best bit torrent client

[abhishekit]

Ok.. I have read the earlier thread about torrents. There are still somethings I would like to ask as I very little idea how to use torrents.
Where can I get a good bit torrent client for OS X? do they have spywares?
After I have the client.. i search for torrent files ( on supernova, mactorrectskickass, ect ?) save them on my disk..Then what?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[varmit]

what you do is get a torrent program, let that be bittorrent (http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html) or Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/howto_osx.php). bittorrent is small program where as Azureus is big and has many options to choose from.

How to use it. You go to a place and down load the torrent file. Then you open that torrent file with the program of your choice, which the download starts. It connects you to everyone else who is doing the same as you.

OSX doesn't get spyware, do get that out of your head, at least for now.

[tjwett]

client? very simple, it's called BitTorrent and you can get it from versiontracker.

put it in yer Applications folder. there is no need to launch it since it won't do anything. go to a Torrent site like the ones you mentioned, although the Mac section of torrentskickass is down for maintenance. find a torrent you like. download it. double-click the torrent to launch it. it will ask where you want to save the file to. wait. that's it.

oh! and BE SURE TO LEAVE THE TORRENT OPEN AFTER YOUR DOWNLOAD HAS COMPLETED if there are peers connected to you. it keeps the network alive. i like to make sure i upload at least as much as i download, but half is probably sufficient.

[Phatpat]

I know there are other clients out there, but the official os x client has been the one I like to use. It's simple, and it works well. The other ones seem like they have more features...but I always end up falling back to the official client.

[abhishekit]

Thanks varmit,tjwet ..you were very helpful..
another question... is going to these sites and checking the list ,the only method of finding torrents?

[abhishekit]

yah another question..the download speeds I am getting are too low..I tried changing upload speeds..making them higher, lower...but still download speed was like 3-4 kbps..
thanks

[Gymnut]

I've noticed if I've got more than one torrent active, anything internet related i.e. Mail, Safari, iChat, grinds to a snails pace. Guess I'll need a faster cable connection.

[abhishekit]

I get pretty good speed on poisoned..so i think my cable bandwidth is not a problem..but still cant get a descent speed on torrents

[Wes]

You will need to unblock ports 6881-6889 to allow bit torrent to speed up.

[Makosuke]

Woah, the OSX version of Azureus sudenly got useful! I'd used older versions (all entirely Java), but had a heck of a time getting it to run properly.

Generally, the standard BT client, despite being so simple, works great. It does, however, have a tendency to freeze periodically, sometimes has trouble for no apparent reason with a particular torrent, it definitely doesn't like non-ASCII encoded filenames, and it gives you almost no info about what it's doing.

I used to occasionally resort to Azureus when the generic client just wouldn't work, but it looks like it's a much more viable option now.

As far as advice goes, as Wes said, you've got to open those ports on your firewall or speeds will be near zero. Speed also, of course, relates drastically to the number of other users on the torrent, their connection speeds, and if they're loosers who tightly cap their upload bandwidth. I often see rates in the 5KB range on torrents with a dozen or two folks, and rarely see anything over 20K/s even on very healthy torrents. I have, on rare occasions, gotten numbers as high as 60K/s, so it is possible.

[tjwett]

yeah, assuming your ports are all in order there isn't much you can do about the speeds. all depends on the seeders and the peers you are connected to. really slow ones like that i just skip, not worth it to me. i have pretty good look though and gotten up over 300kbps on a number of occasions. not sure if it has anything to do with my connection. my area has the fastest residential cable service in the country supposedly.