AfterDawn: Tech news

BitTorrent 4.20 released

Written by Dave Horvath @ 22 Jun 2006 4:29 User comments (31)

BitTorrent 4.20 released The original BitTorrent client that had at one point set the Internet world on it's ear has received a facelift. This time it addresses issues ISPs have with the amount of traffic dedicated to the BitTorrent P2P network.
A growing concern among ISPs has been that 60% of their network bandwidth is used for the BitTorrent protocol. This has led to an increase in cost for the ISP due to growing network needs. To remedy this, ISPs have been forced to take action in a couple of ways. Early adopters used a bandwidth throttling technique which searched out the BitTorrent protocol and intentionally cut back the amount of available bandwidth issued to users in the BitTorrent community. Although this technique seemed to relenquish some of the burden for ISPs, paying customers were outraged and demanded action.

A more viable solution is the use of traffic caching. What this technique does is caches popular download paths in internal network servers, thereby making BitTorrent traffic route through internal networks, rather than rely on their external network usage. This allows speeds to remain constant and its much cheaper for ISPs to operate within their internal network.



BitTorrent 4.20 impliments the latter, a traffic caching feature called Cache Discovery Protocol. The feature within the client allows ISPs to detect that the client can understand how to route through cached servers and makes both parties happy.

Source:
Slyck

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31 user comments

122.6.2006 17:47
gogochar
Inactive

Two quick questions. Does this have any new DRM attached (extremely unlikely)? And two, how the hell did it jump from 4.4.9 beta to 4.20???

222.6.2006 19:18
Venom5880
Inactive

DRM? As long as BitTorrent is community supported, it will never have DRM.

322.6.2006 19:22

Ok I've never really used bittorrent in the past, so I thought I'd try it out, I was just curious, does it always take hundreds of days to download something or is there a problem with my computer ( For reference, I have comcast cable internet and my speed usually is at 54 Mbps.)

422.6.2006 19:26

change the mdps in its options/preferences screen

522.6.2006 19:27

mbps*

622.6.2006 19:35

Thanks LCOBRA, I switched to bitcomet, the only problem is the downloads are still slow, it might be that its not really supported by other users :-/ oh well Thanks though I appreciate it greatly

722.6.2006 19:58

o yeh, i guess the number of hosts could b the problem too. (smack my head *DUH!*)

822.6.2006 21:51

Ankoku, it's (probably) not your computer. Probably noth the client either tho some are faster than others. It's most likely the particular torrent. Get on a well-seeded one ("number of hosts" as LCOBRA said) and it will go fast. Another posssibility is that your ISP is slowing bt traffic, but try a torrent with lots of seeds (= peers with complete copies), it should be fast if everything else is OK.

922.6.2006 22:02

ahahaha 4.20. is this the bitcomet to get high with or what? :P

1023.6.2006 00:06

So this the original client the one the MPAA "brouht" out for future ventures. Stay away from this one.

1123.6.2006 04:02

I use Utorrnet and ABC myself rankly they are the best of the small and feature rich BT'C'S I have seen or used. Bit comment and Azerus never seemed to run quite right for me 0-o ANd remember if you are new to the BT seen it can take up to 5 mintes for a download to find all the peers and seeds maxing out the speed of the downlaod,and soem thigns will just downlaod so *L*,so dont get to fusrated and have fun downlaoding stuff ^^ I am stuck on dail up and I cant do anyhtign other than keep up with acuple anime shows...when I was wathchign 10 ><

1223.6.2006 04:32

@ Ankoku Are you on a router? Bittorrent has problems with some routers. You may need to forward a port to your router from Bittorent. This will maximize your download speed.

1323.6.2006 05:52
gogochar
Inactive

Quote:
So this the original client the one the MPAA "brouht" out for future ventures. Stay away from this one.
So it's not worth upgrading after all... Thanks plutonash!

1423.6.2006 06:57

@ Nick600 Yeah Im using a router, that sounds like it might be the biggest problem because I noticed last night that my signal consistently drops, I'll try some port forwarding, I appreciate your help

1523.6.2006 08:14

@ Ankoku Sent you a PM. I think I might have sent you a blank PM by mistake as well. I apologize if it's the case.

1625.6.2006 12:46

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if there is a program that will detect the fastest port for a router, I don'y mind the slow speeds of 22kbps, but I am sure that it would go much faster if I found the right port. Thankyou

1725.6.2006 19:50

@ Paiin Sent you a PM also.

1826.6.2006 05:43

sounds interesting ,hook me up eh? I am on dail up and I need all the speed I can get :P altho it might not help me any *L*

1926.6.2006 07:39

@ ZIppyDSM Sent you a pm also but then thought other people might wanna know too. :-) For anybody interested. Here's a link to a website containing detailed instructions on how to do port forwarding. In a lot of cases, it only takes about 5-10 minutes to do and it will maximize your download speed if you are using a router for cable or DSL. I had a lot of trouble with my download speed with BT until someone hooked me up with this. http://www.portforward.com

2026.6.2006 11:42

Thanks! Befor I go get lost int eh forums I'll just ask here. I am looking for a good leechers version BT clinet,or at least soemthign that will let you have control over peers,uploading and such I am on dailup and it seems most BTC's just dont work,ABC is woefuly under featured for dailup,U torrent seems to be built well enough to handle itself but I cant quite limit the uping right....*sigh* dailup is going to be the end of me >< I recall azerus being feature rich but I hate java apps they are pissy things......

2126.6.2006 16:26

Sorry dude. Wish there was more I could do to help. Unfortunately, I'm not all that familiar with anything else than the regular bittorent.

2226.6.2006 16:49

Nick600 regular BT? blah! your missing out ABC,Utorrent,Azerous,Bit comment all are great feature rich BTCs that give alot more ooptions that regular BT ever will as well as faster speeds and better data handleing,U torrent is one of the best small and VERY efficant....I guess I will try Azeruos again....blah.....wheres that java exe..have to redownload and install the btch.....

2427.6.2006 12:43

I am on dail up there are 3 speeds...grass growing...pain drying...and...water touture.... altho get this I have seen Uploading spike to 15KB and hover around 12KB befor going down and hovering around 7 and 8 KB.....whitch realy piss me off becuse download rarely goes above 5KB even useing U torrent limits dont seem to help any 0-o

2527.6.2006 13:54

Oh man! when I think back on my dialup days... I would never go back to dialup. I'd rather pay $200 a month for my cable connection.

2627.6.2006 15:02

Nick600 I dont ahve that much to sopend a month but 80ish high but worht t I jsut need tog et th 300 down,then I can have SAT dsl added to my dailup..why keep dail you ask..becsue its a stable always there connection,Sat DSL is fickle like dailup and Sat TV put togather and the ping rate makes online gameing hellish....I ahve desideing when I get the chance in acouple months I am going for it...unless I can get a definante answer on this aeras DSL upgrade....

2727.6.2006 16:16

I hope you find the solution that works best for you. Just for the record, I don't actually pay 200 a month for my connection... ;)

2828.6.2006 04:08

Wheneer DSL trickles into this aera it will be 100 the frist month setupfees and frist month fees and you have to get your owen DSL modem or they can prvide a 80 one then after than 60-75 a month once you add taxs,its not going to be the fastests I think 128KB max downlaod I have to figure out what would be best for me,the phone company is leary of downlaoders so much so they say if you are going to be on for mre than 5 hours a day on thier dail up to go soemwhere else. SAT DSL realy dosnet have any limits its jsut the instabilty of its connection and the pinning lag from hell of its connection.

292.7.2006 07:33

I just switched over to using BitTorrent 4.20.2. It worked great the first few days, but now, when ever I try to recieve a file bigger than 4GB, i get this message Their is a file in this torrent that is 4.3GB This exceeds the maximim file size allowed on this FAT32 drive, 4.0GB. Would you like to choose a different drive to save this torrent in? i dont get it, i have 106GB free on my drive. what is the problem here?

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 02 Jul 2006 @ 7:36

302.7.2006 07:45

GiantMike Being paridnoied like I am could be that they limited the size of downlaods..dosent make since tho so mabye its jsut a bug?

312.7.2006 07:47

BTW we are gettign high speed DSL in the aera near christmas!!!! YAY!!! NO MORE DAILUP!!!!!!!!!!!

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