Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ @lemmy.dbzer0.com

1y ago

Switched from uTorrent to QBitTorrent

So a bunch of people in this subreddit told me that uTorrent was trash and to switch to QBitTorrent.

I didn't think much of it. How could one be so much better than the other? They're both just torrent downloaders.

Holy shit was I wrong. I don't even really understand what is happening, but downloading torrents on QBitTorrent is so, so, so much faster and I don't even understand how.

A movie downloads in basically seconds compared to 10 or 20 minutes on uTorrent.

Why is this? What is this magic? What makes QBitTorrent so much faster?

70 comments

uTorrent is adware
- Ever since uTorrent started mining on users computers, ive been on QBT
- Is it still being updated? I ran from it when I knew Transmission and Qbittorrent were a thing.

uTorrent has been down the shitter for over a decade now, I wouldn't be surprised if the download speed was throttled without a pro subscription. It could also be a difference in how the applications discover seeds, or how much CPU time or memory is allocated to downloads.
As a general rule, if an application is full of anti-features, it tends to have better, usually FOSS, alternatives.
- And alternativeto.net is the place to find them alternatives

uTorrent doesn't play well in the landscape of the modern bittorrent protocol. It's also adware, infringes upon your privacy, and is a malware risk.
qBittorrent is my client of choice, but other popular and great clients are Deluge (only up to ~500 torrents), transmission, and rtorrent (on Linux). There's other clients as well but YMMV, especially if you do any private tracker usage.
- Agrred, QBT and Deluge are great options
  
  Ya, my only issue with Deluge is after ~500 torrents it starts to slow. I'm on private trackers, so I always tend to have ~2,000 torrents seeding at once. For my particular usecase, it simply becomes too slow and bogged down to be viable.
  Granted, I've not used Deluge in some 2 or 3 years; maybe they improved process handling since then? I'd love to be corrected if so.

Utorrent kind of went really downhill and sold itself. Nobody should ever use utorrent anymore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-VEB4NLGMM
Tldr; bittorrent bought out utorrent and started putting ads in the client
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=GS6uWKCO_S8
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

TIL I'm the only one who says "microtorrent".
- I call it mutorrent
  
  I always thought that was what everyone said, as that's actually how it's spelled. I wasn't even aware it was called different by some or even most people, although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised as I can imagine many people not knowing the greek alphabet.
- You're not alone brother. There are dozens of us! Dozens!
- I did when i first started using it. no idea when i switched to calling it utorrent.
- what is that
  
  The "u" in uTorrent is actually greek letter mu, which as a SI suffix is pronounced "micro" and means one millionth (10-6)

I don't know if uTorrent does ratelimit torrents someway (they shouldn't be by theory), but it being adware is enough of a result to switch to another torrent client.
I'm more of a fan of Deluge, but alternatives like qBittorrent / Transmission are solid choices.
- Trasmission never worked well for me, on the other hand qBittorrent did the job perfectly.

I'm assuming you mean you were using one of the older, "safe" versions of uTorrent. But yeah, the technology has updated. It's better.

QBittorrent has been my torrent Client for 4/5 years at this point, never having problems. It works on my Steam Deck too (Arch).

I have had the same experience switching from deluge to qbittorrrent. It’s like, another world.

You were probably using the wrong version of utorrent.
I think you need something like 1.6. No adware, no malware, just works fast and easy.

I do miss that really detailed block download page, but that's only cos I'd watch it instead of doing something useful with my life.

There are a handful of features that I really like with qbittorrent but there were plugins I can’t find replacements for from Deluge:
having items deleted after meeting seeding requirements, as *arr auto imports, but having exceptions for private trackers
the above without having the *arr stack have a permanent warning
auto adding public default trackers to any public torrent
I’ve switched back and forth a few times and I run them side by side but let deluge take the reins of most of it because I have it set up to be hands off with the above.
If anyone knows how I can set up qbt the same way that would be great though
- qbit_manage
  
  Beautiful! Thanks so much
- auto adding public default trackers to any public torrent
  qB already has that, see Tools / Options / BitTorrent / "Automatically add these trackers to new downloads"
  I don't use that feature but it seems to be there.
- https://github.com/jerrymakesjelly/autoremove-torrents
- The third should be possible with this maintained fork:
  https://github.com/c0re100/qBittorrent-Enhanced-Edition

I switch from uTorrent to qBittorrent when Ninite dropped it. I wasn't aware that uTorrent had become aware, and Ninite had my back. I trust those guys with the selection of softwares they offer.
- Yea and their background updater is a must. I paid $10 for the exe. No serial numbers needed.

qbittorrent also has better theme support in my opinion. Dracula theme is even available for both the local client and WebUI server client: https://draculatheme.com/qbittorrent

where does Tixati fit on your lists?

UT has been garbage for some time. I reckon the data it uses to send your info back to them and to load ads, bogs down the network, especially on slower networks. The last time I used it, there were also graphical artifacts all over. Qbit on the other hand, is much cleaner and simpler to use, and it doesnt add any unwanted network traffic, which is why it's probably faster

I tried grabbing Qbit and all I could find was malware. I used to be so so good at navigating all this stuff and stopped to stream for a little. ☹️
- sudo apt install qbittorrent
  
  sudo pacman -S qbittorrent
- winget install --id=qBittorrent.qBittorrent -e
  
  Scoop install qbittorrent
  choco install qbittorrent
- Doesn’t sound like you were looking in the right places
  
  The best executables with malware actually perform the function you expect them to.
- How tf you managed that I will never ever understand......
  
  I am not a clever man.
- The official website with downloads is the first hit on Google...
- yay qbittorrent
- Emerge -v qbittorrent
- What OS do you have? If Windows, it is available in the Microsoft store.
  
  Let's be real, that's the last place anyone would look for a torrent client

I found qBT to be missing features utorrent has, and thus I stick with UT v2.2, which is the latest recommended one before they started making controversial changes. I've never had any issues with utorrent's speed.
- What features are those?
  
  I checked real quick and the setup guide that changes all the settings according to your internet speed, and the ability to stop torrents when they meet the goal. Qbt can only pause or remove them. Pausing leaves you connected and anti-piracy groups get your IP and submit complaints, and I don't want them automatically removed. There may be more.

I prefer Transmission, as they have Windows ports as well.
- So does Qbittorrent, if you're unaware.
- Yup, I'm using transmission in a docker container that ensures my VPN is always connected. Nice to not have to worry about that.
- Transmission afaik does not have a built-in search functionality with plugins for popular trackers
  
  That feature makes sense to aggregate search results from multiple public trackers, but if you (like me) use private trackers then it's almost always easier to just go to the actual website for your search. Not to mention any automation software such as the *arr stack make that feature obsolete. It's definitely a cool feature, but not useful for everyone.

70 comments