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posted by Woods on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the depends-on-how-many-ads-you-want dept.

I'm running a fresh install of Mint 17 Cinnamon, and have been using Transmission for torrent downloads. I suspect that my ISP is throttling Bittorrent traffic, as things seem rather slow. Right now I'm downloading a file with dozens of seeds, and hundreds of peers, and it's topping out at 300k DL, and is usually struggling to stay above 100k.

I've been Googling this, but most advice seems to be at least two or three years old an eternity on the Internet, so I'm looking for current advice.

1) What are the recommended Bittorrent clients these days? And why is your choice better?

2) Can anyone point me to current specific advice on how to handle downloads without my ISP slowing everything to a halt?

Please note, when I say "current", it's because I've wasted way too much time the past chasing down leads which turned out to be out of date or which no longer were usable. And FWIW, almost everything that I download is actually legal Linux ISOs etc.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by present_arms on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:24PM

    by present_arms (4392) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:24PM (#67068) Homepage Journal

    I personally use Transmission or Ktorrent depending on the machine I'm running, for Windows maybe utorrent or bitlord, I can't vouch for the latter two though.

    --
    http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by present_arms on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:27PM

      by present_arms (4392) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:27PM (#67069) Homepage Journal

      I need to add that I see you use transmission and I have just conducted a test with a popular torrent of 3 Gig and it downloaded at 3,5MB/s so I do think that your ISP is throttling you bandwidth somewhat.

      --
      http://trinity.mypclinuxos.com/
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:55PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:55PM (#67279) Journal

        Third vote for Transmission. I've tried many, and there is nothing nearly as good. Everything else I've tried is somehow both bloated and lacking features!

        And I regularly get >5MB/s (yes, that's bytes not bits; on a 50mbps line) with Transmission, so it's definitely not the client, it's the ISP. Do check that you don't have any speed limits enabled on Transmission though, as I've had friends accidentally enable the throttled mode (little turtle icon in the corner somewhere) which will seriously kill your download speed!

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by pbnjoe on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:36PM

    by pbnjoe (313) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:36PM (#67077) Journal

    I think the only way you're going to bypass that is to make it appear like it's not bittorrent traffic (or just not let them know what type it is at all) to your ISP, and the easiest (only?) way to do that, off the top of my head, is to use a VPN. Yeah, it's an irritation to change all your traffic just for downloading ISOs faster... There are VPNs that are specific to just bittorrent traffic, like BTGuard, but at least in BTGuard's case, I think you need to use either uTorrent or Vuze.

    • (Score: 2) by tynin on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:47PM

      by tynin (2013) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:47PM (#67085) Journal

      I was going to respond and say the same. There is nothing wrong with Transmission, I also use it without issue. Your ISP is likely monitoring traffic patterns and throttling. I only have suggestions beyond VPN. 1) I would make it make sure that your client is forcing encryption for all connections, don't allow non-encrypted traffic. 2) If possible, randomize the port the client uses for its traffic. Both of these are configurable settings in the client, I'd give the step by step, but I'm not near my BT client at the moment, but it should be trivial to find in the preferences section. That might help throw your ISP off from easily detecting / throttling this kind of traffic.

      • (Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Friday July 11 2014, @02:17AM

        by Appalbarry (66) on Friday July 11 2014, @02:17AM (#67395) Journal

        This seems to have immediately speeded things up significantly. I'll look into the more advances VPN stuff and alternate clients later.

        • (Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Friday July 11 2014, @02:49AM

          by Appalbarry (66) on Friday July 11 2014, @02:49AM (#67403) Journal

          Spoke too soon - lasted about five minutes. Now I'm pissed off - LOOK OUT SHAW CABLE!

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:41PM (#67078)

    I use Deluge [deluge-torrent.org] for Windows. Simple and open source. Oddly enough it was updated yesterday after more than a year with no new update.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:53PM (#67090)

      "BitTorrent Protocol Encryption" is listed as one of the features. Detect throttling at M-Lab [measurementlab.net].

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:45PM (#67079)
    • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:41PM

      by Alfred (4006) on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:41PM (#67114) Journal

      This is just asking the RIAA to lobby for an increased "nike tax."

      And how long until the NSA gathers "metadata" on that too?

      :-)

      • (Score: 2) by egcagrac0 on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:12PM

        by egcagrac0 (2705) on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:12PM (#67175)

        And how long until the NSA gathers "metadata" on that too?

        Not long, now. They never met a data they didn't like.

      • (Score: 1) by WillR on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:47PM

        by WillR (2012) on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:47PM (#67203)
        And how long until the NSA gathers "metadata" on that too?

        They probably already are, given the number of networked security cameras with weak/no authentication out there...
  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:45PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:45PM (#67080)

    1. Stand on the left foot, and say "eppe peppe kakke!"
    2. Stand on the right foot, and say "hillo hollo hello!"
    3. Stand on both feet, and say "Zizzy zuzzy zik!"
    4. Put on the sacred 3-belled hat.
    5. Take the goat to the altar and sacrifice it to $DEITY, making sure to spill all the blood before burning on a bonfire.
    6. Repeat steps 1-3.

    Of course, this sounds silly, but I suspect it will work about as well as anything else you might try. I was throttled by my ISP earlier today without any bittorrent traffic at all, so I'm pretty sure that the issue is simply that the ISP is now allocating bandwidth to Netflix (or simply throttling customers) because they can and the FCC is not allowed to stop them according to the federal court system.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:09PM

      by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:09PM (#67135) Journal

      > 5. Take the goat to the altar and sacrifice it to $DEITY, making sure to spill all the blood before burning on a bonfire.

      Just make sure the altar is of the correct alignment, you don't want to anger your god. Of course, if you're looking to switch alignment then this is the way to do it, but be aware that if you don't yet have your quest artifact you will make it impossible to ascend. If you really need to switch alignment, it's usually better to just use the appropriate helm.

      I don't know where OP is, but it sounds like throttling to me, in which case the only sensible option is to simply change ISPs. Posting the name of your ISP will probably result in a rash of "yeah, they throttle" or "no, they don't" posts.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday July 11 2014, @12:48AM

        by Thexalon (636) on Friday July 11 2014, @12:48AM (#67364)

        If your own god is pleased enough with you, sacrificing on the "wrong" altar will convert it. Just be sure not to do that in Minetown unless you're prepared to deal with a very pissed off and dangerous priest.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @06:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @06:36PM (#67228)

      the FCC is not allowed to stop them
      Not at all true. They could change the status quo with the stroke of a pen.

      according to the federal court system
      The court pointed out that FCC's own previous ruling was contradictory.
      All that is required is for FCC to declare that ISPs are common carriers.
      Now, they WON'T do that because it would jeopardize their abilities to go back through the revolving door [wikipedia.org] once their gov't stints are over.[1] [google.com]

      [1] consulting == high-paid lobbyist with insider information

      -- gewg_

      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday July 11 2014, @04:37PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday July 11 2014, @04:37PM (#67675)

        So basically the FCC is only not allowed to stop them under the rules it's not about to change. Glad you clarified that.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by rcamera on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:46PM

    by rcamera (2360) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:46PM (#67082) Homepage Journal

    Is it possible you're leaching (intentionally or unintentionally)? a lot of BT clients penalize you for leaching. if you haven't set port forwarding on your firewall for BT, then you very well could be getting hit with the leacher penalty.

    If you have any need or desire for a network disk, i would highly recommend synology. there's a BT client built-in, which is manageable from an http interface. since your fileserver will have a static IP within your own network, you can set your firewall to port-forward BT ports directly to your diskstation.

    --
    /* no comment */
    • (Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Friday July 11 2014, @02:10AM

      by Appalbarry (66) on Friday July 11 2014, @02:10AM (#67393) Journal

      Nope, I actually always leave things running for quite a while so that I give more than I take.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by clone141166 on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:46PM

    by clone141166 (59) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:46PM (#67083)

    qBittorrent is pretty great. All native C++ (no nasty Java nonsense) using boost C++ libraries, libtorrent and Qt and with comparable functionality to Vuze. Available on Linux/FreeBSD/Wandows/crApple (packaged in the Debian repository also).

    It also has the interesting ability of being able to run in headless mode (no GUI). Which means you could buy a cheap Virtual Private Server in a country that doesn't have ISPs who throttle BT traffic and run qBittorrent on that box, then scp/ftp the files back to your home computer.

    http://www.qbittorrent.org/ [qbittorrent.org]

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:04PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:04PM (#67130) Journal

      I'll second qBittorrent. I'll also add that qBittorrent is very much like uTorrent, as regards features and performance.

      http://www.qbittorrent.org/ [qbittorrent.org]
      qBittorrent Features

              Polished µTorrent-like User Interface
              Well-integrated and extensible Search Engine
                      Simultaneous search in most famous BitTorrent search sites
                      Per-category-specific search requests (e.g. Books, Music, Movies)
              All Bittorrent extensions
                      DHT, Peer Exchange, Full encryption, Magnet/BitComet URIs, ...
              Remote control through a Web user interface
                      Nearly identical to the regular UI, all in Ajax
              Advanced control over trackers, peers and torrents
                      Torrents queueing and prioritizing
                      Torrent content selection and prioritizing
              UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding support
              Available in ~25 languages (Unicode support)
              Torrent creation tool
              Advanced RSS support with download filters (inc. regex)
              Bandwidth scheduler
              IP Filtering (eMule and PeerGuardian compatible)
              IPv6 compliant
              Sequential downloading (aka "Download in order")
              Available on most platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:24PM (#67147)

      I'll 3rd qBittorrent. I used to use Deluge but qB is snappier.

      The biggest complaint I have with qB is the "anonymous" mode [github.com] is all or nothing. I want to use some of the features (like I want to anonymize the peer-id but I also want to keep DHT turned on).

      But in general the solution to the ISP fucking with your traffic is to get VPN. They are cheap nowadays because there is a lot of competition. Here's a review of VPN services by how privacy-preserving they are which is just a single factor in choosing a VPN service but is a big one. http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity-seriously-2014-edition-140315/ [torrentfreak.com]

    • (Score: 1) by kristian on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:32PM

      by kristian (2395) <{kristian} {at} {waffl.in}> on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:32PM (#67189) Homepage

      Could we not insult Java just because Vuze happens to be written in it? It's a perfectly good programming language and its VM is used by several quite popular languages.

      --
      The opinions expressed in this post are those of the individual sender and not those of Kristian Picon.
      • (Score: 1) by clone141166 on Thursday July 10 2014, @11:59PM

        by clone141166 (59) on Thursday July 10 2014, @11:59PM (#67354)

        I know, and I actually use Eclipse a lot which is Java based; there are plenty of pretty good Java applications, even Vuze isn't too bad. But it's fun to insult Java because Oracle really is such a terrible corporation. And of course [insert-your-favourite-programming-language-here] is clearly better than Java.

    • (Score: 2) by Techwolf on Thursday July 10 2014, @10:50PM

      by Techwolf (87) on Thursday July 10 2014, @10:50PM (#67334)

      That is what I use here also. I've tried the different torrent clients over the years and found qBittorrent is the only one to always fully saturate the download link no matter what wi-fi connection I happen to be on for that day. (I drive a big truck for a living) It is great for downloading TV shows while on the road. The RSS feature makes that easy.

      The options also make it great for tuning around broken routers and in rare cases, ISP problems. Tip: Tune the upload to a lot less then peak in the tests and watch it over time to get the "real" upload speed of that ISP link. Reduce the number of connections until the crap linksys router does not fall over all the time.

  • (Score: 1) by goodie on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:48PM

    by goodie (1877) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:48PM (#67087) Journal

    Installed as a daemon on my headless server. Love the ability to control it remotely from anywhere (on my local lan), whether using the win client or the web interface through my phone. I haven't really used it since I've been using Netflix though :).

    As far as throttling is concerned, I'd say VPN is the simplest thing you can use.

  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:59PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday July 10 2014, @02:59PM (#67091) Journal

    Have you searched for any information specific to your ISP throttling BT traffic? Have you tried downloading during off peak hours, e.g. early morning or late nights (after 12AM)?

    I have suspected throttling in the past when using Time Warner but as it turns out it could have also been congestion because late at night, early in the morning or during the workday BT downloads were significantly faster (eg, 300-400k vs. 1MB+). That problem went away after a while, perhaps they improved their network or fixed a problem.

    Waaaay back in the DSL days I had a big problem with Verizon possibly overloading its network infrastructure. After a while playing FPS games became an exercise in frustration as my ping would go way over 100 when it should have been less than 60. I graphed the ping to a few servers and found that during peak hours the ping skyrocketed. It started around 6PM peaked at 9PM and dropped off at 11PM coming back to normal at 12AM. After two calls to level 2 tech support yielded nothing, I switch to TW for internet. So it could be that your ISP is overselling its bandwidth and you are suffering.

    If you are getting throttled then you need to use a VPN or subscribe to an encrypted torrent provider. I have a friend who to this day still thinks he can download everything because "fuck paying for shit" and uses btguard. But this article seems to think that btguard sucks and suggests alternative: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-completely-anonymize-your-bittorrent-traffic-wit-5863380 [lifehacker.com]

    As for clients, I simply use Deluge [deluge-torrent.org]. It's cross platform, open source, and has a wide feature set. I do not want a torrent client that has any commercial interests or ads.

    • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:46PM

      by Alfred (4006) on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:46PM (#67116) Journal

      >>So it could be that your ISP is overselling its bandwidth

      All ISPs do this. Either selling more bandwidth than they have and/or overpricing the bandwidth they sell. It is standard operating procedure, no exceptions.

      I would complain because I should get what I pay for not because Internet is a right or something.

      • (Score: 2) by egcagrac0 on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:20PM

        by egcagrac0 (2705) on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:20PM (#67183)

        I should get what I pay for

        And is he not getting "speeds up to 10MB/s"?

  • (Score: 2) by bart9h on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:10PM

    by bart9h (767) on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:10PM (#67093)

    I use rtorrent because it runs on the terminal, so I can keep it on a screen/tmux, so it survive X restarts, I can control it from another machine, etc.

    I'm not a heavy user of bittorrent, if that was the case, I would probably move to a program with a more powerful interface. But it works for me, and I'm lazy to learn a new program for no reason, so I keep using it.

    • (Score: 1) by _NSAKEY on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:28PM

      by _NSAKEY (16) on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:28PM (#67187)

      I'm going to second this. Running rtorrent in screen on a remote box in a data center is the only good way to torrent, if you care about getting around ISP throttling of BitTorrent traffic and having good ratios.

      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:11PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:11PM (#67260) Journal

        Off topic but use tmux. Screen is a giant mess that should have been taken out back and shot a long time ago.

    • (Score: 1) by ElderGeek on Friday July 11 2014, @04:30AM

      by ElderGeek (1387) on Friday July 11 2014, @04:30AM (#67433)
      I use a VPN service.
      1. I have a VM that runs openvpn to a vpn service
      2. It does ssh -g -f -N -q -D1080root@127.0.0.1 making it a SOCKS proxy for my network
      3. I run rtorrent in that VM so that all torrents go out via the proxy
      4. I have rtorrent set up with the web interface, makes it very easy to control
      5. Any computer in my house can proxy traffic via the VPN

      I also have a 2nd VM that does CouchPotato, and SickBeard with SabNZB+

      • (Score: 1) by Urlax on Monday August 11 2014, @03:18PM

        by Urlax (3027) on Monday August 11 2014, @03:18PM (#80080)

        I have rtorrent set up with the web interface

        is there a default webinterface?
        i rolled my own..

  • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:16PM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:16PM (#67100) Homepage Journal

    I prefer a potato with an ethernet cable stuck in it.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • (Score: 1) by doublerot13 on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:17PM

    by doublerot13 (4497) on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:17PM (#67101)

    Transmission is fast and flexible as hell. It can run as a daemon and it has a cli interface...AND a web interface! [At least on Linux]

    I use it traditionally with the gui and have some python-based torrent-PVRs running that call tranmission-cli with magnet links as parameters...all working flawlessly.

    The packages you looking for are:

    transmission-cli
    transmission-common
    transmission-daemon
    transmission-gtk

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by doublerot13 on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:26PM

      by doublerot13 (4497) on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:26PM (#67103)

      ...I forgot about the throttling issue.

      You can and should enable 'force encryption' for a bunch of reasons, the least of which is ISP BT connection throttling. However, VPN is really the only way they will leave you alone[maybe]. I know that Cox Cable will still send periodic RSTs based on how much traffic they see you pulling. I'll usually see a 90 second connection reset every ~10 minutes or so while I am downloading at my max connection speed. [~3 MB/sec]

      It is very fucked up because Cox has no idea what I am doing, they only know I am passing a lot of encrypted VPN traffic and assume I am abusing the line. Fuck 'em. They don't send me letters or otherwise slow things down, just send the RSTs. For now anyway. I still never breach the 250GB monthly cap.

      Good luck.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:47PM (#67202)

      Another vote for transmission. It even runs well on small embedded systems. I also recommend the transmission-remote-gui [google.com] to make it's interface more like a traditional desktop application.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:33PM (#67110)

    I'm on a Windows XP box and running uTorrent v2.2 (from 2010); I am seeding 2090 torrents, and the oldest torrent was added on June 2009; every torrent I ever grabbed from that date until now is still being seeded back to the community !!!! for many obscure hard-to-find things, I am the only seeder continuing to keep them alive....

    ....everything works super-stable and first class! Why the fuck should I waste my time worrying about the age of my software? This is a total waste of time.

    Secondly, I prefer graphic user interface designs from the early NT5 era; I love the Firefox 3.x interface the most...I wish there was some way to have that interface but with an updated back end so it works stable on the modern web; I hate the Microsoft Office 'ribbon' design and I hate programs which emulate that style.

    I also like to see a solid dark-blue background color with white text when selecting items--at all times with no exceptions; if a program is hard coded to overrule this so I end up with that pissy transparent gradient effect as seen in NT6, then it and its author can fuck off out of my computer---RD /S /Q "APP_DIRECTORY"

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @03:38PM (#67113)

      XP is bot-net zombie waiting to happen, that's why. You are not doing anyone any favors by running it net-connected, including yourself.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:19PM (#67264)

      Thank you for seeding!

  • (Score: 2) by mrclisdue on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:00PM

    by mrclisdue (680) on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:00PM (#67124)

    http://bitflu.workaround.ch/ [workaround.ch]

    cheers,

  • (Score: 1) by Shijiyaku on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:04PM

    by Shijiyaku (1553) on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:04PM (#67131)

    For my XP and W7 boxes i use tixati - this was the only p2p software that worked fine on monster torrents >1TB

    and Deluge

    --
    Born too late for sail;too early for space
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by echostorm on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:15PM

    by echostorm (210) on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:15PM (#67142)

    according to a private torrent tracker I use, the following are extensively tested and work properly:

    BitTornado-0.3.17
    BitTorrent 6 0 build 4747 final, Deluge 1.3.1, Deluge 1.3.5
    Transmission 2.03, rTorrent 0.8.1, most utorrent versions and transmission below 2.03.

    while these have been shown to cause slowdowns and bad data being sent to the tracker:

    ABC, aria2, Azureus/Vuze, BitLet, Bitlord, BTuga, FinalTorrent
    GnomeBT , Justseed.it, all versions of ktorrent
    NSPlayer, SymTorrent, Tixati, Transmission (All versions above 2.03 including web-gui versions)
    wmTorrent, WMTR

    Hope this helps you. Personally, I stick with Deluge on my NIX machines and everything is reported properly and maxes out my connection.

  • (Score: 2) by cosurgi on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:39PM

    by cosurgi (272) on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:39PM (#67153) Journal

    I don't know if it's good or bad because I didn't bother to check any other clients. But mldonkey [debian.org] works for me. I run it inside screen on my home 24/7 box, then I access it via firefox on hostname:8080 and add torrents to download.

    --
    #
    #\ @ ? [adom.de] Colonize Mars [kozicki.pl]
    #
  • (Score: 2) by Jaruzel on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:40PM

    by Jaruzel (812) on Thursday July 10 2014, @04:40PM (#67154) Homepage Journal

    User of an ancient copy of uTorrent on Windows here. I'm not a heavy torrenter though - I have paid-for USENet for all the 'fun' stuff I want (EasyNews FTW!).

    I'm a firm believer in sticking with the version of an app that you know the best - unless there is a pressing and/or unavoidable need to upgrade. Once an app gets to a stable version, all newer versions just seem to add more and more pointless features that no-one needs. I think for most computer users on the planet, we reached a complete complement of software about 10 years ago - everything since has just been added bloat.

    -Jar

    --
    This is my opinion, there are many others, but this one is mine.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:38PM (#67192)

      I agree with utorrent for windows. The OLD version; utorrent 2.2.1 -- the last good version before it went to shit and become god aweful. I have been running it for years now on my wintel machine and I guess I'm just used to it and like it. I tried some of the newer torrent clients that copy this old utorrent but it didn't really feel like it provided anything new so why bother to change.

  • (Score: 1) by jon3k on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:06PM

    by jon3k (3718) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:06PM (#67173)

    Deluge on windows and rtorrent on linux. uTorrent completely jumped the shark. It's stuffed full of ads and shit. Avoid at all costs.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by joshuajon on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:18PM

      by joshuajon (807) on Thursday July 10 2014, @05:18PM (#67179)

      qBittorrent is a FOSS project with the stated design goal to reproduce the uTorrent interface before all of the unfortunate shark-jumping.

  • (Score: 1) by beernutz on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:06PM

    by beernutz (4365) on Thursday July 10 2014, @08:06PM (#67258)

    I know that a LOT of internet routers can't really handle the high number of simultaneous connections that can be generated by BT traffic.

    Not saying that is the problem, but its something you might check.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:00PM (#67288)

    If I want one to use with X11 I'll often use Qbittorrent. Both are excellent clients that have pretty modern features.

    The most obvious question I'd ask regarding your throttling is simple - is the correct firewall port open / forwarded? If I remember correctly recent versions of Transmission randomises the inbound TCP port it uses each time you load it. It's probably worth just setting it to one port in the 40-60k range and opening the port.

    The other thing to note is that most ISPs throttle ports 6881 to 6889 - the old default BT ports. If you've taken some old advice you might have set it to those ports. It isn't necessary now.

    I'd also be willing to bet that you might be having problems with either DHT or trackers. It's worth checking that you're allowing outgoing UDP connections to trackers (on port 80 often as not) as well as outgoing UDP to DHT nodes (I set mine to one port higher than incoming TCP).

    Speaking of Deluge, there's a very good Bittorrent tuning guide here [deluge-torrent.org]

    • (Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:51PM

      by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Thursday July 10 2014, @09:51PM (#67316) Homepage Journal

      Parents giving good advice. Use a different port. Utorrent allows you to check if the port is open. If the port is open and still slow, limit the max number of connects to between 25 and 50. Many routers cap at 256 simultaneous connections so even 50 ports opening closing and being in wait states can flood a crappy belkin router for example (man I hated my belkin router would lock up every day when torrenting even with 25 to 50 connections). I got a $14US Buffalo wcr-gn that I've had 12 torrents running with over 1200 simultaneous connects that has never locked up.

      Force encryption, and make sure the port is open.

      --
      jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
  • (Score: 1) by danomac on Thursday July 10 2014, @10:21PM

    by danomac (979) on Thursday July 10 2014, @10:21PM (#67324)
    I used to use GUI based clients, but I found the simpler non-gui app rtorrent to be much better. Coupled with screen, I can log in to the thing on any device I'm on with ssh to see how things are going without having to set up remote access in whatever client you're using.

    As far as speeds, it easily maxes out my 25/3 connection with one torrent, provided you set up proper port forwarding + DHT.

    The only downside to rtorrent is scheduling is somewhat limited. This may have changed (I haven't looked into it in quite some time now) but for example, if you wanted to load up 15 torrents, and only have 5 running at a time and cycle through them until they're done, then seed them to 100% it's just not possible. You can, however, set it up so if you start a torrent you can seed it to whatever you want (100%, 200%, etc) and have it stop automatically.
  • (Score: 1) by Balderdash on Thursday July 10 2014, @11:09PM

    by Balderdash (693) on Thursday July 10 2014, @11:09PM (#67340)

    Get an overseas VPS, stick Debian 32-bit minimal on it and install transmission-daemon on the seedbox, and snag a copy of transmission-remote for your desktop machine. Then scp your stuff from the seedbox.

    --
    I browse at -1. Free and open discourse requires consideration and review of all attempts at participation.
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Balderdash on Thursday July 10 2014, @11:40PM

      by Balderdash (693) on Thursday July 10 2014, @11:40PM (#67349)

      Also make sure to limit your up/down streams so you can be a good neighbor (as well as not losing the account).

      I usually set it to 1000kB on the down and 500kB on the up. So far no complaints.

      --
      I browse at -1. Free and open discourse requires consideration and review of all attempts at participation.
    • (Score: 2) by Popeidol on Saturday July 12 2014, @06:45AM

      by Popeidol (35) on Saturday July 12 2014, @06:45AM (#68002) Journal

      +1. If all else fails, a cheap seedbox/VPS will let you bypass ISP throttling. I have a couple of the $15/year VPS's from BuyVM [buyvm.net] - they're surprisingly good for the price, but the bandwidth and disk space limits would get in your way with torrenting. Have a look around Low End Box [lowendbox.com] and you'll probably find something that fits your needs for a few dollars a month.

      If you don't want to roll your own, there are plenty of companies out there that'll run a seedbox for you. Here's a quick guide to the basics and some of the options available. [whirlpool.net.au]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @01:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @01:05AM (#67370)

    What are the recommended Bittorrent clients these days?

    rtorrent

    And why is your choice better?

    Runs as a terminal application, so:

    1. no need for X to be running (although it will happily work from an xterm);
    2. can be run inside a screen/tmux session, so you can ssh in from anywhere and control it;
    3. lacking a GUI, there is no wasted CPU time drawing silly graphs, or fancy jumping paperclips, just because they can, just a display of active torrents and nothing more;
    4. you get back to work (or pleasure) faster, because there's not much to watch/see, and like a pot of water on the stove, a watched torrent never downloads, but one you ignore is done before you realize;
  • (Score: 1) by pogostix on Friday July 11 2014, @04:50AM

    by pogostix (1696) on Friday July 11 2014, @04:50AM (#67441)

    You shouldn't feel like you need to justify your use of bit-torrent, but FWIW, I get why you feel that way....

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @01:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 11 2014, @01:22PM (#67561)

    For Linux ISO's you simply cannot beat HTTP, there are networks of mirror sites and you will usually be directed to a fast local mirror, usually a local university.

    It doesn't solve your general issues with torrents but there are times where you need a screwdriver not a hammer (if you'll forgive the strained analogy).

  • (Score: 1) by cubancigar11 on Friday July 11 2014, @05:13PM

    by cubancigar11 (330) on Friday July 11 2014, @05:13PM (#67706) Homepage Journal

    I know I am in the minority. I have tried everything everyone else in this thread has already suggested. Ultimately I ended up using qBittorrent for quite some time. But nothing beats wine+utorrent - and that is the sad reality. I reverted to this system around 3 months back and have uninstalled qbittorrent.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13 2014, @07:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 13 2014, @07:54PM (#68625)

      Im using older utorrent thru wine. Since every linux install is different I try all versions at 1.8 utorrent series and find the best in particular case, this is for connectivity test. Preferences - 999 MB disc cache, half open 4000, transp_disposition *5 , no_connect_to_services_list 1,25,110,123,6666,6667,80,443,8080,7000,81,82,83,84 - etc.etc. Working partition must be fast so 8 sata2 disk in raid0 is good enough for me. After download everything is moved to ssd hdd for faster seeding.

      Very fast download-upload, lets say 100GB worth of torrents lead the system to some security issues. etc/security/limits.conf "yourname" soft nofile 100000 and another line "yourname" hard nofile 100000 . After restart check it ulimit -n , it needs to be show 100000 .

      http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net] for network security. deb http://moblock-deb.sourceforge.net/debian [sourceforge.net] wheezy main for repository line.

      Thats my only choice, years after learning, trying to max out.
      Every other way feels like a joke.