Which P2P/BitTorrent application do you guys use?

List:

Xunlei 5: P2P/BT client and download manager.

Pros:
-It's fast. Ridiculously fast. It was at least 200% faster (3x the speed) than µTorrent for a whole bunch of .torrent files I tried, getting speeds like 2.8MB/s when µTorrent maxed out at one-tenths of that.
-"Offline download" P2SP feature; queues the file for download to a server with very high upload speed and frees up your connection. Informs you when it is finished, and you can opt to download directly from the high-speed server.
-Can be used to replace browser FTP downloads; uses multiple browser signatures and peers to avoid single-user bandwidth limits.

Cons:
-Comes bundled with generic adware and malware, although can be suppressed and removed easily.
-Is entirely in Chinese. English patches exist, but they are of very old versions.
-CPU usage is on the high end.
-Compulsory filesharing: your idle bandwidth will be used to download data for other Xunlei peers in order to speed up their downloads.
-As a consequence of spoofing browser signatures to achieve high download speeds, it modifies port settings erratically and will occasionally affect the 6112-6119 block used by StarCraft and other Blizzard games.

µTorrent: BT client.

Pros:
-Popular BT client. Very small executable (300KB) and low CPU usage.
-Small and efficient, supports most features that are present in other BT clients
-Installation is trivial, no forcibly bundled adware.
-Multiplatform

Cons:
-Upload speeds often hung at maximum upload bandwidth (even with good torrents) and interferes with regular network traffic.
-Exclusive BT client

Vuze/Azureus: BT client.

Pros:
-Very complete in features
-Content search and publishing
-Tor network
-Swarm view

Cons:
-Bloatware
-Bundles with adware
-High CPU usage and poor bandwidth management

BitComet:

Pros:
-...

Cons:
-Goddamn. Padding. Files.
-Shitty support.

I've always maxed out on speeds with uTorrent. Do you have scene torrents or shitty public trackers? That'd be your problem.

I shudder to think what content of dubious legality you download!

What do you mean by "maxed out" on uTorrent? As in, the highest possible permitted by your connection?

@Cent:

>_>

<_<

*Disclaimer: I do not encourage sharing of copyrighted content. Obviously, we're talking about the legal uses of P2P clients and the BitTorrent protocol, k? >.>

µTorrent here. It's low memory and CPU usage make it so that I don't even notice that I have it running in the background. It's always downloaded files at near top speed for me, usually hitting over 180 kB/s. The problem with comparing torrent download speeds is that it really depends a lot on how fast your peers' connection is and how many there are. I've had some download peak at 90 kB/s because of this, and have had others stay a consistent 200 kB/s and not drop more than about 5 kB/s for more than a few seconds during the whole download. If you had 3x the speed with Xunlei than with µTorrent, I can see that it had to do more with the peers than the actual torrent software.

I used to use BitLord but now I just use uTorrent.

I used to use Azureus a while ago, then it turned into Vuze and I switched to uTorrent.

I use Vuze, but with the classic interface. More recent versions actually start up fairly fast, enough though I have a lot of torrents still remaining in my list for seeding.

Here's a first-hand comparison of the same torrent downloaded with Xunlei and µTorrent:
(Labels: Name, size, progress, speed, peers, remaining time, elapsed time)

With Xunlei, mid-download: (speeds peaked at 1.8MB/s occasionally but this is the average rate)

9 minutes to download a 800MB torrent.

The same .torrent file opened in the latest build of µTorrent:


EDIT> "Time added" got cut off (oops), but it was 7:03. So a total of about 30 minutes.

µTorrent used half as much RAM and consumed less CPU than Xunlei, but downloaded a lot slower. They were both ran using the shitty laptop but I expect to have similar results regardless of which computer I'm using. I'm not sure what you meant by "shitty public trackers"; elaborate please?

I'd stay away from this one, personally. Sounds like it doesn't want to play nice with established protocols.

With Xunlei you are downloading from 41 people out of 161 people who currently have the torrent. With µTorrent we see you downloading from 16 people out of a possible 121. Generally if you download from more people, your download is faster.

Xunlei may be better at autodetecting your port settings, but if you get the settings right in uTorrent it should be able to easily max out your bandwidth, I've gotten plenty of torrents(usually the legal ones) to go well over 2 MB/s on uTorrent.

I use Vuze since it's made in Java and I can use it on linux. I find it fairly fast when I need to use it.

uTorrent. Yay for a dingy green logo that could have been made in paint in a matter of 80 secon....wait I might have just stumbled across something here....

uTorrent. No complications, no problems. <3

Aristocrat, you haven't port-forwarded correctly. It seems like that Chinese one doesn't need to, so that'd be your problem. I like my ports simple and having boundaries.
If you don't know the difference between a public and a private tracker, you shouldn't be torrenting.

Cut down on the animosity, will you?

I assumed that you meant "you are using some public trackers that are shittier than others by comparison", but evidently you seem to blanket-brand all public trackers as "shitty". I do not see why you consider public trackers to be inherently inferior to private ones;

Public trackers:
-Widely used and open, high user count
-Can be used as long as you have a BT client, anonymous download
-infected/corrupt files easily detected by reading comments
-Resilient existence, not trivial to shut down by law enforcement
-Popular venue to distribute content
-Simple to create a new torrent

Private trackers:
-Invite-only or requiring registration, sometimes "sold" via a mandatory donation
-Client blocking (Not reasonable client bans like BitThief, but rather blockage of clients that the administration simply doesn't like such as Azureus)
-Strictly enforced UL/DL ratio quotas that lock you out
-Negligible download speed advantage
-Requires a shitton of port forwarding for you to get uploading credit (and you will get autobanned if you forget to do this)
-"Donator" advantages that equate to "buying" data
-Shitty sadistic administration that can get you blacklisted from all of its affiliates for no reason whatsoever
-Elitist douchebaggery from "established" community members
-Almost exclusively used for copyright infringement purposes
-Very high potential to be shut down if found by law enforcement (lifetime unstable and may be very short)

These are the reasons to use a private tracker:
>getting caught
>download speeds
It depends mostly on the torrent, but the second one is pretty much moot. Anonymous public trackers have no incentive to seed (I usually don't). I only use public trackers since there is nothing a private tracker can offer me. I usually just use filestube or rs.

Make sure you have PeerGuardian configured correctly to send the signal out to your tinfoil hat BiOAtK.

I am a BitTorrent man, but I used to be really big on Limewire for a few years.
Now I am currently redeeming myself by buying all the CDs I have downloaded from Limewire. Almost done..

I mainly use BitTorrent for videos and some random custom content.