Original author(s) | Christophe Dumez [1] |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Sledgehammer999, Chocobo1, glassez, pmzqla and others [2] |
Initial release | May 16, 2006 [3] |
Stable release | |
Repository | |
Written in | C++ (Qt), [5] Python |
Operating system | Cross-platform: FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, OS/2, Windows |
Platform | ARM, x86, x64 |
Available in | ≈70 languages [6] |
List of languages Default UI: English ≥ 99% translated: Basque, Catalan, Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Galician, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian Contents≥ 50% translated: Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Chinese (Hong Kong), Finnish, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian (Latvia), Malay (Malaysia), Norwegian Bokmål, Occitan (post 1500), Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish ≥ 10% translated: Croatian, Esperanto, Arabic, Armenian, English (Australia), English (United Kingdom), Georgian, Hindi (India), Icelandic, Latgalian, Uzbek (Latin), Vietnamese | |
Type | BitTorrent client |
License | GPLv3+ [7] with OpenSSL linking exception |
Website | www |
qBittorrent is a cross-platform free and open-source BitTorrent client written in native C++. It relies on Boost, OpenSSL, zlib, Qt 6 toolkit and the libtorrent-rasterbar library (for the torrent back-end), with an optional search engine written in Python. [8] [9]
qBittorrent was originally developed in March 2006 by Christophe Dumez, [1] from the University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard (UTBM).
It is currently developed by contributors worldwide and is funded through donations, [10] led by Sledgehammer999 from Greece, who became project maintainer in June 2013. [11]
Along with the 4.0.0 release a new logo for the project was unveiled. [12] [13]
In February 2023, a security vulnerability affecting versions 4.5.0 and 4.5.1 was discovered in the Web UI running on Windows systems. This vulnerability enabled unauthenticated access to all files on the host computer via a path traversal bug. [14] This issue has been patched in version 4.5.2, which was released to the public on February 23, 2023. [15]
Some of the features present in qBittorrent include:
qBittorrent is cross-platform, available on many operating systems, including: FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, OS/2 (including ArcaOS and eComStation), [16] Windows.
As of July 2017 [update] , SourceForge statistics indicate that the most popular qBittorrent version of all supported platforms, 81% of downloads were for Windows computers. [17]
As of May 2020 [update] , FossHub statistics indicate qBittorrent as the second most downloaded software with over 75 million downloads. [18]
Packages for different Linux distributions are available, though most are provided through official channels via various distributions. [15]
qBittorrent Enhanced is a fork of qBittorrent intended for blocking leeching clients such as Xunlei. It is hosted on GitHub.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, Ghacks suggested qBittorrent as a great alternative to μTorrent, for those put off by its controversial adware and bundleware changes. [19]
Shareaza is a peer-to-peer file sharing client running under Microsoft Windows which supports the gnutella, Gnutella2 (G2), eDonkey, BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP and HTTPS network protocols and handles magnet links, ed2k links, and the now deprecated gnutella and Piolet links. It is available in 30 languages.
BitTorrent, also referred to as simply torrent, is a communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a decentralized manner. The protocol is developed and maintained by Rainberry, Inc., and was first released in 2001.
The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by encrypting the user's traffic, and sending it through a volunteer-run network of roughly 55,000 computers distributed around the world. Given the high number of possible paths the traffic can transit, a third party watching a full connection is unlikely. The software that implements this layer is called an "I2P router", and a computer running I2P is called an "I2P node". I2P is free and open sourced, and is published under multiple licenses.
BitComet is a cross-protocol BitTorrent, HTTP and FTP client written in C++ for Microsoft Windows and available in 52 different languages. Its first public release was version 0.28. The current BitComet logo has been used since version 0.50.
Magnet is a URI scheme that defines the format of magnet links, a de facto standard for identifying files (URN) by their content, via cryptographic hash value rather than by their location.
KTorrent is a BitTorrent client that is part of the KDE Gear.
File sharing is a method of distributing electronically stored information such as computer programs and digital media. Below is a list of file sharing applications, most of them make use of peer-to-peer file sharing technologies.
Transmission is a BitTorrent client which features a variety of user interfaces on top of a cross-platform back-end. Transmission is free software licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, with parts under the MIT License.
Protocol encryption (PE), message stream encryption (MSE) or protocol header encrypt (PHE) are related features of some peer-to-peer file-sharing clients, including BitTorrent clients. They attempt to enhance privacy and confidentiality. In addition, they attempt to make traffic harder to identify by third parties including internet service providers (ISPs). However, encryption will not protect one from DMCA notices from sharing not legal content, as one is still uploading material and the monitoring firms can merely connect to the swarm.
Peer exchange or PEX is a communications protocol that augments the BitTorrent file sharing protocol. It allows a group of users that are collaborating to share a given file to do so more swiftly and efficiently.
Metalink is an extensible metadata file format that describes one or more computer files available for download. It specifies files appropriate for the user's language and operating system; facilitates file verification and recovery from data corruption; and lists alternate download sources.
Tribler is an open source decentralized BitTorrent client which allows anonymous peer-to-peer by default. Tribler is based on the BitTorrent protocol and uses an overlay network for content searching. Due to this overlay network, Tribler does not require an external website or indexing service to discover content. The user interface of Tribler is very basic and focused on ease of use instead of diversity of features. Tribler is available for Linux, Windows, and OS X.
The following is a general comparison of BitTorrent clients, which are computer programs designed for peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol.
libtorrent is an open-source implementation of the BitTorrent protocol. It is written in and has its main library interface in C++. Its most notable features are support for Mainline DHT, IPv6, HTTP seeds and μTorrent's peer exchange. libtorrent uses Boost, specifically Boost.Asio to gain its platform independence. It is known to build on Windows and most Unix-like operating systems.
The following is a list of notable software for running a BitTorrent tracker.
In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file or meta-info file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms. Torrent files are normally named with the extension .torrent
.
Transifex is a globalization management system (GMS), a proprietary, web-based translation platform. It targets technical projects with frequently updated content, such as software, documentation, and websites, and encourages the automation of the localization workflow by integrating with common developer tools.
BTDigg is the first Mainline DHT search engine. It participated in the BitTorrent DHT network, supporting the network and making correspondence between magnet links and a few torrent attributes which are indexed and inserted into a database. For end users, BTDigg provides a full-text database search via a Web interface. The web part of its search system retrieved proper information by a user's text query. The Web search supported queries in European and Asian languages. The project name was an acronym of BitTorrent Digger. It went offline in June 2016, reportedly due to index spam. The site returned later in 2016 at a dot-com domain, went offline again, and is now online. The btdig.com site has its torrent crawler's source code listed on GitHub, dhtcrawler2.
μTorrent, or uTorrent, is a proprietary adware BitTorrent client owned and developed by Rainberry, Inc. The "μ" in its name comes from the SI prefix "micro-", referring to the program's small memory footprint: the program was designed to use minimal computer resources while offering functionality comparable to larger BitTorrent clients such as Vuze or BitComet. μTorrent became controversial in 2015 when many users unknowingly accepted a default option during installation which also installed a cryptocurrency miner.
Tixati is a proprietary Linux and Windows BitTorrent client written in C++. It has standalone and portable versions with each new client version.
Make sure you have python installed correctly (remember the search functionality requires a working python installation).