Freeware

Transmission: Terrific Torrenting on OS X

By EAN ⋅ October 15, 2007 ⋅  Email this Post ⋅  Print this Post ⋅ Post a Comment

Developers: Transmission Project
Version: 0.82
Price: Free, Open Source
Operating Systems: Linux, Mac OS X
Click here to check out Transmission

Not the Most Popular BT Client - But It Should Be

I’m not much of a torrenter, but every now and then I stumble on a file that is much more quickly downloaded via the BitTorrent network than it can be through a website. Case in point, OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice, as you can see in my screenshots. When I need to use BitTorrent, there are plenty of choices out there. From Azureus, easily the most popular, to Transmission - the subject of today’s review.

When it comes to my Mac, I like to stick with as many Cocoa applications as I can. They run faster, they work better. So it’s only natural that I gravitated to Transmission as the first BitTorrent client I tried on my MacBook. And after a few months of using it, I’ve been very glad that I chose to use it first - because it really is a great program. The developer’s tagline (below) really fits the program and I find that Transmission is a pleasure to use.

Lightweight. Open Source. Free.

So what is there to like about this little BitTorrent client for the Mac? For starters, Transmission is quick and responsive. It starts like a laser, downloads files at a fast pace, and I can move through the menus with no lag time at all. The only time I’ve ever gotten Transmission to slow down is when I’m deleting a 300 MB to 1 GB file that has yet to download. Usually I’m suck with two to five seconds of dead time (depending on the file size) before Transmission springs back to life.

One of the coolest features built into Transmission is a Dock based transfer tracker so I don’t have to open the program to see how fast my downloads and uploads are going. Transmission also integrates nicely with Growl, so I’m alerted with a simple chime and a Growl notification whenever a download is complete. Finally, Transmission has a great setting to let the program automatically delete my .torrent files. A real time saver. There’s even a nice speed limit button built in which will immediately slow down your downloading.

I’ve heard of problems with Transmission and Demonoid.com not playing nicely with each other in the past, so I decided to test it out for this review. After partially downloading 20 random, Mac related, .torrent files from the tracker, I started them all up to see if there would be any problems. All 20 worked out just fine, so it looks like the Transmission crew fixed any issues they had with files from Demonoid or I just got lucky and picked 20 files that worked great with Transmission.

After using this program for months, I can safely say that I love it. Transmission will continue to be the BitTorrent client I use on my Mac and I highly recommend that you use it for all of your torrenting needs as well. I’ve yet to use it on Linux, but I’m sure it’s just as good.

Click here to check out Transmission.

- Eric Norton