So a bunch of people in this subreddit told me that uTorrent was trash and to switch to QBitTorrent.
I didn’t think much of it. How could one be so much better than the other? They’re both just torrent downloaders.
Holy shit was I wrong. I don’t even really understand what is happening, but downloading torrents on QBitTorrent is so, so, so much faster and I don’t even understand how.
A movie downloads in basically seconds compared to 10 or 20 minutes on uTorrent.
Why is this? What is this magic? What makes QBitTorrent so much faster?
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You were probably using the wrong version of utorrent.
I think you need something like 1.6. No adware, no malware, just works fast and easy.
I’m assuming you mean you were using one of the older, “safe” versions of uTorrent. But yeah, the technology has updated. It’s better.
uTorrent is adware
Is it still being updated? I ran from it when I knew Transmission and Qbittorrent were a thing.
Ever since uTorrent started mining on users computers, ive been on QBT
TIL I’m the only one who says “microtorrent”.
You’re not alone brother. There are dozens of us! Dozens!
what is that
The “u” in uTorrent is actually greek letter mu, which as a SI suffix is pronounced “micro” and means one millionth (10^-6)
I do miss that really detailed block download page, but that’s only cos I’d watch it instead of doing something useful with my life.
I don’t know if uTorrent does ratelimit torrents someway (they shouldn’t be by theory), but it being adware is enough of a result to switch to another torrent client.
I’m more of a fan of Deluge, but alternatives like qBittorrent / Transmission are solid choices.
Trasmission never worked well for me, on the other hand qBittorrent did the job perfectly.
QBittorrent has been my torrent Client for 4/5 years at this point, never having problems. It works on my Steam Deck too (Arch).
I found qBT to be missing features utorrent has, and thus I stick with UT v2.2, which is the latest recommended one before they started making controversial changes.
What features are those?
I checked real quick and the setup guide that changes all the settings according to your internet speed, and the ability to stop torrents when they meet the goal. Qbt can only pause or remove them. Pausing leaves you connected and anti-piracy groups get your IP and submit complaints, and I don’t want them automatically removed. There may be more.
In qBittorrent, “Pause”, aka “stop”, stops all data transfer and tears down all peer connections associated with the torrent. You can even verify this with Wireshark. This is functionally equivalent to uTorrent’s stop button.
See this thread here.
I checked it out more, there’s no “remove torrent & delete torrent file”, there’s only “permanently delete files” which is not clear at all and sounds like it will delete both the .torrent and the downloaded files, which is not what I want. utorrent 2.2 seems to be pretty flawless for me.
If you right click a torrent and select remove, it automatically deletes the torrent files that qBT stores in the appData or home folder. If you check ‘permanently delete files’ it also deletes the media associated with the torrent file.
Most people dislike uTorrent because of the fact it was loaded with malware(cryptominer) and ads(hopefully the version you are using is before this crap). Also, download speeds are faster on qBitTorrent.
That being said, the UI is definitely a little different and I understand not wanting to learn a new workflow. You do what works best for you, friend.
Thanks for the info!
You are very welcome. You aren’t the first person to have been misled by the pause versus stop name convention thing. There are tons of questions about it on the qBT forums showing many other people were concerned that there was no way to ‘stop’ torrents in qBT. I had to look into it myself when I first switched.
Removed by mod
I switch from uTorrent to qBittorrent when Ninite dropped it. I wasn’t aware that uTorrent had become aware, and Ninite had my back. I trust those guys with the selection of softwares they offer.
qbittorrent also has better theme support in my opinion. Dracula theme is even available for both the local client and WebUI server client: https://draculatheme.com/qbittorrent
UT has been garbage for some time. I reckon the data it uses to send your info back to them and to load ads, bogs down the network, especially on slower networks. The last time I used it, there were also graphical artifacts all over. Qbit on the other hand, is much cleaner and simpler to use, and it doesnt add any unwanted network traffic, which is why it’s probably faster
uTorrent has been down the shitter for over a decade now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the download speed was throttled without a pro subscription. It could also be a difference in how the applications discover seeds, or how much CPU time or memory is allocated to downloads.
As a general rule, if an application is full of anti-features, it tends to have better, usually FOSS, alternatives.
And alternativeto.net is the place to find them alternatives
I prefer Transmission, as they have Windows ports as well.
Transmission afaik does not have a built-in search functionality with plugins for popular trackers
That feature makes sense to aggregate search results from multiple public trackers, but if you (like me) use private trackers then it’s almost always easier to just go to the actual website for your search. Not to mention any automation software such as the *arr stack make that feature obsolete. It’s definitely a cool feature, but not useful for everyone.
Yup, I’m using transmission in a docker container that ensures my VPN is always connected. Nice to not have to worry about that.
I tried grabbing Qbit and all I could find was malware. I used to be so so good at navigating all this stuff and stopped to stream for a little. ☹️
The official website with downloads is the first hit on Google…
sudo apt install qbittorrent
sudo pacman -S qbittorrent
flatpak install org.qbittorrent.qBittorrent
