BitTorrent 7.11.0 build 47117 / 44.0.1.3 Beta (Project Maelst

Overview

BitTorrent is the veteran, the ancestor, the beginning of all BitTorrent clients there is. Its technology allows for a simple and painless download of large files – movies, music, applications. BitTorrent is the basics, the foundation necessary for any newcomer to the P2P, peer-to-peer, sharing wonderland. Its simplistic, yet intuitive approach makes access to the long-awaited downloads a matter of seconds. Naturally, the speed of a download depends on a number of factors, like your connection speed, availability of peers, size of files, etc. Please, note: illegal downloads of content protected by copyright law may get you in trouble. We strongly recommend you stick to free-to-download movies and music, or pay for the licensed material.

Installation

Installation comes with a lot of bundled applications that are supposed to assist users in getting hold of media content without using browsers. This is a definite Con for someone who does not like applications interfere with anything but their specific purpose. Unless you want Raptr app to download and play free-to-play PC games, or Torrent Tweet additional bundle which works 50% of the times you want to use it. Another bundle installs BitDefender powered antivirus. Overall mess the installation creates is aggravating. If you choose to block the bundle manager from your Firewall, the installation stops altogether. Moreover, the purpose of bundling antivirus and social marketing apps with torrent downloads and free PC games is quite vague. BitTorrent also comes with so-called DNA. The publisher's website calls it "Delivery Network Acceleration" protocol, but other than a vague description, it's difficult to define what exactly it does.

Interface

Once launched, the program greets the user with a plain unattractive interface, similar to that of uTorrent, divided into two parts: main section with search box which allows for easy browsing and finding the media you wish to download, and the smaller section containing numerous options to check download's status, receive RSS content and explore App Studio. The user experience is positive due to simple and quite friendly interface. You can pause, stop, resume, remove downloads from the list. There are numerous statistic data at the bottom of the window showing the number of peers, countries, connection speed, and other metrics.

Pros

• Simple and user-friendly interface
• Basic download options
• Fast and easy download of large files
• Multiple downloads simultaneously
• Option to pause and restart download
• Set upload and download speed limits option allows for better controlling your speed limits
• Ability to label content with keywords creating quick access to categories and genres

Cons

• No transcoding
• No remote management
• No torrent ratings
• Plain looking interface
• Too many bundled items
• In-built search box opens a web browser tab

Alternatives

Vuze and Deluge are direct competitors to BitTorrent, each of them boast of a large number of cool features, and a lot less bundled items and those that threaten your PC's security and integrity. Vuze offers built-in search box that displays results in the application and offers user ratings for the files. This helps a lot identifying good files and sorting out the bad ones. Vuze offers a superior user experience according to any criteria you would suggest for a torrent client.

Conclusion

BitTorrent is undoubtedly a capable client offering a simple and straightforward interface and an easy way to download large multimedia files. It is a solid piece of software with nifty features like Apps and Labels, but the amount of unnecessary bundled items that come with the installation is too much for privacy minded folks. See it for yourself whether this is the best option for you.