Yeah nearly 20 years I think. It's not open either. If you can't figure this out god help you rawdogging the internet with torrents.

100%. I stopped using them a very long time ago after they changed their UI to what it is now. I realized then it was compromised because the UI no longer served a useful purpose and instead prioritized visuals and engagement.

I run Deluge for the same reason. AutoRemovePlus plugin and a couple others go a long way and just like Transmission it has a web-ui for remote management, so I can VPN back to my home network and manage deluge from my phone's browser.

Switched from Transmission to web-qBittorrent. Easy switch woth docker and Ive been happier. For transparency I rarely use it, though.

Yes qbittorrent and gluetun in a docker container is very handy.

For maximum privacy, I have qBittorrent on an air gapped system. Good luck catching me FBI!

/s

This also means you can run multiple instances very easily. I personally run one instance for public trackers, then an entirely separate instance for private trackers. It makes managing private seeding rules much easier, and helps avoid accidental hit-and-runs because of a dumb misconfiguration.

It's stacked, even.

I've been using a split tunnel to make sure qbit stays behind the VPN, but I like this idea too, feels like there's some redundancy.

1000% this. Get on a private tracker and setup your glutun/qbit docker container and you never have to worry about your ratios or bring had by the feds. It's so nice. My jellyfin setup with Seerr gets a lot of traffic from my whole family. All of it is running on second hand hardware from office e-waste auctions that I've spent maybe $250 on over the last 4-5 years. Way cheaper than paying for all the subscription streamers. And I got to learn a fuckload of cool stuff I never would have otherwise.

Alternatively a server-only qBittorrent (controllable via the web-interface only) without docker (package: qbittorrent_nox) behind an always on VPN, configured to only bind to the network interface of the VPN so that it doesn't send any data outside the VPN does the same but it's much lighter so you can put it in shitty-shit hardware.

This is what I have in the cheap mini-PC which I use as Homeserver/NAS/TV Media Player.

First, I want to express my appreciation for the post. It's well written and thought provoking. Thank you for taking the time to write it.

I was the person you described in the first paragraph until the last few years, starting with my first Linux distro. It was the doorway into a world of amazingly functional yet free software.

I'm still gratefully surprised on a regular basis at the sheer amount and scope of FOSS. I spent the evening rooting my LG TV, the one product I most grudgingly enjoyed (fuck LG's surveillance) and not only was I able to disable said surveillance, but tweaking some settings and installing a few homebrewed applications has made my TV so much better. Even the Plex application, PlxNative, is leagues better than stock.

Now I look like some sort of tech wizard to my family, but all of this is truly due to the contributions of the very community you describe - I'm just a monkey that can read a guide and push buttons. The real fucking wizards here are those contributing to these projects.

After degoogling I noticed that FOSS usually comes with less convenience and maturity, so you choose either your data or you loose the bells and whistles.

i'm pretty sure version 2.2.1 was the last version before the corporate takeover and malware was baked in

What baffles me is why anyone still uses torrents when we have Usenet and Debrid services. Why wait for seeds, when you can just get a direct download of the exact same content at your internet connection's maximum download speed?

Yeah, as soon as ads started popping up I knew shit was going downhill.

I'm glad qbit has held the line so far, but I'm always spooked to download the newest update for fear that it may be the one that introduced AI or some other bloat.

It's simple and bundled with some distros by default.

We had stopped using qbittorrent on Linux because we couldn't figure out how to get it to stop leaking our IPV6. At the time, it was a few versions behind the windows build too, so it seemed as if it was Windows first, this pushing is towards another client, which ended up being Transmission.

Well packaged by the distros? Transmission works out if the box on my Debian systems.

Lots of Linux users are focused on reducing resource usage, and Transmission is extremely lightweight compared to other torrent programs. It also comes bundled directly with some distros, so lots of Linux users don’t even need to install it manually.

It's very minimalistic and lightweight compared to QBitTorrent.

However, if you prefer extensibility or if you like the uTorrent UI, then QBitTorrent would be better.

For me the same as for others: It was the first option when searching for "bittorrent", it works, it is easy to use, it does not hog a huge amount of resources, it has good features.

Haven't really bothered looking into other torrent software after originally starting using Transmission something like over a decade ago.

Yes! Via tremc

Got Linux and Deluged running on a Raspberry Pi myself.

Was looking for this comment as I have been using deluge for a LONG time.

Deluge is awesome but it uses more resources than other alternatives. As another poster mentioned it also struggles with torrents with many files.

It's a good client unless you're into archiving giant torrents with thousands of files. Deluge can't handle them, actually most clients can't.

qBittorrent and BiglyBT can and that's about it.

Malware bundling was a risk of unofficial sources for the uTorrent installer - real malware-ification began around 2014-16.

Is there a sexual deviant in your house? Find out now!

https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/en/peer/

I use qbittorrent, but I respect Transmission

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

The fact that it's proprietary is a deal breaker for me.

Proprietary software for torrents?

It's good, but it's aggressive ability to download sequentially has banned it from a lot of private trackers. On public trackers it's great because you can start watching something within seconds of queuing it.

But if you use tixati, do seed more than usual since tixati strains network with its sequential downloading. Or better yet, use it only and only when you need to start watching something within seconds of queuing it.

Could have been inertia. uTorrent used to be pretty good a long time ago.

uTorrent has been malware for over 10 years. I would not recommend using such out of date software when good trusted modern open source software exists.

Is that a good way to run unpatched software?