Alternatives to u-torrent

[leerees]

Does anybody know of any alternative programs to try that are similar to utorrent and don't place heavy load on disk i/o and network connections?

I'm not too bothered about system resource usage as I have a decent PC with lots of ram.

[Ultima]

I'd say the next best choice would be Azureus if low resource usage isn't a priority for you. My question to you is, is there any reason you'd like to share with us as to why you're planning on switching clients?

[Determination]

network connections? I don't believe that µTorrent is any more hard on networks than any other BitTorrent client.

[Firon]

And µTorrent puts less strain on the disk than azureus.

In fact, the only thing that makes µTorrent more "stressing" on routers is DHT, because a lot of routers are worthless pieces of plastic that can't handle a few measly UDP packets.

[Ultima]

That or they just can't handle the sheer number of "connections" created by the UDP packets.

[leerees]

I'd say the next best choice would be Azureus if low resource usage isn't a priority for you. My question to you is, is there any reason you'd like to share with us as to why you're planning on switching clients?

The main reason is that it kills my internet connection, i tried reducing max connections, disabling DHT but it appears that there is a problem with the software itself,

I tried it round my friends using his cisco 1841 router and it killed that within 30 minutes. He used some network monitoring software and advised me to avoid using u-torrent alltogether. He did say something about connections and dummy packets but I can't remember what. He's one of those geeky network engineers and kept saying oh my god when he was monitoring u-torrent traffic, so i guess it was pretty serious.

I did at first think it was my belkin being "crap" but he said the belkin is fine.

[Firon]

So then why does my dinky little $60 linux router have no problem when I'm using DHT and 2000 connections?

Still sounds like a case of lousy router syndrome.

Does your friend even know about DHT?

[Ultima]

Disabled UPnP as well?

[Determination]

hrm.

With Speed-Guide settings for xx/364kb, DHT on, UPnP off, my very cheap Netgear router can handle µTorrent fine for days?

[leerees]

hrm.

With Speed-Guide settings for xx/364kb, DHT on, UPnP off, my very cheap Netgear router can handle µTorrent fine for days?

well his router has emule, azerus and some other p2p programs, a web server, a very popular gaming server not to mention a very high traffic website and it's connected to his t1.5 leased line.

that all works perfectly but it's funny how when u-torrent is connected his enterprise grade router falls on it's ass. he tried u-torrent on it's own with no other traffic and it still died.

i'm not an engineer, but my friend is a senior engineer and developer who works for cisco's research and development team, so if he says u-torrent is a bad program, it's a bad program. he said its something to do with the way utorrent is creating overheads. he basically said, it's a bad program with bugs.

[silverfire]

@leerees: Which project does he work on? Can you name it? My dad works for Cisco for the CWM team. Anyone can swing names, but it really doesn't matter unless you can back it up with information that you've learned from there.

[leerees]

[useless quoting removed by moderator]

Are you the developer of u-torrent? email me from a @utorrent.com domain and i'll forward you his details. As far as I know he designs routers and router software in one of the R&D teams, but he has been involved in other things too, stuff that's way beyond me.

I haven't learned anything from cisco, I've mearly had u-torrent tested by a professional person who knows more about this than a lot of the people here, this post is not supposed to be an argument, someone asked why i dont like u torrent and i told them.

there's no point arguing with me because i know nothing about the inner workings of routers or protocols or whatever. all i know as a basic user is utorrent is a bandwidth / connection hog regardless of how you set it up or how many max connections or half open connections there is, even with DHT disabled and max downloads set to 2. ITS BROKEN!!!

So does anybody here know a good alternative to u-torrent?

[DreadWingKnight]

all i know as a basic user is utorrent is a bandwidth / connection hog regardless of how you set it up or how many max connections or half open connections there is

Then you know NOTHING. Taking the time to set everything up right for your hardware and software configuration WILL work. It's not the program's fault if your hardware (or its configuration) sucks.

edit: And for the record

Linksys WRT54G v1

Sveasoft Alchemy firmware

DHT on (YES ON)

40-60 peer connections per torrent (Depending on my mood)

120 Global peer connection limit

And I can still cleanly run Shareaza, Apache and a BT tracker on the same router.

[Determination]

This is a forum for the program you are calling broken. People here enjoy (and love in most cases) this program, so the first response from these fans is going to be help you correct your µTorrent usage, not send you away. The reason we are here helping people get µTorrent working correctly, and not at the "good alternative to u-torrent" site is because we don't feel there is one.

[Ultima]

@leerees: No, µTorrent isn't broken. No, it's not impossible to set it up to use less connections. If it works on a majority of user's routers, including mine that is over 5 years old and can't even handle more than 256 simultaneous connections without breaking down and crying, then saying that it doesn't work on an enterprise grade router means absolutely NOTHING.

i'm not an engineer, but my friend is a senior engineer and developer who works for cisco's research and development team, so if he says u-torrent is a bad program, it's a bad program. he said its something to do with the way utorrent is creating overheads. he basically said, it's a bad program with bugs.

So if Bill Gates says Linux is bad, that means Linux is bad -- hey, he's the CEO and chief software architect at Microsoft. If overhead was the issue, then you configured something incorrectly. If you used the Speed Guide properly, then it has nothing to do with overhead. Bad program? No. Has bugs? Maybe, but this supposed overhead "bug" does not exist in µTorrent, it's user error. That or just really crappy hardware (and that means a lot if I know my router sucks, but runs µTorrent just fine).

[Switeck]

Perhaps bt.connect_speed was left at the default value of 20? Whether that means make 20 connections at a time (which will be slowed down while in half-open state by net.max_halfopen limit) or 20 connections per second, I don't know for sure but assume the former over the latter.

The special UPnP method currently used by v1.6 is probably a bit different than the typical network traffic seen at the router-level as well.

And lastly, DHT has already been mentioned as a possible culprit for "strange activities" that might've been seen on that cisco router.

I actually do TCPview "snapshots" of µTorrent's activities due to past problems and ongoing hostiles research, and I do not see particularly heavy activity by µTorrent -- at least on the TCP side. I have DHT disabled (as it would often spoil my tests) and I don't even have UDP forwarded on my old Linksys 4-port router. Also, I am on Win 98SE -- which has an EXTREME allergy to high connection rates. My router cannot sustain without degredation more than ~100 connections at once either. There are multiple computers here, and combined I have put a very heavy load on that router numerous times...intentionally and by accident!

[Firon]

Well, bt.connect_speed is limited by net.max_halfopen, so if you leave net.max_halfopen at 8, it won't open any more than 8 new connections in one second.

Would you tell your friend to e-mail me with what exactly he thinks µTorrent is doing is wrong? firon@utorrent.com

While I still think it's just a badly setup router, since my Linksys router can handle it (with a half-open of 350 no less, which I actually reach), I'd like to know what he thinks.

[Captain-Fox]

leerees with all due respect, if your friend does in fact work as a senior engineer for Cisco Systems, I would be rather alarmed that they cannot configure a Cisco 1841 to handle a program such as uTorrent. It strikes me as odd, seeing as I succeeded in running uTorrent through a Cisco 837.

Now the last time I checked, the 1841 has a lot more grunt than my 837. If he can't configure a simple rule set in IOS or correct some ridiculous rule or logging he has set up, he needs to go see a lowly CCNA to go retrain ;3 Even R&D needs to know how to use the equipment.

[vanDivX]

I think your friend from Cisco simply didn't want to be bothered by you and steered you away from program that you can't setup by yourself, that all

and it takes special guts LOL to come on product forum and claim that the product is no good, that experts claim that and then ask what else to use

why would you ask advice here from folks who use 'bad program' and can't see its bad, I mean would you really trust the judgement of such people?? LOL

I sure would not ask here if I held such view and it wouldn't be just out of tact that you seem to lack in serious measure

for the record, I use uTorrent behind ClarkConnect Linux router for half a year now and don't have any problems with either uT or CC and I can let run uT at or near (near for uploads) bandwidth limits fully utilizing my 3MB DSL connection and I don't see any ill effects on my LAN in any way from uTorrent, I'd say with the rest, you doing something wrong

vanDivX

[Vchat20]

I also follow the others in saying that utorrent is not broken and its just a bad case of misconfiguration on your end of things which I am sure many people on here are more than willing to help you solve.

Here at home I run a Dlink DI-524 router which, according to many, is a fairly low end and crummy router. I wont delve too much into this fact here in this thread but will say for the 2 and a half years I have owned it, it has been rock solid for me.

I also run a windows 2003 server here which runs IIS and windows media with IIS running 3 dynamic sites and windows media running 3 pub points. While they are all fairly low traffic, they do get a regular amount of traffic daily from out on the net. Alongside this I regularly have utorrent running on any one of my 3 machines, sometimes 2 at once. All running the default xx/384k speed settings. And on top of that I will sometimes be playing some online games while this is going on as well as about a dozen IM connections combined from the other members of the house.

Not /ONCE/ have I had any problems with my router going all whacky because of the immense amount of connections and in/out-going bandwidth. I do have UPnP disabled on the router and each machines instance of utorrent has their own separate ports properly forwarded. I dont have useless junk features like 'gaming mode' enabled or anything like that, but I do have quite a large number of firewall/filter rules set in the router, most of these being for the windows media server (if you search the windows site for the ports needed for windows media to work properly, you will see why.).

Meh. That's my rantage for the day I guess. Take it as you will.

[WebReaper]

Surely if the OP has no clue about networks and routers, and the other Cisco 'expert' is trying (but failing) to set up uTorrent, would it not make more sense for 'expert' to post on here himself?

[TheBear]

I find it odd that a schlep like me can config µTorrent to work great in almost any environment and a Cisco engineer is baffled.

Maybe that's why they bought Linksys then... to improve their human resources pool.