Submit portable freeware that you find here. It helps if you include information like description, extraction instruction, Unicode support, whether it writes to the registry, and so on.
Multi-platform OSS WebTorrent Desktop was announced in several places and then I found evidence of the developers will to make it portable (untested!), so TPFC community should probably get involved....
[url]http://webtorrent.io/desktop[/url] author wrote:WebTorrent Desktop lets you stream torrents. Whether it's video from the Internet Archive, music from Creative Commons, or audiobooks from Librivox, you can play it right away. You don't have to wait for it to finish downloading.
Very nice. Vuze https://www.vuze.com/ tried to do the whole streaming torrent thing but I never liked their client. I suspect the WebTorrent Desktop site makes a point about "bloat free" for that reason.
I know some torrent folks will be worried about all the extra wasted bandwidth for the inevitable people that just stream torrents rather than downloading them, but this appears to both stream AND download so you would have a local copy (unlike almost every other streaming service). Additionally, previewing many files would help resolve quality / content questions where you would otherwise have to download the entire thing to find out if it's what you wanted.
I do wish there was a server component as well so you could quickly show or send someone a large audio / video file, but there are some items in the FAQ around decentralization that seem to suggest it's possible.
A new *-win.zip output file is now produced, which just contains the electron-packaged windows app, with an added empty "Portable Settings" folder.
At startup, when a "Portable Settings" folder is found next to the WebTorrent.exe file, then the app is in "Portable Mode" which entails:
- Electron "userData" folder is set to the "Portable Settings" folder
- The config.json file is saved in the "Portable Settings" folder
- Torrent posters and torrent files are saved in the "Portable Settings" folder
- The default download folder is set to the "Portable Settings" folder
If I'm understanding correctly, this only applies to future .zip releases. Creating the folder in the current version (which I tried for interest sake) does nothing.
Creates the "Portable Settings" folder in the program directory, and it seems to store settings/downloads there as specified. However not sure of stealth status.
WebTorrent version 0.12.0 Beta is the first torrent client that I tested which failed to download a torrent, after a quarter of an hour sticking at 0% progress and nothing downloaded (I was testing the program with a well-seeded torrent) I lost patience.
WebTorrent is portable but not stealth:
- it creates an empty folder in AppData (C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\WebTorrent).
- it creates operation_log.txt file in AppData (C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp\WebTorrent Crashes\operation_log.txt).
The most useful feature I found was creating of torrent files from magnet links.
Images:
Zero Progress:
Save Torrent File As...:
Resource Hog:
I decided to test it anew- again no luck. A torrent client that fails to download torrents is useless for me. It is a resource hog to boot. I am curious- has anyone ever managed to download a torrent using WebTorrent?
In short, my impressions from WebTorrent (version 0.12.0 Beta) are terrible.
I've downloaded a couple torrents and it worked. There doesn't seem to be a way to throttle download and upload speeds or any way to configure anything. It capped out both my download and upload bandwidth which isn't good. Seems like webtorrent is intended for hit and run downloading.
Like @Userfriendly, I tried a couple of torrents and they all worked.
At first I thought maybe WebTorrent isn't meant for anything other than audio/video type torrents - things that can be streamed. However I experienced no problems with some ebook torrents, none of which I think are particularly well seeded.
It could be a firewall issue. I've had similar issues with zero progress in torrent clients when I pressed cancel by accident in those pesky firewall pop-ups on my machine.
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning." - Rick Cook.
@Userfriendly, @shnbwmn, @rbon
Thank you for your response. Perhaps I will give WebTorrent another try in the future. I am interested in torrent clients and when I read here that there was a portable version of WebTorrent I got curious. I acknowledge that my test was superficial, I tested it only with a single The Pirate Bay magnet link but not with a torrent file. Perhaps the problem was with the particular magnet link I used. If I test WebTorrent again I will report my experience with it here.
I decided to test it anew- again no luck. A torrent client that fails to download torrents is useless for me. It is a resource hog to boot. I am curious- has anyone ever managed to download a torrent using WebTorrent?
In short, my impressions from WebTorrent (version 0.12.0 Beta) are terrible.
It's a resource hog because WebTorrent uses Electron, and Electron basically bundles the entire Chromium engine!
freakazoid wrote:It's a resource hog because WebTorrent uses Electron, and Electron basically bundles the entire Chromium engine!
Ah so all the similarly looking/feel with the same-y installers and chromium files I've been seeing all over the place is called Electron: http://electron.atom.io/apps/
This, Discord, Atom, Visual Studio Code and a small game mod tool I use SFV mod manager(I guess dev does explain why he used the framework but I didn't read through it all) are all Electron based. I was curious why they were all chrome like.
I think some Electron apps using more memory than your comfortable with might with but if it's not leaking then its probably using more of it so it performs better. You know caching and stuff. At least that's the reasoning all web browsers use for their high memory usage.
@freakazoid & @Userfriendly
I remember to have tested several Electron-based messengers (Cryptocat, Franz, Rambox, Wire)- they are all bulky, weighty and unpleasant to work with, but WebTorrent seems to be the heaviest and the most gluttonous one- its appetite for resources seems insatiable. In short- I do not like Electron.
