Opera Embedding BitTorrent Client

Opera Watch writes "The next version of Opera, 8.02, will have an embedded BitTorrent client. Opera has released today a Technical Preview of this new version on its FTP directory, though they have made no official announcement as of yet."

And Mozilla is on it's way...

[MTO_B.]

Thanks to google's summer code we can hope to have a functional BitTorrent client built with XUL/XPCOM.

Included in Firefox? :-)

Check the Mozilla development projects that have been accepted for Google's Summer of Code program:
http://summer.mozdev.org/projects.html [mozdev.org]


And the MozillaZine news about it here:
http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=6 874 [mozillazine.org]

Re:Prediction...

[masterren]

MozTorrent seems to be in the works already.

http://moztorrent.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]

Re:Apache

[csnydermvpsoft]

A lot of the time the Slashdot effect isn't due to bandwidth being exceeded, but rather due to the database server being overloaded on database-driven sites. These sites couldn't be served this way anyways, as they have dynamic content that could be different for different users.

Re:Legal problems?

[ari_j]

The precedent recently set is that you cannot distribute a tool with the intent that it be used to infringe copyrights. Grokster distributed software and said "Go illegally download songs to which you have no license!" Opera is saying "Go and download really big files!" Including Bittorrent is no different than including HTTP in their web browser, since either can be used for both lawful and unlawful purposes. What would make Opera a target is if their new release were advertised (at all! ... hahaha, I kill me) with the tagline "Opera 8.5 with Bittorrent: the world of pre-release movies is at your fingertips."

Re:Apache

[kv9]

what we need is people implementing [sourceforge.net] the idea not people coming up with ideas. hint: Development on mod_torrent is currently suspended indefinitely due to lack of time.

they [mailto] need help.

Re:Money

[Khashishi]

What's wrong with wanting money? Not everyone can subsist on rocks and mud, you know.

Doesn't seem like a good fit to me....

[wowbagger]

Adding a Bittorrent client to a browser doesn't seem like a good fit to me - a BT client needs to run continuously in the background, downloading and uploading the files.

A browser's model is more one of "load the thing and show it" or "Stream the thing and show it". How does that map to BT, where you cannot even "stream" a thing (since you are getting the pieces out of order)?

Will we see people who's torrent clients only serve the file while it is being downloaded, and then stops?

Personally, I run Torrentflux [torrentflux.com] - which is a PHP CGI app that allows me to download & serve torrents on my server - then I just point my browser at it to set things up.

Now, *if* the browser plug-in then communicated with a [daemon|service|external program] that did the torrent work, and all the plug-in did was send the command to the external entity to command the queuing of the download (and then open a window in the browser when the download is done)- then that might make sense.

Re:torrent

[masklinn]

One of the few Firefox 'features' that really annoys me is that each update requires a full download of the installer package.

Which, as it's been said times and times again, is fixed with a binary updater in the soon to come Firefox 1.1

On a side note, it should be noted that Opera is no better in that field...

Where is the "bloat"?

[hkmwbz]

"For a community that's so against IE's "bloat" it's amazing how many people welcome with open arms more *unnecessary* bloat."

Bloat? Opera with BitTorrent is a smaller download than Firefox, and BT downloads in Opera work exactly like HTTP or FTP downloads (there is no UI clutter).

Where is the bloat?

"Either you're with bloat in the browser world or you aren't. Which is it?"

I'm for making it easier and more convenient to do stuff online. I hope Firefox gets a built in BT client too.

Re:torrent

[rikkards]

I agree. Downloading the latest Service Pack or ATI drivers usually is around 500KB (as in bytes) through http. BitTorrent will take a while and usually maxes out around 150-200kb per second (I think it is bits whatever Bittornado uses)

Re:I'm not impressed

[Kjella]

As much as I'd like to find my way to an OSS solution, I find myself going back to Opera every time. I don't have like one major thing to point, but it is many tiny things that make it feel considerably more polished and userfriendly. Firefox, meaning no disrespect, still feels like it was designed by engineers. It's solid, it works and that's basicly what people need.

As far as Opera are concerned, they are doing very well in their niches, and as far as the desktop goes, I think they have a common cause with Firefox in making as many people as possible consider alternatives to IE. A person who thinks "I've been hearing so much good about features other browsers provide" is a far more likely customer than a "IE came with Windows. Good enough." person. Not to mention that enough non-IE users force sites to follow standards, levelling the playing field against IE.

Re:torrent

[yodaj007]

How did blizzard break it?

Re:torrent

[Progoth]

HA

Back when aqua teens were still coming out I'd bittorrent the new episode the next morning at an average of >500KB/s (with it going over 1.1MB/s near the end)

It all depends on the popularity of the torrent (and making sure you forward a port if you're behind a NAT)

Re:NAT + torrent?

[Scarletdown]

I operate behind a NAT box (Debian with ipmasq and GuardDog firewall). I've never had any problems getting BitTorrent to work, and don't have to ssh into the NAT box.

BitTorrent Peer and BitTorrent tracker are two of the many protocols that you can set GuardDog to allow, block, or reject.

Re:Let me get this straight

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Reality check: The benefit of bt for the client is not that it's faster than http on good conditions, it's two-fold:

1. the file is available at all. If I'm serving a file that's very popular and consequently my ISP sends me an extra bill, I'll stop serving the file...
2. The file is available when it's very popular. If my web server is at maximum connections you're not getting much content, are you?

Re:torrent

[imsabbel]

They didnt really break it, but they sorta jumped into cold water....
Back when WoW came out, there were large patches, with 100.000s of users, which led to things comming to a crawl. Overloaded trackers, non-connections, ect.
Made a bad impression, but i was suprised that the last patches worked quickly without any problems, so i guess they ironed out the process.

Re:torrent

[ZephyrXero]

If there's not a "seed" with traditional methods you won't be able to download it either... The originator of the file will have to seed all their files of course...that's just common sense.

Re:Problems with this.

[akozakie]

"web browsers are not stable"? You must be using FireFox ;-) (just kidding, don't get excited).

I get to work, fire up Opera, shut it down after 10 hours or so (or not, if I don't log out for some reason). One crash last month. Is that unstable for you?

Besides, Opera generally comes up from a crash in the same state as before, with pages open, transfers remembered (though you must activate them manually)... I they do this right, a crash won't hurt you. Unless BitTorrent can't continue a stopped transfer - I never used it, I don't know, but come on, that would be braindead for something that's supposed to be way better than FTP.

Re:Just more proof...

[dr.badass]

For torrent, the host setup is going to be much more involved. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you need:

Correcting:

Current BitTorrent betas support "trackerless" torrents [bittorrent.com], which removes the only problematic step. If you can host a file, you can host a torrent.

Re:Fine, but...

[Just Some Guy]

Your browser config is screwed up, then. When I click on a .torrent file, I get a dialog box asking whether I want to save it to disk or open it with my BT client (which is the default on my system). This is the case both in Firefox and Konqueror here.

Re:torrent

[Soul-Burn666]

Thanks for showing at least one person knows how BT was meant to be used...

BT wasn't meant to be completely P2P with all peers on small pipes. BT was meant to aid BIG sites in order to avoid flash crowds when a new big thing comes (new distro, new game patch, new vid).

The sites have huge pipes, for normal use, but when the number of users triples, even the huge pipe isn't enough. This is where BT comes in to play.

Re:torrent

[CableModemSniper]

You know, most bittorrent clients let you set an upload cap.

Re:torrent

[n54]

Sorry but are you serious? Don't get me wrong I do understand your sentiment but don't compare the situation with downloading torrents with only a few thousand seeds or less.

To get a real feeling of how it would be I recommend trying out the Azureus [sourceforge.net] bittorrent client, keep it around and fire it up when a new Azureus version has been released, then look at the speed with which it dowloads (through a torrent) the new version and self-updating/installing itself. It's blazingly fast when one has five-digit numbers of seeders and at least on my network the limiting factor becomes my local pipe-size and nothing else. And this even when I'm behind a router with NAT which I haven't poked a hole through for Azureus! (OT: fixing the router is on my todo-list of course).

Now imagine the same with Mozilla, Firefox, Open Office, and other similar large userbase F/OSS projects.

Want to increase the speed even further? Use the same bandwidth that would otherwise be used for fixed server2client downloads for torrent seeding instead as needed.

And I get ecstatic simply thinking about how it would be if at least the major F/OSS client software used something akin to Azureus' self-updating/installing (however that would not be good for server software which should not selfupdate in such a way).

Slightly off topic Azureus is the sweetest Java program I've ever come across, it has not been entirely flawless but it is getting close now, proving that Java can be "done right". And unless you're using the Safepeer plugin the startup is fast and smooth.

Back to the topic: once again Opera does something truly innovative, I recon the F/OSS community will see the beauty of the idea and be fast to do the same: a good idea is a good idea, no shame in using it. I hope to see this implemented in both Mozilla and Firefox since I use both, and I hope F/OSS also sees the ingenuity of the Azureus solution described above.

Do we want to leave IE7 dead on the start-line? Then integrate and make good use of bittorrent!

Odd, FF keeps luring me from Opera (prev Op user)

[guidryp]

Funny for myself a former long time Opera user (used it from version 3.5 onward, until FF 1.0)I keep re-trying Opera, but already I am addicted to firefox features and functionality, and keep returning to Firefox.

A couple of times recently I thought I would give Opera yet another try, and I got frustrated with bookmarks both times.

First I was using it with folders on my bookmark toolbar. But when I tried middle clicking the bookmarks in folders nothing happened so I couldn't launch them in new tabs, like I can on firefox. Small thing but frustrating.

So a bit later I got into using the sidebar for bookmarks instead on Firefox, so I thought, hey this probably works on Opera. Yes now I can middle click to a new tab in Opera as well. Good. But the damn panel buttons are always there taking up space uselessly.... Grrrrrrr...

Even if it had worked to my liking, I think without extensions Opera is doomed. I love my gmail notifier, flash blocker, adblocker etc...

Opera still has some great advantages like true MDI interface and page linking. Ultra fast caching, but these are shrinking.

Integrated Torrent client... Yawn...

Re:torrent

[zootm]

User's benefit from faster downloads in a P2P environment, but it's still nowhere near as fast as a direct download from a fat pipe (at least in my experience).

There's an overhead because the protocol is more complicated (and the file is split into pieces), but it's really not very significant in the big picture. You'd be unlikely to notice a difference in rate between your fat pipe download and the same fat pipe seeding a torrent. The difference being that if the fat pipe was seeding a torrent, when the number of users downloading the file increased, the other downloaders can help each other download and take strain off of the server, making the download faster.

Traditional downloads are likely to be marginally faster when the source has excess bandwidth to requirements, but anything less than that and you'll start seeing Bittorrent showing its advantages. And even below that, the hosting costs go down with Bittorrent downloads, so it's just more attractive in general.

Re:Prediction...

[moonbender]

What do I think? I think the TOR network doesn't want to handle P2P traffic due to political reason and the TOR network isn't able to handle P2P traffice due to technical reasons. I don't think the choice of end user client factors into it - whether you use Azureus, BitComet or a browser-embedded client is totally irrelevant.

Re:Bookmark sidebars compared.

[AlexMax2742]

At least in Opera 7.xx, you can disable that toolbar and only display the side panel. Haven't tried it with 8, but then again I rarely use the side panel.