# good bittorrent client for mac



## godwin (Dec 10, 2005)

Hello, 

I recently got a mac again, and so far I am loving it, the only thing I can not do on a mac is bittorrent. I tried several clients but without any sucess. Can anyone recommend a good bittorrent client for mac? 

thanks very much,
godwin


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

Transmission


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

Transmission, as Vexel said. Though I can't claim to be an impartial source.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

HowEver said:


> How so?
> 
> Transmission ftw btw.



Ever take a look at the Transmission homepage or forums?


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## zlinger (Aug 28, 2007)

Transmission for sure... the easiest and most reliable. I tried Tomato Torrent, and it sucked.. Azeurus advanced, but could not get it configured.


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## coyoteblue (May 26, 2007)

I'm liking Tomato better than Transmission.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## Daktari (Feb 21, 2005)

John Clay said:


> Transmission, as Vexel said. Though I can't claim to be an impartial source.


:clap: Great job.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I refuse to use an app that has an automatic transmission shift as an icon.


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## DDKD726 (Feb 21, 2005)

i've been using xtorrent, it's pretty good.

With Transmission - how do I search for torrents???


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

DDKD726 said:


> i've been using xtorrent, it's pretty good.
> 
> With Transmission - how do I search for torrents???


Transmission does not have a built-in search engine for torrents - almost no clients do. Xtorrent, based up on a MUCH older version of the libTransmission library, searches places like mininova.org and other public torrent aggregators to present the results.


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## pictor (Jan 29, 2007)

dona83 said:


> I refuse to use an app that has an automatic transmission shift as an icon.


.... is that seriously your objection?

or are you making a funny?

Change the icon then. There are any number of ways of doing it.


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

@John Clay: congratulation on the excellent job on Transmission.

Quick question about transmission: can you tunnel transmission content over an ssh tunnel?

@Dona83: I'd rather see this icon as a semi automated shift to change gears as seen in formula one cars than a basic automatic one


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

harzack86 said:


> @John Clay: congratulation on the excellent job on Transmission.
> 
> Quick question about transmission: can you tunnel transmission content over an ssh tunnel?
> 
> @Dona83: I'd rather see this icon as a semi automated shift to change gears as seen in formula one cars than a basic automatic one


To be honest, I haven't tried ssh tunneling of a connection. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't work, if properly configured.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Azureus works for me. 

Has anyone used both Transmission and Azureus to know if there is any speed advantage with Transmission over Azureus as this would be the only reason for me to switch.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

screature said:


> Azureus works for me.
> 
> Has anyone used both Transmission and Azureus to know if there is any speed advantage with Transmission over Azureus as this would be the only reason for me to switch.


They're approximately the same. Where Transmission comes out on top is with resource management and UI - Transmission shouldn't use more than 10% of any PPC processor, and uses less than 3% of my iMac. It also doesn't use that much RAM, compared to Java.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

John Clay said:


> They're approximately the same. Where Transmission comes out on top is with resource management and UI - Transmission shouldn't use more than 10% of any PPC processor, and uses less than 3% of my iMac. It also doesn't use that much RAM, compared to Java.


So when you say it wins out in system overhead and UI, is it also easy to set up? Sounds like maybe I should give it a try.


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

I use both Azureus and Transmission though I'm partial to Azureus because it has more features, such as selective downloading - you get to choose what files contained in the torrent that you want to download instead of wasting time downloading the whole thing when all you want is one or two files.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

irontree said:


> I use both Azureus and Transmission though I'm partial to Azureus because it has more features, such as selective downloading - you get to choose what files contained in the torrent that you want to download instead of wasting time downloading the whole thing when all you want is one or two files.


Transmission supports selective downloading, as well as encryption .


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

screature said:


> So when you say it wins out in system overhead and UI, is it also easy to set up? Sounds like maybe I should give it a try.


Yes, very simple setup.


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

also there are a lot of plugins for Azureus such as SafePeer. "The SafePeer plugin prevents Azureus from exchanging data with lots of (not all!) bad IPs, for example companies that are paid to sniff around or slow down downloads."
Wonder if this can aid in boosting speed?


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

John Clay said:


> Transmission supports selective downloading, as well as encryption .


How so? It doesn't automatically give me the option when I start a download. Do you have to enable something in the preferences?


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

nevermind... I see where you can choose. I thought you had to do this before the actual download started


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I decided to try transmission and compare it to Azureus, but I can't get transmission to start. Is there something special I need to do?

I downloaded the tracker or whatever you need, opened it in both Azureus and Transmission.
After one hour, Azureus shows 6(17) seeds and 37 Megs downloaded, Transmission shows the file in the window but has downloaded nothing. It's not on pause - download and upload rates are at default.
Do I need to click on something to start the download?

I'm not really very familiar with bit torrents - I hardly use them. Sorry if I overlooked the obvious.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I poked around in Transmission some more, ie looked at every preference, and I think the problem is that the port is not "open".
The default port was 9090 if I remember right - I changed that to port 49153 because that's one of the ones Azureus recommends, but that port stays closed as well.
The information on Transmission talks about ways to open this either via the router or airport. But what happens if you use neither a router or airport?

I have the OS X firewall turned on in the stealth mode - is that the problem?

There is a "Bittorrent" option in the firewall setting. It was not enabled, but Azureus was downloading anyway.

Any suggestions what to do re Transmission?

PS:

So I turned on the "BitTorrent" port in the OS X firewall. It looks as if this enables port 49152 only, so I changed the setting in Transmission to port 49152.
Still nothing while Azureus is happily downloading.

I remember I had this problem last time I tried to use Transmission quite a while back. At that time I didn't know anything about bittorrents - still don't know much, but I wouldn't consider Transmission easy to use at all.
The default settings should allow one to download without a lot of hassle.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

For most users, Transmission does work with no configuration. There seem to be some problems for a small subset of our users, where things don't download at all.... we're looking into it. Port numbers are largely irrelevant, so long as it's not in use by another program and isn't being filtered/throttled by your ISP. If you are directly connected to the net, there is no need to forward anything. Just disable the firewall, or allow access for Transmission/the port you set.

Transmission will download, even if the port is closed. However, if a port is opened, it allows other users to connect to you. This generally gives you better results.

If Transmission isn't working OTB, so to speak, then please try a nightly build from:
Transmission Nightlies
I should, however, note that the above nightly builds are designed for Leopard, but functional in 10.4 (noticable UI glitches).

krs - What is your system info (Processor, OS, network config, etc)?


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

John Clay said:


> Transmission will download, even if the port is closed. However, if a port is opened, it allows other users to connect to you. This generally gives you better results.


Until I changed the setting of the "BitTorrent" port on the OS X firewall just now, it was closed, but I was uploading which I assume was connecting to other users. My total upload was actually larger than my total download.
Enablin that "BitTorrent" option in the firewall software doesn't seem to do anything noticable.



> If Transmission isn't working OTB, so to speak, then please try a nightly build from:
> Transmission Nightlies
> I should, however, note that the above nightly builds are designed for Leopard, but functional in 10.4 (noticable UI glitches).
> 
> krs - What is your system info (Processor, OS, network config, etc)?


System is an old AGB G4 with an upgraded 1.4 MHz processor running OS 10.4.10.
Connected to the net via DSL and Ethernet on the Mac. Have OS X firewall enabled in stealth mode. Only options on in firewall are Network Time, CVS and now Bit Torrent.
Tried downloading at the same time with Transmission and Azureus, now exactly two hours ago. Transmission is still sitting at zero.

I'll try updating Transmission later.


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## cchaynes (Oct 25, 2007)

Xtorrent is fabulous

transmission is brutal by comparison

X torrent requires very little to no config and is fast and easy to use

transmission always seems to make my machine unstable too.....


Xtorrent (for Mac OS X)

also they make a browser plugin called inquisitor ( non torrent related, but fantastic!)Inquisitor 3. Spotlight for the web.


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## jackyk (Jun 22, 2005)

What kind of speed is everyone getting??

I'm on cogeco and its' brutal. I'm port forwarding and even still it sucks. And eventually, ports that I forward suddenly get closed.

I know it's cogeco's port shaping or whatever but what am i doing wrong if you guys can get consistent speeds?

Any specific port to use? I'm using 6346 without forwarding right now and its varying.


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## spoonie (Nov 25, 2007)

dona83 said:


> I refuse to use an app that has an automatic transmission shift as an icon.


hey, it's not like you have to buy and drive it 

This beats the crap out of the bitrocket or bittorrent clients. Nice job John Clay!


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

We just pushed 0.96 out the door, which fixes some rather crucial bugs that somehow slipped by in 0.95. Be sure to grab your copy here:

Transmission


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I still can't get anywhere with transmission.
Downloaded 0.96 -
Now I get a combination of English and French messages.

The English one says:
0 bytes of 351.1 MB (0.00%) - remaining time unknown

and below that there is a French one which says:
Error: Votre IP (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) n'est pas reconnue par le tracker. Veuillez vous enregistrer ou authentifier sur http://www.snowtigers - DL:..........

The IP address where I put the xxx.xxx actually shows what I think is my IP address, not x's as shown.

Any clue what the problem might be?


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

That's a tracker error. Means you need to register or login to the tracker. Unrelated to Transmission. Try something from a public tracker (not just an agregator, like mininova) like legaltorrents.com, or any number of others.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

Legaltorrents is down until Jan 14, 2008.

I just found it odd that part of the message is in English and the other part in French. I didn't select any language when I installed.

I'll try a tracker I downloaded before with Azureus to see if I can get that to work, thanks.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

krs said:


> Legaltorrents is down until Jan 14, 2008.
> 
> I just found it odd that part of the message is in English and the other part in French. I didn't select any language when I installed.
> 
> I'll try a tracker I downloaded before with Azureus to see if I can get that to work, thanks.


The tracker error is something that is parsed directly from the tracker - Transmission does not translate or modify tracker errors.

SnowTigers.net is a French tracker.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

OK - that makes sense.

I gues if one is into torrents one would know that.

I tried a different one and that is working fine - not sure what is different from the previous 0.7 something version I had before where the downloads would just not start. I don't think I changed anything on the Mac - the firewall is definitely still the same.

Download is going relatively fast, but there are a lot of seeders - picked the download based on that criteria.
Transmission gives you tons of information that I don't think Azureus gave you - question is, is it of any use for the average person. It probably comes in handy for troubleshooting if there is a problem.
I'll have to check the help menu to see if all these capabilities are described.


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## imperialis (Dec 2, 2007)

I've used Tomato and Transmission, but Azureus is better. Been using it for some time now.


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## titans88 (Oct 3, 2007)

I would love to use Transmission, but unfortunately the tracker I am a member of only allows me to use Azureus.


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## zlinger (Aug 28, 2007)

dona83 said:


> I refuse to use an app that has an automatic transmission shift as an icon.


I refuse to use a computer that has an apple as a symbol.


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## DDKD726 (Feb 21, 2005)

cchaynes said:


> Xtorrent is fabulous
> 
> X torrent requires very little to no config and is fast and easy to use
> also they make a browser plugin called inquisitor ( non torrent related, but fantastic!)Inquisitor 3. Spotlight for the web.



I agree! 

Step 1 - search
Step 2 - click download

it doesn't get much easier then that... :clap:


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## harzack86 (Jan 30, 2005)

other noticable difference:

Xtorrent = 26$
Transmission = free

Not everyone wants to spend 26$ for a software when it's not used very often. For heavy torrent users, then Xtorrent may make sense.


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## cchaynes (Oct 25, 2007)

i suppose, but honestly the speeds i get on X are superior to transmission.....

that and tranny seems unstable to me


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

imperialis said:


> I've used Tomato and Transmission, but Azureus is better. Been using it for some time now.


What do you think makes Azureus better?

I look at all of these as generic pieces of software with the only difference being the user interface.
Now that Transmission is working for me, I find it slightly more intuitive to use than Azureus although it's still nowhere Mac-like.
The two downloads I tried were also a lot faster than Azureus, but I think that depends more on the number of seeders than the software itself.

One feature I like about Transmission (that I don't think Azureus has) is that you can define the ratio at which you stop seeding - I find that very useful.


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## cchaynes (Oct 25, 2007)

krs said:


> What do you think makes Azureus better?
> 
> I look at all of these as generic pieces of software with the only difference being the user interface.
> Now that Transmission is working for me, I find it slightly more intuitive to use than Azureus although it's still nowhere Mac-like.
> ...


mac like = Xtorrent

i am not meaning to harp, i just really do like it...


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## Vexel (Jan 30, 2005)

cchaynes said:


> i suppose, but honestly the speeds i get on X are superior to transmission.....
> 
> that and tranny seems unstable to me


Then you're getting the wrong torrents. If you're wanting transfer speeds that are good.. you have to get torrents that have a good amount of seeders. 

XTorrent is good for searching and downloading.. but, if you know how to properly search for torrents.. this isn't an issue. 

Also, I've never had any issues with Transmission.


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## cchaynes (Oct 25, 2007)

Vexel said:


> Then you're getting the wrong torrents. If you're wanting transfer speeds that are good.. you have to get torrents that have a good amount of seeders.
> 
> XTorrent is good for searching and downloading.. but, if you know how to properly search for torrents.. this isn't an issue.
> 
> Also, I've never had any issues with Transmission.


in fact i dont use Xtorrent for locating my torrents, but rather do it manually. and as i say i do find better and more stable speeds with X over tranny


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

cchaynes said:


> in fact i dont use Xtorrent for locating my torrents, but rather do it manually. and as i say i do find better and more stable speeds with X over tranny


I don't really understand how you can determine that.
Download speeds vary continuously depending on the number of seeders and the speed they throttle at if any.

To compare the speed of any two torrents, you would have to download the same file at the same time and do that many times to get some reasonably valid statistic.

At least that is my assessment (not knowing anything in detail about torrents)


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## googlefish (Jun 21, 2005)

cchaynes said:


> in fact i dont use Xtorrent for locating my torrents, but rather do it manually. and as i say i do find better and more stable speeds with X over tranny


How do you locate Torrents "manually"? Demonoid was great until it got shut down.


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## pictor (Jan 29, 2007)

hmm...xtorrent trial version is speed limited though isn't it? So I won't know if my speeds improve until I pay for it?


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## DDKD726 (Feb 21, 2005)

pictor said:


> hmm...xtorrent trial version is speed limited though isn't it? So I won't know if my speeds improve until I pay for it?


only limited after 60 mins. I just shut it down and re start it every 60 mins if i'm downloading big files.


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## pictor (Jan 29, 2007)

well, I did try out xtorrent yesterday, and I paid for a license yesterday.

$26 isn't much. I can spend that much on a supper out.

My speeds was exponentially bigger than transmission, like by orders of magnitude more. A big file I have been slowly trickling for the past week, I decided to start over. Overnight, I got back to the same progress level, and when it left work it was estimating 2 hours to go. That's surreal. Transmission was reporting an estimated time left of about 2 days when I abandoned it.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I think it's hard to compare download speeds/time since it constantly changes - at least for me.
I don't quite understand how this all works - one may have 45 seeders shown, but you only receive data from 6 and that number keeps changing up and down as does the download rate and the estimated time to completion.

However, I did try a small 7 Meg file 0f some wallpaper which I didn't really want, but it was a small file with many seeders, so I thought I'd try that and run xtorrent and transmission at the same time to see if there was a difference.

Well, not being familiar with xtorrent, it downloaded the file in a few seconds - ten at most - while I was still trying to see what options I had to look at on the xtorrent screen.
I then downloaded the same file with transmission, maybe 30 seconds later and it took almost 4 minutes.
I was pretty surprised.
One difference between the two applications I noted afterwards is that they use different ports - wonder if that makes a difference.


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## pictor (Jan 29, 2007)

the ports are configurable, but I think I read somewhere that xtorrent does its own port scanning and rotates itself to different ports.

Don't quote me though. All I know is I was getting often 10 times more download speed or better than I ever got on Transmission, all without configuring a single thing.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

The explanation for this is that Xtorrent is based on the older libTransmission-0.82 library, which is faster than the libTransmission-0.96 library that is currently used in Transmission. The reason for the decrease in speed is that the entire torrenting engine was rewritten to support protocol encryption. If speed is the issue, try download version 0.82, which supports file selection but not encryption.
Transmission-0.82.dmg at:
Index of /transmission/files/


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## pictor (Jan 29, 2007)

what am I risking by using the older library? I am not transferring anything right in which I am worried about content (private data that I don't want people to read)


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## zmttoxics (Oct 16, 2007)

John Clay said:


> Ever take a look at the Transmission homepage or forums?


I see what you did there.

Clever.

I am watching you...


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

hey there quick Q for you guys. I'm using Transmission with 10.4.11 and an Intel Core Solo 1.5.
My current download says "downloading from 2 of 50 peers" can anyone explain that? Also when I click on peers each person has a "lock" next to their percentages (all at 100%) Does this mean that they aren't seeding? Thanks for any help! Been trying to get this downloaded for ages.


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

oh and it's version 0.96 of Transmission!


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

pictor said:


> what am I risking by using the older library? I am not transferring anything right in which I am worried about content (private data that I don't want people to read)


You're not risking anything, just losing some features (encryption).


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

The lock means that the connection to that peer is encrypted. Try a nightly build and see if speeds improve.

Transmission Nightlies


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

Ahhh I see... I was wondering what all those locks meant... Almost everything I download lately has these locks next to each user. Just tired the latest build without any difference


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## cchaynes (Oct 25, 2007)

pictor said:


> well, I did try out xtorrent yesterday, and I paid for a license yesterday.
> 
> $26 isn't much. I can spend that much on a supper out.
> 
> My speeds was exponentially bigger than transmission, like by orders of magnitude more. A big file I have been slowly trickling for the past week, I decided to start over. Overnight, I got back to the same progress level, and when it left work it was estimating 2 hours to go. That's surreal. Transmission was reporting an estimated time left of about 2 days when I abandoned it.


LIKE I HAVE BEEN SAYING

also "demonoid is gone so how do i find torrents?

seriously? there are dozens of good sites i cant even be bothered to list


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## spiralgirl (Mar 8, 2007)

godwin,

I just saw this post and haven't read all the pages. My favourite is Azureus for faster downloads and easier access to ports. I'm using Transmission now but can't get both green lights with it so it's driving me nuts. I get stuff but it takes longer to get things it seems.

The only downside to Azureus is the memory that is sucks up.

S.


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## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

Hmmm it seems the torrents that I have been trying to download which are encrypted and (Lock icon next to each peer and consequently stalled), are downloading with ok when resumed by Azureus. Looks like I've been converted! Shame though... I prefer the slim-lined Transmssion to the bloatware of Azureus.


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## 8888neal8888 (Dec 22, 2007)

I really like the simplicity and size of transmission but had troubles getting it to work : ( Azerus is a little large and has more than what i need, but works good : )


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## DDKD726 (Feb 21, 2005)

I've been getting some good speeds from LimeWire for Mac recently...


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## Tays (Jan 22, 2005)

I've tried a wide variety of Bittorrent clients over the years and settled on Transmission about a year ago. The development has been solid, and the simplicity and resource management is topnotch.
...and it's free.


Edit: Thanks, John. :clap:


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## maximusbibicus (Feb 25, 2002)

I am using Transmission and am getting some pretty crappy speeds using Rogers. Set up is Macbook 2.2, connected wirelessly through an Airport Extreme (newest model). 

Last night i was crawling at 10 to 20 down, and up fluctuated quite a bit when the setting was at unlimited, but i usually have it capped at 10 when using the computer and 40 when i am not using it. 

Am i getting throttled? Any tips on increasing speeds? I have read through this thread and picked up a couple tips.

Anything else?


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

You could try requiring encryption (advanced preferences). That will require that all peers connecting to you support and use encryption. This will usually defeat throttling measures.

Rogers does, however, throttle all encrypted traffic... as well as BitTorrent traffic. Bit of a lose-lose situation.

Here is a list of ISPs that attempt to block or hinder torrenting:
Bad ISPs - AzureusWiki


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

It's not the most up to date, but it gives a general idea.


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## matriculated (Jan 2, 2008)

If you guys are encrypting your torrent activity, you may might want to run Peer Guardian as well. It'll block out any ips that are known for snooping on people.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

John Clay said:


> Here is a list of ISPs that attempt to block or hinder torrenting:
> Bad ISPs - AzureusWiki


How can you tell if an ISP is throttling torrent downloads?


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## 5andman (Oct 15, 2006)

krs said:


> How can you tell if an ISP is throttling torrent downloads?


If it takes 3 hours to download 20mg ... you got a problem.


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## 5andman (Oct 15, 2006)

maximusbibicus said:


> I am using Transmission and am getting some pretty crappy speeds using Rogers. Set up is Macbook 2.2, connected wirelessly through an Airport Extreme (newest model).
> 
> Last night i was crawling at 10 to 20 down, and up fluctuated quite a bit when the setting was at unlimited, but i usually have it capped at 10 when using the computer and 40 when i am not using it.
> 
> ...


Stick to versions .93 or .94, the updates so far have sucked.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

5andman said:


> If it takes 3 hours to download 20mg ... you got a problem.


What's an "mg"?


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## maximusbibicus (Feb 25, 2002)

5andman said:


> Stick to versions .93 or .94, the updates so far have sucked.


I am at .96, i don't think i can downgrade.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

It's worth noting that Transmission 1.00 has been released... lots of bug fixes, new features etc.

Transmission

As for download speeds... those are improved in 1.00, but on Rogers you're unlikely to see an increase - Rogers throttles the hell out of torrents.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## 5andman (Oct 15, 2006)

John Clay said:


> It's worth noting that Transmission 1.00 has been released... lots of bug fixes, new features etc.


I'd wait until there's a LOT of feedback. 
Luckily, I archive everything -- so I had .94.
I found the last few updates really sucked.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

HowEver said:


> JC, I see that Leopard is "strongly recommended" for 1.00. Should we stick with pre-1.00 versions for Tiger?


We strongly recommend Leopard because the new UI was designed for it, so there are a few minor Tiger-only UI bugs that probably will not be fixed.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

5andman said:


> I'd wait until there's a LOT of feedback.
> Luckily, I archive everything -- so I had .94.
> I found the last few updates really sucked.


While 0.95 had a nasty data corruption bug, 0.96 was stable for most users. Also, 1.00 has undergone a rather lengthy testing process with 6 public test releases. All of the response for the later versions has been positive.

In addition, 1.00 has no major changes to the torrent engine like 0.90 had... We've squashed most of the bugs now.


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## gggfff (Dec 18, 2006)

Love the new buttons on the update.

Great job !!! :clap:


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## 5andman (Oct 15, 2006)

John Clay said:


> While 0.95 had a nasty data corruption bug, 0.96 was stable for most users. Also, 1.00 has undergone a rather lengthy testing process with 6 public test releases. All of the response for the later versions has been positive.
> 
> In addition, 1.00 has no major changes to the torrent engine like 0.90 had... We've squashed most of the bugs now.





> We've squashed most of the bugs now


Are you one of the developers?


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

5andman said:


> Are you one of the developers?


Take a look at the Transmission site


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

John Clay said:


> Take a look at the Transmission site


I guess then that the answer is "No".

When I check the list of developers on Transmission 0.6.1 which is the latest one that supposedly workd with Panther, I get this list:



> Transmission is written and maintained by:
> 
> Eric Petit <[email protected]>
> + Back-end
> ...


I don't see a "John Clay" there.

I take it the "transmission group" has no Product Manager or someone who is looking at the big picture.

I use Transmission (and torrents) very seldom, but two "big picture" things should be fixed.
For one, when I close down Transmission after completing a download, I always get the message that a download is still in progress and I shouldn't shut down. That's long after the download and upload is completed - somehow Transmission doesn't recognize that.
The other "annoyance" is that Transmission tells me that the current issue 0.6.1 is an old issue and I should download issue 1.0. For one, I would expect Transmission to recognize that I'm running OS 10.3.9 and not even make that offer, but even worse, there is a listing of improvements and new features on the web page that tries to get you to download version 1.0 to replace 0.6.1, but nowhere does it say that version 1.0 is only compatible with OS 10.4 (?) and up.
The "Transmission" page basically tries to get you to replace a compatible issue of Transmission with an incompatible one.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

The update notification is a limitation of the Sparkle plugin that we use - it is currently OS-blind. Nothing we can do about that. Our website does state on the downloads page that 10.4 or later is required. The appcast, however, doesn't. You can disable the Sparkle updater in the Preferences, if you find it irritating. 

krs - if you're using 0.61, there is NO support for that version - it's obsolete.

When I said to look at the site, I meant the actual website, not the application credits, though you could look there too in a new version.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

John -

I did look at the web site first, but that just showed your name as the person posting the new capabilities with each version - no indication if you are part of the development team which was the question,
Maybe I missed something on the web page, but when I saw the credits on the "About Transmission" window, I decided to look there since all the names of the developers were listed.
As to 0.61 - tere may not be any support for that release, but it's the most current that will run on 10.3.9, or is that not true and I can use a later issue?
I still have one Mac on 10.3.9 and have no plans to upgrade that any time soon.

As to the update notification - if it is currently "OS-blind", then fro a user point of view it is even more important to indicate that version 1.00 requires a minimum of 10.4.x to run. All it takes is one extra line in the description that comes up - but I can see how these things are being missed if there is no PLM involvement.
Unfortunately, the lack of PLM in volvement is a problem with many software developments.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

Correct, 0.61 is the latest version that can be used on 10.3.9.

As for the appcast - most people don't actually read the appcast, they just click "Update". When we first introduced 0.70, the first version to require Tiger, we had a few users that had updated without knowing - it was in the appcast back then.

The next version of Sparkle should contain OS detection methods, and we will certainly implement it when it is released.


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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

I used to like using azureus but it seems to act crazy and gobbles up to 30-40% of my CPU as per the processes indicator on my iStat nano. I had no problems with azureus with tiger but it's not working wll on leopard. Is it not compatible?

The thing about transmition is that I don't get how I can point it to my downloaded files folder so that I can seed the files I already have to increase my d/l speed.


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## Cor roC (Jun 20, 2007)

Hey all,
Everyone is recommending Transmission, which is a GREAT app, but man has anyone tried/bought xTorrent? The program is a beauty, and sooo user friendly (classic Apple fashion). Like, I have had NO problem with it; definitely everything you want out of a torrent finder/downloader. That being said... I DID pay for it... the first and only (so far) program I've ever bought, it's that good! I'm sure there's ways to get it for free (Cough) iSerial Reader (Cough)...

but yeah, anyone else use xTorrent?


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

Pat McCrotch said:


> The thing about transmition is that I don't get how I can point it to my downloaded files folder so that I can seed the files I already have to increase my d/l speed.


Maybe someone knowledgable can comment on that.
I know in the description on torrents it is suggested that the d/l speed depends on the amount of seeding one does and on the upload speed, but in practice, I found that this makes absolutely no difference.
My downlaod speed with transmission seems to slow down when I minimize the window and very noticably speeds up (by a factor of three and four, not just marginally) when I bring the window back on the screen.
This has happened so often and so repetitively that I don't think it's a chance occurence.
But when the window is up and I change the upload speed limit, it has no effect on the download speed at all - assuming of course the speed indicated in the Transmission window is correct.


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## skinnyboy (Oct 7, 2007)

Transmission 1.0 was great


until I upgraded  



The download window of the latest version won't accept any files.

Anyone else experiencing this problem?


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I just tried version 1.01 with OS 10.4.10.
Works fine for me although I find the GUI is a step backwards.


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## skinnyboy (Oct 7, 2007)

krs said:


> I just tried version 1.01 with OS 10.4.10.
> Works fine for me although I find the GUI is a step backwards.


Wish I could say the same.

I'm running it with OS 10.4.10 as well.

Download window won't accept anything. Over the Transmission forums, someone posted a similar problem but there hasn't been a reply.

Really sucks. Wish I had 1.0 installed again.


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## kgeorge78 (Sep 8, 2003)

I use Limewire Pro.

Works great.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

skinnyboy said:


> Wish I could say the same.
> 
> I'm running it with OS 10.4.10 as well.
> 
> ...


What exactly are you doing?

I just click on "Open Torrent File" either on the icon in the Transmission window, second one from left (should have been the first one in my mind) or under the pull down file menu and select the torrent.
Does that not work for you?


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## pictureman (Jan 4, 2008)

I'm liking xtorrent, used with mininova


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## hbp (Apr 18, 2007)

I'll continue with my crappy Azureus until uTorrent comes out for OSX.


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## skinnyboy (Oct 7, 2007)

krs said:


> What exactly are you doing?
> 
> I just click on "Open Torrent File" either on the icon in the Transmission window, second one from left (should have been the first one in my mind) or under the pull down file menu and select the torrent.
> Does that not work for you?


No, that doesn't work either. If I click on "Open Torrent File", select the file from the desktop, click on that file to open I end up with the same message as I got when I simply dragged and dropped the file image into the DL window - "The download folder cannot be used. Choose a new location".

Anyone know where I can find a link to DL Transmission 1.0?

Wish I had avoided the upgrade.


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## skinnyboy (Oct 7, 2007)

Just tried Frostwire.

OMG is that sucker ever sloooooooow.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

skinnyboy said:


> No, that doesn't work either. If I click on "Open Torrent File", select the file from the desktop, click on that file to open I end up with the same message as I got when I simply dragged and dropped the file image into the DL window - "The download folder cannot be used. Choose a new location".
> 
> Anyone know where I can find a link to DL Transmission 1.0?
> 
> Wish I had avoided the upgrade.


Are you sure you have a valid torrent file?
And where are you downloading the file to? Maybe try a different location.

I would check through all the preference settings on Transmission to see if they all make sense.


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## skinnyboy (Oct 7, 2007)

krs said:


> Are you sure you have a valid torrent file?
> And where are you downloading the file to? Maybe try a different location.
> 
> I would check through all the preference settings on Transmission to see if they all make sense.


Yeah, the file wasn't the problem.

Thanks to an internet acquaintance, I just DL'ed _Transmission .96_ and currently DL'ing the aforementioned torrent file - no problems, works like it did before, and helluva lot faster than frostwire tptptptp 

He gave me some advice too - if what you're using works, then don't upgrade until it stops working  Ain't that the truth.


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## Loafer (Jan 7, 2004)

For some reason, this morning I'm getting insane speeds using Transmission on Sympatico. It used to just chugg along at 30-40KBs but today it's blazing along at......120KBs

uh, no.....looks like Bell caught on.....down to 34KBs......23.....18.....15

bastards!


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