Tribler, the decentralized, EU-funded torrent client comes of age

In a research lab at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, a lucky bunch of professors are working on the only tax-funded BitTorrent client in existence: Tribler.

Tribler, if you're used to uTorrent, doesn't look like anything special -- but a brief glance reveals a 'Search' bar at the top of the program, which lets you search the swarm for torrents, rather than having to hit an external index like The Pirate Bay. It is this functionality -- this disassociation from any external source -- that makes Tribler the first truly decentralized BitTorrent client. Honestly, I don't understand the actual technology at play here. I'm not sure how a bunch of Tribler clients can discover each other without a central server, but who am I to argue with TorrentFreak?

Even without the decentralization, Tribler has some neat features. It's the first client with real 'spam control': users can up- and down-vote 'channels' of torrents, making sure the useless crud sinks to the bottom. The Download Squad favorite VLC is also included in the Tribler package, meaning you can watch or listen to torrents as they download. Check the Tribler wiki for more info.

Of course, Tribler is open source and free to download. It's even cross-platform, with Windows, Mac and Linux clients available.

Tribler, the decentralized, EU-funded torrent client comes of age originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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