Features that SHOULD NOT be requested for uTorrent

[Xilon]

· Preview

· Chat

Why not? Chat does seem useless but it's sometimes handy for uknown (unverified) torrents where you could ask the seeders wether it's the right torrent or you could talk to leechers or something. Generally I wouldn't use this (maybe once a month lol) but it depends on the amount of code whether it would be a good idea or not.

The preview on the other hand is very useful, maybe not having an inbuilt viewer to display stuff but I think that having the option to use an external viewer (eg. VideoLAN VLC) would be an excellent feature and commonly seen in other p2p apps such as Shareaza or StrongDC++. I'm not sure if that is possible with torrents since they are stored in a different way (when they are pre-allocated), but I have used VLC on incomplete files when they aren't pre-allocated and it worked fine (apart from getting an error from utorrent about the file being in use once).

With the other two I wholheartadly agree I hate bloat just as much as the next person here, probably more.

[chaosblade]

Since uTorrent i set to get the first and last pieces of files sooner (it requests them first), You should have no problem previewing them on your own. Just load it in a decent media player (MPC,VLC).

I still think chat is completely useless in a BT client.

[log4n]

.

Okay, here is an instance where a chat applet would be cool: Say you have been trying to download a file and after a week or two, you are 86% complete. You can see your upload ratio on the file is way more than your download (2.2), and the torrent's availability is over 5. So what is with the delay? And are you beginning to get curious or nervous if you are not ever going to get it all completely down.

You begin to study the file and its properties a little more. You can also see that you have 7-9 seeders in the group, but they are no longer active, and have perhaps turned off or stopped the upload stream on this file, because they have already shared it enough. (They may have a ratio of 5.2, but you cant see.) You notice from time to time, a seeder drop off the group, or when a new one comes on, you get a tiny feed of 0.3kb/s or 1.1kb/second. It lasts for about 12 to 30 seconds. Then nothing. Everyone else in the group is at 76% finished or below.

What to do?

Here is where a tiny chat applet (or 'send a prompt' feature) would be cool: You could click on one of the peers in the group who has 100% of the file, or out of 7-9 seeders (send a group message), asking if they can open up the pipe a bit or turn on the 'start' button so it sends out for 30 minutes or an hour a day. This could be an auto-preprepared message, that would list the file or swarm reference in the message. They could look at the message and then at the group and decide if they wanted to our not. Out of 7-9 seeders, two or three may just open up that seed, or if there was a chat, could post a reply, such as: "Best time is at such and such a time" text ... (this could also be an auto-message or pre-prepared reply). So it is not actually a lot of chatting going on, just a prompt more or less.

I agree with the above participants, that this could be done in a cool or positive manner. Such as gafoorgk

"i do not agree with all of them. auther must have written these without knowing how some of these features could be done in a nice way. i believe author might have got bored of some poorly designed applications."

It would not need to be a great, full featured chat applet. Just a little something to get a message across to one of the seeders who have their pipe closed off, and keep closing it. Sort of like a pm on the forum, only it would be built into the application.

If an auto-prompt feature was built in, it could also have a prompt to go specific peers, like the 7-9 seeders on the swarm, from another seeder. Something to the effect, "Imma open this file up between 4:15am-5am CST. I invite you to open it up too so these participants can finish." ... Then it could leave a prompt to toggle 'yes' or 'no.' And the effect automated across a group of 7-9 seeders. If a group of three seeders reply with a 'yes,' and automated message could go out to all the peers in the group, informing them of the optimal time for downloading that file. Its not like you would get a message like that all the time, it would only be as the torrent gets older, and the number of seeders starts to dwindle. I have found need for such a feature, mainly, when I am about 30-60 days late to a swarm; or longer. This is usually when a file becomes unpopular, and so you will not get a lot of messages; just occasional requests.

The chat applet could also be relegated to not become available, until after a participant has been on a file for one to two weeks (say 8-14 days). Then and only then does it become available, and a gateway open so you can talk with other peers in that group. And the only reason would be to send a message to a seeder or a select group of seeders, who have their pipe turn down on that file.

There could also be a limit to 3 group messages in a month, and only 9 maximum in a group prompt. That way if you receive one, you know the peer is sort of feeling like they are not going to get the file complete, and they have a sense of urgency. If there were some limits, for its functionality, that would be a cool part of the feature.

If something like this can be done without bloat, I think it would be a positive feature. Otherwise great program.

.

[Zord]

I agree with all above, but specially with log4n who shares my opinion.

Why not a Chat?

Although the reasons given by the guy above, sometimes you would like to ask to the peers about the File, or the Tracker or something else. It's a important feature!

[DreadWingKnight]

You may consider it to be an important feature, and it may be.

But there are far too many who would use it for abusive purposes.

Spam and DoS attacks come to mind immediately.

It won't be added.

[Firon]

Never.

[Switeck]

Why no 'chat with other users' ability?:

The major concern was if that was added, it would be abused highly by spammers.

...or massive insults thrown for either not uploading enough or downloading too fast or some other nonsense.

With the nature of torrents coming from individual trackers often found on like-minded websites, a message forum for those tracker websites seems a better communication tool.

Better than leaving a bunch of very busy torrents running all night and coming back to see:

"You have 1053 new messages!"

Oh...I forgot to add that it would go along with everyone wanting to set their username, so you don't just see ip addresses. Which wouldn't be much good on say a specific large download if multiple people were named "Sith Lord" or "S1th L0rd" or "51th 10rd".

[easypeasy]

How could you chat anyway?

1) it would only work between uTorrent clients.

2) even if universal what happens if the person at the other end is offline or like me runs system up runs utorrent and sets the system to shutdown automatically.

The only system I could see working would be message flagging system

User 1 send request to 'talk' User 2 gets flagged which they then have the choice of accepting or rejecting with an additional option to ignore all further message requests.

This does not have to be instantaneous

[Honeyfrog]

(Cool. A necro-thread!)

Here is where a tiny chat applet (or 'send a prompt' feature) would be cool: You could click on one of the peers in the group who has 100% of the file, or out of 7-9 seeders (send a group message), asking if they can open up the pipe a bit or turn on the 'start' button so it sends out for 30 minutes or an hour a day

Yeah...that'd be the very first thing I shut off permanently.

[mocsokybandi]

I disagree only with the 'chat' part, because it could be useful to chat with other leechers or perhaps with the seeders of one torrent, on/about the torrent itself.

Cheers.

[DreadWingKnight]

As much as you would disagree, it would just encourage more potential seeds to leave because of the amount of pestering that would happen.

[Red0]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients#Features_I

This is the Basis i used To choose uTorrent when It was one of the 1st use of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-seeding with all the Bells and whistles.

[sal]

Glad to see features in my initial list almost 5 years ago still remain unsupported

[Switeck]

They're still ideas so bad they rear their ugly head almost weekly still.

[MoFoEskimo]

I think a 'chat' or 'message' feature would have some good qualities.

Not 'mail,' because that would indeed just cause spam.

You could just get a pop-up (that doesn't alt-tab you out of whatever youre doing when you get the message) that says such and such wishes to send you a message (and maybe show how that person relates to you, as in you are downloading a file of theirs, or vice versa) and ask you if you wish to accept or reject the message, or outright block the person entirely.

And of course have the option to disable messages entirely, if you, like the OP, feel like it's a "bad idea."

edit: And I registered to post this because I wanted to message someone I was uploading @ 150kb to, to see if they really need me to stick around for them to finish it fast(er), or if they didn't really mind how long it takes to DL it. (I know sometimes I want to use something the second I DL it, and other times I just DL it and deal with it later)