac.
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SalizarMarxx said 1:00PM on 10-24-2007
yeah I have the same speed issue.
Even though I'm connected to 50+ hosts transmission refuses to connect to any more than 15 tops.
It has no problem opening out bound connections though, I can usually seed to 25+ people at a time, even with a 50k cap.
I downloaded Az, this morning and within minutes I had increased my speed 3 fold from the same torrent...
Until transmission can fix this stuff its just not worth it...
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Scott said 1:25PM on 10-24-2007
I've been using Transmission .82 and had the same problem with slow downloads. Last night I played around with .90 and was surprised at how much faster the download speed was. I don't know if it has anything to do with connecting to encrypted torrents, but I was getting 3x the transfer rate than I was previously.
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flec65 said 1:27PM on 10-24-2007
Ditto with the speed issue here. I absolutely love the UI and features of Transmission and give it a new chance at every 0.X release but I kept getting back to Azureus for its speed. With the same settings and torrents, Transmission never take off and always slow down to a crawl compared to Azureus.Too bad...
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Stephen Lang said 1:45PM on 10-24-2007
Great, this is just in time for downloading Leopard before Friday! ;-)
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Pete said 1:59PM on 10-24-2007
@ Dannel #5
Maybe I should have worded my question differently.
I know Transmission can theoretically do it but how does it perform in real life?
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Dylan said 2:24PM on 10-24-2007
I love the simplicity of this program. It is definitely my favorite torrent program on the mac. It seems to download fast enough for me, but i'm not sure if maybe i'm missing out on some speed. hmm.
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Peter said 3:52PM on 10-24-2007
is anyone else haveing trouble with the system after upgrading? It looks like Transmission is making the computer go much slower!
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mim said 5:54PM on 10-24-2007
Try out "deluge". It can be obtained using the MacPorts. It supports encryption and it's like uTorrent but for Linux. :)
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Nick said 6:35PM on 10-24-2007
Same speed issue as the other folks here. Part of the reason I like torrent so much is because you can get new files quickly. What's the point in using Transmission if it will take me twice as long to download? I'll keep using Azureus, thanks.
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rp said 7:59PM on 10-24-2007
Im not sure why anyone would suggest that Az is speedy. Perhaps it is speedier than Transmission, but when you compare snails to slugs there isn't going to be much of a difference.
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guerro said 10:40AM on 10-25-2007
It should read, "We mac users..." not, "Us mac users...." Think about how it would sound if you left out "mac users". Would you say it is the best torrent client US can get? Or the best WE can get ? Just trying to help.
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