Articles about BitTorrent

Although BitTorrent’s reputation is as a means to download music and movies illegally, the company is trying to change that by offering original, and legal content.

Two months ago, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke released a new album as a paid BitTorrent Bundle, and now the file sharing firm announces its first original TV series -- Children of the Machine.

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One of the arguments often put forward in favor of online piracy is that those who illegally download content are more likely to purchase that content at a later date. Well now BitTorrent has some figures to back-up that assertion.

Following a survey of 2,500 of its users, the peer-to-peer network found that file-sharers are more engaged than the average consumer.

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As someone who was in high school during the 90s, alternative rock was a very important part of my life. Bands such as Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins made big impacts, but Radiohead was the true soundtrack to many of our lives. Whether you were depressed, or just wanted to emote, their music was sure to help, as it conjured emotions from the soul.

The frontman of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, released his debut solo album, The Eraser, in 2006, and it was just as magical as his prior group efforts. Since then, fans have been eagerly awaiting a new album from the artist. Today, BitTorrent announces that his new album is being released digitally as an exclusive paid torrent "Bundle".

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As far back as I can remember, the Internet has been a place for illegal downloads. Sure, the methods have changed, but the concept is the same -- getting something for nothing. While FTP servers, Newsgroups and services like Napster were very popular, they pale in comparison to the mighty BitTorrent. You see, torrents are very easy for the average person to use, and since it implements peer-to-peer technology, it takes the onus off of a single server from hosting content. In other words, Internet users are sharing the files among themselves.

Much like FTP servers and Newsgroups, piracy is not the only use for BitTorrent. The underlying technology is even used by reputable companies, such as Amazon and Facebook. Unfortunately, even though torrents can be used for good, the technology gets a bad reputation due to the illegal aspect. Today, BitTorrent is celebrating a 10th birthday and I want to know, what types of things do you download using the technology?

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Chat has become popular on many platforms, from computers to mobile. But BitTorrent has a client that seems to be changing how this all works, by removing the cloud storage from the equation, making this a bit more secure.

Today its chat client, known as Bleep, becomes available to all users. It's still in alpha form for the time being, but these things are moving forward.

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Finding a particular torrent isn't always easy, and you might have to visit several search engines before you spot the one you need.

Bit Che is a free PC program which offers an interesting alternative, quickly running searches on 50-plus torrent sites in a single operation.

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BitTorrent Sync has gone from alpha to beta to full release. Along the way it has become one of the best and most secure sync apps, with security largely because of its decentralized nature. Now the service is getting a major update that adds even more features to the platform.

BitTorrent is introducing large file sharing, allowing something like an entire folder full of photos to be shared with a group of friends and family. With the new work-flow that has been built for version 1.4, customers don't need to set up an account. "There's two ways to send a link, via email or copying it to your clipboard (so you can send using any communications tool of your choice)", Erik Pounds, vice president of product management, explains.

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When people hear the word BitTorrent, they tend to leap to conclusions, some of which are inevitably wrong. The fact is, the technology is used to distribute all sorts of content, including Linux distros and music and movies that artists and directors make available.

However, it is largely one of those keywords that sets off alarm bells with Apple, which keeps a tight rein on the content that appears within its iTunes app store. That's why it was a bit shocking when Blue Downloader made its debut.

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Regardless of what your views are on 'alternative' methods for getting TV and movie content for viewing, Popcorn Time continues to exist, much to the dismay of the MPAA. The service utilizes BitTorrent technology to get content and streams it to the viewer as it downloads, making for almost instant viewing.

Now the service is taking a step to help its users become more secure, adding a free Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, provided by Kebrum. This means users should be safe from being tracked or intercepted (NSA not included in this statement).

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Recent revelations, courtesy of Edward Snowden, have given insight into just how much citizens need to worry about NSA activity, and it was an alarmingly large amount. BitTorrent has been working to mitigate these issues, at least as best as possible, with a Sync app that stores no data that can be accessed, and now a new chat app that will do the same.

The service debuts in private Alpha today, allowing testers to jump on board and get a taste of what it's like to use what is claimed to be a "serverless" version of chat.

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BitTorrent has been branching out over the past year, introducing new products such as Sync and Chat, both being encrypted and with a promise that user data is protected. Now the organization is looking to test a new product, but information is scant.

BitTorrent posted a short and mysterious blog post asking for testers to try out a new product, which it claims is for web browsers.

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PopcornTime has been in and out of the news. The program uses BitTorrent to grab movies and TVs shows and allows you to stream them right away. The service was initially taken down, but has found a way to come back, and claims those problems are in the past, stating "This PopcornTime service will never be taken down".

Now, in an even bolder move, the service has announced support for Chromecast, Google's tiny TV dongle. "This is the alpha version, so handle with care and let us know what works, what doesn’t, and if you do find something that’s not working properly (hopefully not!!) let us know in our forum and be as specific as possible (also tell us which Windows version you’re running, etc.)", the service announces.

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The Pirate Bay saga is one that has been running for a number of years now, and the latest chapter sees one of the founders arrested in Sweden. Peter Sunde had been on the run for two years after failing to make an appearance having been sentenced to two years in prison. He had been handed an eight month term for aiding and abetting breach of copyright laws, although those associated with the site have long-maintained that they should not be held responsible for the sharing of copyrighted material as no data was stored on the site.

Sunde had been sought by Interpol and his arrest coincided with the eight-year anniversary of the police raid of Pirate Bay servers. He had been living in hiding in Berlin, but having family in Sweden meant that he often returned to the country. Torrent news website TorrentFreak reports that the arrest was a joint operation between Swedish and Polish law enforcement agencies.

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The revelations made by Edward Snowden have irreversibly changed the face of the internet. There is now suspicions at every turn, every site and provider is the subject of questioning, and web users are warier than ever before. The use of encryption to hide the content and nature of online activity is nothing new, but it seems that it is very much on the increase. As reported by TorrentFreak, analysis from Sandvine shows that there has been a global increase in the use of encryption.

The figures have been reached by looking at the levels of SSL traffic over the past year, and these show that in North America, during peak hours, encrypted traffic just about doubled. In Europe the increase is even more marked, jumping fourfold so that it now accounts for over six percent of peak time traffic. Europe appears to have a greater interest in encryption than North America, with the latter's SSL traffic accounting for 3.8 percent of peak time traffic.

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A new deal could be struck between ISPs and representatives of the music and film industries in UK in a bid to combat online piracy. But the proposed scheme does not go anywhere near as far as had been hoped by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) and the MPA (Motion Picture Association). Four of the country's biggest ISPs -- BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media -- have come together to create the Voluntary Copyright Alert Program (Vcap) which has the aim of educating downloaders of pirate material of the error of their ways. As the name suggests, the program is completely voluntary.

There have been years of debate on the topic, and the BBC has seen documentation that shows ISPs will be doing little more than sending out letters to those suspected of downloading pirated material. The letters are described as having an "educational" tone, while the industry bodies had been calling for warning letters to be sent out alerting downloaders to the possibility of legal action. They had also asked for access to a database of web users known to have downloaded pirated material.

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