Mac BitTorrent Client Round-up
BitTorrent is a super fast way of downloading large amounts of data. BitTorrent is able to be a much quicker method of downloading files due to the fact that it pulls peices of your download from multiple sources at the same time and then puts the pieces together when its finished as opposed to pulling the entire file all from one location.
BitTorrent can have a bad rep just because of its name and its association with downloading copywritten material, but there are many many cases where bittorrent is a perfectly legal and acceptable form of downloading. Many sites that have video podcasts for instance will offer the file through BitTorrent as a more efficient method of distributing their work. So having said that, here are the most popular BitTorrent clients available on the Mac.
BitTorrent
BitTorrent not only has an un-original name, but its a very basic peice of software. Its just one simple window that once you have your torrent file downloaded just drag and drop it into BitTorrent and it handles the rest. Personally I’m not a big fan of BitTorrent for a the simple fact that it seems to be much slower than any of the other clients I’ve used, but never-the-less it is one of the most well known Torrent clients on OS X. Download BitTorrent for OS X.
Transmission
Transmission is an open source Bittorrent client made by the same folks that put together Handbrake. Transmission is a widely popular client for OS X due to its intuitive user interface and cross-platform back-end. Transmission has a very simple interface similar to that of BitTorrent but is a little more updated and looks more Tigerish. Download Transmission bittorrent client.
Tomato Torrent
Tomato Torrent is based on the BitTorrent application and has an almost equally lame name and user interface. I have used it though and it seems is very quick. The only advantage that tomato torrent offers is an apple script file that comes with the application. By dragging the torrent file to the apple script, it will automatically download the file to a designated folder on your hdd rather than the desktop. Tomato torrent is such a small application that it takes up virtually no RAM at all and will not bog down your computer when trying to download. Download Tomato Torrent.
There are a few other clients available for the Mac such as Azureus, and Bits on Wheels, but these 3 are by far the most popular ones. They all are about the same and all get the same job done. So go download them and pick the one you like the best; it really is just a matter of opinion.
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these are the 3 most popular? is that a joke? azureus is the primary choice of any bittorrent user on a private tracker, and it’s still the only client on OS X worth using. not a single one of the other clients supports features as basic as RC4 encryption or file selection. it’s not pretty, and it’s java-based, making it a little slow, but it’s the only client that offers the user any number of extremely important features.