{"slug": "bittorrent", "name": "BitTorrent", "category": "files", "category_name": "Files, sync and backup", "description": "", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 10, "warners": 1, "score": 3.882, "rising": -0.64, "first": "2025-11-14", "latest": "2026-08-24", "why": "which is why BitTorrent is still going strong today", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 2, "compare": 3, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "which is why BitTorrent is still going strong today", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "bittorrent.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.bittorrent.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["BitTorrent"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 790753345, "item_id": 49422084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49422084", "by": "toomuchtodo", "date": "2026-08-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "bittorrent is \"good enough\" for serving content durably", "excerpt": "I see this very similar to IPv4 and IPv6, and adoption. Non content addressable URL addressing simply is \"good enough\" for most use cases, and bittorrent is \"good enough\" for serving content durably and somewhat in a content addressable manner (file hashes, magnet torrents, immutable torrents). Do we need IPFS URLs? It doesn't appear so, it seems like a solution seeking a problem. IPFS gateways will always be a targe", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IPFS Maintainers Winding Down"}, {"id": 782918321, "item_id": 48932395, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932395", "by": "a-french-anon", "date": "2026-07-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the experience is much less polished than BT", "excerpt": "https://nicotine-plus.org/ for the free software/UNIX people, by the way. I don't use it anymore since getting into private trackers because the network (central server) is proprietary, the experience is much less polished than BT and I want to be sure of the release (LABEL/CATALOGNUMBER) I'm downloading.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The lost joy of music piracy"}, {"id": 780043521, "item_id": 48752720, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48752720", "by": "jMyles", "date": "2026-07-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I invite you to get my new record from IPFS or Bit Torrent", "excerpt": "Fortunately, we don't need a policy solution or to convince already-bought-and-paid-for-lawmakers to side with justice over profits. Solutions for liberating media of all kinds, from P2P file sharing to DRM-stripping, have roundly and soundly outpaced all this other corporate knowledge control nonsense at every turn since the invention of the printing press. All we need to do is make the simple choice to stop recogni", "context": "full-time professional bluegrass musician", "use_case": "distributing music files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For"}, {"id": 772302851, "item_id": 48268928, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48268928", "by": "swax", "date": "2026-05-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which is why BitTorrent is still going strong today", "excerpt": "I did a client called Gnucleus back in the day, the original website is still up at https://gnucleus.org/ I also designed GWebCache with a friend in college (also the IRC caching before that was me, I'm sorry). I think in the end the cost/benefit of the Gnutella architecture wasn't there. Especially in privacy - too much of a liability exposing your machine to serve files and route traffic. Also the efficiency of sea", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gnutella: A Protocol Outlives the World That Created It"}, {"id": 767104992, "item_id": 47944062, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47944062", "by": "Lammy", "date": "2026-04-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "BitTorrent has supported trackerless torrents for twenty entire years", "excerpt": "BitTorrent has supported trackerless torrents for twenty entire years :p https://github.com/sparkslabs/kamaelia/blob/master/Sketches/RJL/bittorrent/BitTorrent/TRACKERLESS.txt", "context": "", "use_case": "trackerless torrents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Before GitHub"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 756587168, "item_id": 47286698, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47286698", "by": "gus_massa", "date": "2026-03-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I agree, that people used to be called \"leechers\".", "excerpt": "I agree, that people used to be called \"leechers\". Somewhat related xkcd https://xkcd.com/553/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues"}]}], "who": [{"by": "jMyles", "context": "full-time professional bluegrass musician", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48752720", "date": "2026-07-01"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["music distribution", "file distribution", "distributing music files", "trackerless torrents", "distributing podcasts peer-to-peer"], "compared": [{"slug": "ipfs", "name": "IPFS", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49421489", "title": "IPFS Maintainers Winding Down", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930454", "title": "The lost joy of music piracy", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48748518", "title": "How We Made IPFS Content Publishing 10x Faster", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48747389", "title": "Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48231247", "title": "Gnutella: A Protocol Outlives the World That Created It", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47940921", "title": "Before GitHub", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"warn": 1}, "2026-04": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2, "compare": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 790763872, "item_id": 49422742, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49422742", "by": "jMyles", "date": "2026-08-24", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "which for the moment just means Bit Torrent and IPFS.", "excerpt": "I publish all of my music in ways that are pirate-friendly, which for the moment just means Bit Torrent and IPFS. See: https://pickipedia.xyz/wiki/Cryptograss:Delivery-kid If IPFS is starting to wane, does anyone else have a suggestion of a replacement about which I might start to educate my fans?", "context": "", "use_case": "Music distribution", "switched_from": "", "story": "IPFS Maintainers Winding Down"}, {"id": 790753345, "item_id": 49422084, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49422084", "by": "toomuchtodo", "date": "2026-08-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "bittorrent is \"good enough\" for serving content durably", "excerpt": "I see this very similar to IPv4 and IPv6, and adoption. Non content addressable URL addressing simply is \"good enough\" for most use cases, and bittorrent is \"good enough\" for serving content durably and somewhat in a content addressable manner (file hashes, magnet torrents, immutable torrents). Do we need IPFS URLs? It doesn't appear so, it seems like a solution seeking a problem. IPFS gateways will always be a targe", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "IPFS Maintainers Winding Down"}, {"id": 782918321, "item_id": 48932395, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932395", "by": "a-french-anon", "date": "2026-07-16", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the experience is much less polished than BT", "excerpt": "https://nicotine-plus.org/ for the free software/UNIX people, by the way. I don't use it anymore since getting into private trackers because the network (central server) is proprietary, the experience is much less polished than BT and I want to be sure of the release (LABEL/CATALOGNUMBER) I'm downloading.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "The lost joy of music piracy"}, {"id": 780067937, "item_id": 48754246, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48754246", "by": "ValdikSS", "date": "2026-07-01", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "The main drawback of BitTorrent v1 file hashing scheme inside the .torrent file is that it makes a virtual stream of the directory you want to share", "excerpt": "1. IPFS has addressable content The main drawback of BitTorrent v1 file hashing scheme inside the .torrent file is that it makes a virtual stream of the directory you want to share, splits that stream into blocks, and hash it altogether. That means that each file inside the torrent is unique, even if your directory have very common files, each is which exist in BitTorrent network per se. IPFS solves this issue by jus", "context": "", "use_case": "file distribution", "switched_from": "", "story": "How We Made IPFS Content Publishing 10x Faster"}, {"id": 780043521, "item_id": 48752720, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48752720", "by": "jMyles", "date": "2026-07-01", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I invite you to get my new record from IPFS or Bit Torrent", "excerpt": "Fortunately, we don't need a policy solution or to convince already-bought-and-paid-for-lawmakers to side with justice over profits. Solutions for liberating media of all kinds, from P2P file sharing to DRM-stripping, have roundly and soundly outpaced all this other corporate knowledge control nonsense at every turn since the invention of the printing press. All we need to do is make the simple choice to stop recogni", "context": "full-time professional bluegrass musician", "use_case": "distributing music files", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For"}, {"id": 772302851, "item_id": 48268928, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48268928", "by": "swax", "date": "2026-05-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which is why BitTorrent is still going strong today", "excerpt": "I did a client called Gnucleus back in the day, the original website is still up at https://gnucleus.org/ I also designed GWebCache with a friend in college (also the IRC caching before that was me, I'm sorry). I think in the end the cost/benefit of the Gnutella architecture wasn't there. Especially in privacy - too much of a liability exposing your machine to serve files and route traffic. Also the efficiency of sea", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gnutella: A Protocol Outlives the World That Created It"}, {"id": 767104992, "item_id": 47944062, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47944062", "by": "Lammy", "date": "2026-04-28", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "BitTorrent has supported trackerless torrents for twenty entire years", "excerpt": "BitTorrent has supported trackerless torrents for twenty entire years :p https://github.com/sparkslabs/kamaelia/blob/master/Sketches/RJL/bittorrent/BitTorrent/TRACKERLESS.txt", "context": "", "use_case": "trackerless torrents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Before GitHub"}, {"id": 763562978, "item_id": 47722686, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47722686", "by": "AbaroaEsteban", "date": "2026-04-10", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "Its also very similar to bittorrent and inspired by bittorrent", "excerpt": "Bitsocial is open source peer-to-peer social media protocol built on IPFS can\u2019t be down, censored, or controlled by any single authority. Its also very similar to bittorrent and inspired by bittorrent, it uses content addressing (files are addressed by their hash, like the torrent infohashes), trackers and DHT. it also scales infinitely and becomes faster and more censorship resistant the more peers there are. the pr", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Building an Open-Source Peer-to-Peer Social Media Protocol on IPFS"}, {"id": 756587168, "item_id": 47286698, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47286698", "by": "gus_massa", "date": "2026-03-07", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I agree, that people used to be called \"leechers\".", "excerpt": "I agree, that people used to be called \"leechers\". Somewhat related xkcd https://xkcd.com/553/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues"}, {"id": 749449904, "item_id": 46840619, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46840619", "by": "1vuio0pswjnm7", "date": "2026-01-31", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "distributed his videos over BitTorrent as a proof of concept", "excerpt": "Imagine if a podcaster with 21 million subscribers distributed his videos over BitTorrent as a proof of concept, e.g., own tracker, magnet links, no DHT, download not streamed (watchable offline anywhere, anytime) Big Tech wants the public, specifically their employees, investors and followers, to believe that there is no alternative to the use of third party intermediaries with data centers and billions in cash flow", "context": "", "use_case": "Distributing podcasts peer-to-peer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ads Are Killing Podcasting"}, {"id": 749274721, "item_id": 46829670, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46829670", "by": "toomuchtodo", "date": "2026-01-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Bittorrent, in my experience, \"just works,\"", "excerpt": "IPFS [1] requires a gateway unfortunately (whether remote or running locally). If you can use content idents that are supported by web primitives, you get the distributed nature without IPFS scaffolding required. Content is versioned by hash, although I haven't looked to see if mutable torrents [2] [3] are used in this implementation. Searching via distributed hash tables for torrent metadata, cryptographically signe", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Peerweb"}, {"id": 734929410, "item_id": 45933088, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45933088", "by": "txrx0000", "date": "2025-11-14", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "similar to BitTorrent", "excerpt": "Consider SoftEther, which is VPN over Ethernet wrapped in HTTPS. It's open-source. It has a server discovery site called VPNGate. You can host a server to let somebody else use, then use a server soneone else is hosting. https://www.vpngate.net/en/ We're really only missing a few things before there's decentralized VPN over HTTPS that anyone in the world can host and use, and it would be resistant to all DPI firewall", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Lawmakers want to ban VPNs"}]}