Topic: Which Torrent client for Windows?

[capnhook]

Except with torrent software you are literally creating an open door to your machine and exposing your IP to everyone in the swarm!!  Huge difference....

That's every torrent software, so I guess if you don't want to run that risk, avoid torrents altogether. It's the internet, you are taking a risk of being hacked, malware being injected on to your computer, etc., every time you log on.

Which is even more reason to use an up to date open source client!

Give it up, G. 10 years ago, it was the best torrent client so it must still be!

Please don't put words in my mouth. I gave my opinion on what works for me and why, I never said it was the best for everyone. I appreciate you looking out for my internet security, but I guess I must be doing something right at this point to have not had a problem. I only use private trackers, so it lessens my risk, and always keep my anti virus up to date. I'm not alone in using 2.2.1 and not having any problems, so not sure why you're so dead set on convincing people to switch.

Dan33185  you've convinced me to switch back, thanks.  Glad you did not block me last year like you said you would.  I learned something today, glad I got up.

[Gutbucket]

Discussion about mitigating threat potential is exactly what I was looking for and is most definitely welcome in this thread.  Thanks everyone.

I don't wish to get involved in the dispute, but will try and shed some light on where I think the misunderstanding lies.  Dan33185, I believe the statements below are the key parts against which you are getting push back from the others:

"I guess if you don't want to run that risk, avoid torrents altogether"
^
Phrasing this as an all or nothing statement assumes a subcontext that all torrent clients pose an equivalent risk, which is counter to the point the others are trying to make.  I would phrase it as: All torrent clients pose some degree of risk due to requiring an open port, etc, etc., yet some pose more risk than others.  The follow up is then about the significance of the risk and ways to reduce it, such as by choosing to use actively patched open-source software, etc..

"I must be doing something right at this point to have not had a problem."
^
You may have never had a problem, and hopefully never will, but this falsely equates future potential outcomes with past outcomes.  It is a false equivalence because although nothing has changed on your end, things are constantly changing at the other end.  That the threat is constantly evolving and how best to deal with that is the point others are trying to make.  Its all about addressing the threat before it is able to be acted upon and causes harm.   

By definition things are historically all good with no problems right up until the point that they are not, then once it happens its too late to be avoided.  If one wishes to continue the streak of good luck in perpetuity, not having had a problem previously is weak assurance that such good luck will continue. Consider this logically equivalent hypothetical statement: I've never had a bad car accident before, so there is no need for me to start wearing a seatbelt.

[Dan33185]

Discussion about mitigating threat potential is exactly what I was looking for and is most definitely welcome in this thread.  Thanks everyone.

I don't wish to get involved in the dispute, but will try and shed some light on where I think the misunderstanding lies.  Dan33185, I believe the statements below are the key parts against which you are getting push back from the others:

"I guess if you don't want to run that risk, avoid torrents altogether"
^
Phrasing this as an all or nothing statement assumes a subcontext that all torrent clients pose an equivalent risk, which is counter to the point the others are trying to make.  I would phrase it as: All torrent clients pose some degree of risk due to requiring an open port, etc, etc., yet some pose more risk than others.  The follow up is then about the significance of the risk and ways to reduce it, such as by choosing to use actively patched open-source software, etc..

"I must be doing something right at this point to have not had a problem."
^
You may have never had a problem, and hopefully never will, but this falsely equates future potential outcomes with past outcomes.  It is a false equivalence because although nothing has changed on your end, things are constantly changing at the other end.  That the threat is constantly evolving and how best to deal with that is the point others are trying to make.  Its all about addressing the threat before it is able to be acted upon and causes harm.   

By definition things are historically all good with no problems right up until the point that they are not, then once it happens its too late to be avoided.  If one wishes to continue the streak of good luck in perpetuity, not having had a problem previously is weak assurance that such good luck will continue. Consider this logically equivalent hypothetical statement: I've never had a bad car accident before, so there is no need for me to start wearing a seatbelt.

I was giving my experience with the software I use, I wasn't necessarily trying to convince anyone to use what I use. Everyone should use what works best for them, and getting opinions from multiple people will help in choosing anything in life. Torrents, by nature, can be risky, is what I meant by if you want to guarantee you won't be breached or hacked by them, don't use them at all. You are literally opening your network and IP to a stranger, there's always risk. But, if you're smart about what your sharing and receiving (avoiding public trackers for example), and have up to date anti-virus/anti-malware software, chances are you'll be alright. If you find qBittorrent works for what you need, that's great, I won't try to convince you otherwise, because everyone's needs are different. Ultimately, you have to like what you are using, and feel safe using it.

[moondust.and.solitude]

This was actually a very informative read for me ... I had been using the same client for a while (several years) and I took the advice of finding something better & a little more up-to-date. I am now using qBittorrent v4.6.2 and I am really liking it. Lots of features. Thanks for the heads up and advice.

[moondust.and.solitude]

UPDATE:  I've been running qBit for about a week now. Downloaded a little over a dozen shows and this is a very feature rich, steady as heck program. I know that there was some debate as to " why " and " what if ", but I am tickled to be using this one. As a side note, I have not had one Windows Defender or Malwarebytes notification of a potential security issue ... and the old uTorrent program I was using constantly gave false warnings. Sometimes change is good

[breakonthru]

i feel like this thread misses the forest for the trees.

your #1 risk in torrenting isnt malware thru clients, its copyright BS from content owners and ISPs. client selection is wayyy down the list and is essentially a non-issue if you are using private trackers (as you should)

im moving away from windows (as its garbage and keeps getting worse) but for windows the latest qbittorrent is as good as anything else, security-wise
utorrent 2.2.1 was the standard for many years and was operationally superior to qbit (and if you ever dropped an external usb disk and had qbit thrash your disk while attempting to hash check hundreds or thousands of torrents simultaneously you know what im talking about). now it is long in the tooth and scheduled for deprication by the major torrent sites

hands down the best alternative for operation, security, and stability is rtorrent with an rutorrent frontend. my homelab (nothing special - a $200 desktop with a fat ass 3.5" drive in it) runs rtorrent on a basic linux install and has been seeding well over 10000 torrents without a hiccup or a crash for well over a year.

if youre really paranoid about copyright, etc, (im not as i dont use public trackers and rarely DL movies and TV shows) just rent an application slot in the netherlands for less than $10 a month. its way faster than your home internet and you can securely transfer files  to home via FTP, resilio, rsync, and numerous other methods. having rutorrent/rtorrent on both ends makes migration a breeze as you can easily move as many torrents as you like to a single folder, then highlight and right-click the list of torrents and download every .torrent file in a zip to checksum/resume seeding at home.

you could also torrent movies to there and watch them at home over plex or emby. you can also move back and forth between gdrive and mega to your slot to torrent or mirror filesets. well worth the cost imo.

at the end of the day, i dont think theres a single fileset i cant find on the private trackers like red, ops, ipt, concertos, anonymouse, LL. Etree kinda sucks these days and LL is a better alternative imo. i cant recall any user having a single security issue with any of the lsit of sites above, i certainly havent. whether you are downloading cracked software and running keygen .exes on your computer, i cant help that, nor would downloading that file witha different torrent client or platform make any difference whatsoever.

happy torrenting

[moondust.and.solitude]

i feel like this thread misses the forest for the trees.

your #1 risk in torrenting isnt malware thru clients, its copyright BS from content owners and ISPs. client selection is wayyy down the list and is essentially a non-issue if you are using private trackers (as you should)

im moving away from windows (as its garbage and keeps getting worse) but for windows the latest qbittorrent is as good as anything else, security-wise
utorrent 2.2.1 was the standard for many years and was operationally superior to qbit (and if you ever dropped an external usb disk and had qbit thrash your disk while attempting to hash check hundreds or thousands of torrents simultaneously you know what im talking about). now it is long in the tooth and scheduled for deprication by the major torrent sites

hands down the best alternative for operation, security, and stability is rtorrent with an rutorrent frontend. my homelab (nothing special - a $200 desktop with a fat ass 3.5" drive in it) runs rtorrent on a basic linux install and has been seeding well over 10000 torrents without a hiccup or a crash for well over a year.

if youre really paranoid about copyright, etc, (im not as i dont use public trackers and rarely DL movies and TV shows) just rent an application slot in the netherlands for less than $10 a month. its way faster than your home internet and you can securely transfer files  to home via FTP, resilio, rsync, and numerous other methods. having rutorrent/rtorrent on both ends makes migration a breeze as you can easily move as many torrents as you like to a single folder, then highlight and right-click the list of torrents and download every .torrent file in a zip to checksum/resume seeding at home.

you could also torrent movies to there and watch them at home over plex or emby. you can also move back and forth between gdrive and mega to your slot to torrent or mirror filesets. well worth the cost imo.

at the end of the day, i dont think theres a single fileset i cant find on the private trackers like red, ops, ipt, concertos, anonymouse, LL. Etree kinda sucks these days and LL is a better alternative imo. i cant recall any user having a single security issue with any of the lsit of sites above, i certainly havent. whether you are downloading cracked software and running keygen .exes on your computer, i cant help that, nor would downloading that file witha different torrent client or platform make any difference whatsoever.

happy torrenting

Actually your comment looks to be geared more towards downloading copyrighted movies and TV shows than what the majority of the people on here use torrents for, which is sharing live performances of taper friendly bands. I don't think it's a paranoid thing as much as it's just time to upgrade to something more stable.

[breakonthru]

no, as i mentioned, i rarely download TV and movies, unless my wife asks me, only one of the half dozen sites i listed even have those (IPT). i use the app slot for the speed mostly, can seed up to 10TB a month, at megabit speeds. just some general info which i hope can help  others. 

theres at least one other person in this thread who mentioned using a seedbox so i know im not alone.

the major motivation for building my home box was organizational actually. i got tired of having unknown stuff scattered out over dozens of externals collected over 25 years of downloading and rtorrent was the key to having a large library that i could checksum and move from machine to machine. its extremely powerful which is why most seedboxes use it. It does things that other clients simply cannot do, and its open-source and regularly updated, the common rec in this thread regardless of client choice.

i like building computers, modern ones with dual nvmes make editing my recordings go way faster. win-win

[moondust.and.solitude]

no, as i mentioned, i rarely download TV and movies, unless my wife asks me, only one of the half dozen sites i listed even have those (IPT). i use the app slot for the speed mostly, can seed up to 10TB a month, at megabit speeds. just some general info which i hope can help  others. 

theres at least one other person in this thread who mentioned using a seedbox so i know im not alone.

It's all good. I'm not pointing fingers. I just saw the "TV shows and movies" and the mention of using plex and/or emby (for watching said movies and shows) and then the Netherlands comment ... which is usually used to skirt copyright materials. Those type of torrents do carry a risk of sorts, but not everyone uses torrents in that manner. I use P2P torrent to share studio tracks with other musicians when recording sessions for people. So all the re-routing to Netherlands and all that jazz is overkill.

I liked the feature of being able to select just certain files in qTorrent instead of having to download everything ... I usually prefer to play along with drum and keyboard tracks so I don't have to download the others unless I am mixing a final product. The old torrent program I was using didn't have as nice features that was beneficial to me. So I was please to try something not as antiquated as the old uTorrent 2.1.somethinganother

[breakonthru]

It's all good. I'm not pointing fingers. I just saw the "TV shows and movies" and the mention of using plex and/or emby (for watching said movies and shows) and then the Netherlands comment ... which is usually used to skirt copyright materials. Those type of torrents do carry a risk of sorts, but not everyone uses torrents in that manner. I use P2P torrent to share studio tracks with other musicians when recording sessions for people. So all the re-routing to Netherlands and all that jazz is overkill.

theyre pretty much all over there as a matter of course, to cover their ass and not be responsible for their customers content. i didnt seek them out for that, i sought them out for the price and support. for example none of these slots (which are essentially multiple users on a single machine) offer root access but ive been able to ask them to install flac and lame and other packages for me. so i can DL a a 24-bit flac to the seedbox and via SSH, derive 16 bit, 320, and V0 and make torrents for all of them with a single bash script. and theyre all out there on a Gbit connection. would take me all day to download, derive it all and reupload. its done in minutes.

other times ill wrap up whole tours in a folder and make a large torrent to share with others. again, all remote. if someone posts a 25GB 4K stream rip on gdrive or mega i can bounce it direct to the seedbox in minutes and then mirror/share via torrent or direct link. its powerful and allows me to share far more than i ever could from home. 8TB of storage and 25TB upload allotment per month on a gbit connection for less than $15 is an incredible value to me. you cant touch that with a mega or gdrive plan and those platforms dont offer any of the features i mentioned above. I always bounce my recordings there when im out on the road for a safety backup