Described below are 10 most popular BitTorrent clients. We are in no way stating that they will suit your needs best – it is quite possible that there is some small and unknown BT client out there that we don’t know of and that will work best for you. However, the 10 clients that we have selected are used and liked by most members of BT community.

BitTorrent 6, uTorrent – www.bittorrent.com, www.utorrent.com

The first BitTorrent client which was developed back in the beginning of the century by Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent protocol. The client remains popular ever since. It used to be an open source program, but starting of version 6 the software became a closed source. BitTorrent 6 is in fact a rebranded version of uTorrent (see below), as in the end of 2006 uTorrent was acquired by BitTorrent, Inc., and the developer of uTorrent became a technical consultant, while most of the work on uTorrent and BitTorrent clients has been done by other programmers. There are Windows, Mac and Linux versions available.

uTorrent is probably the most popular BT client nowadays. It is positioned as a light version of BitTorrent 6 client. It provides access to most of the features any uploader/downloader may need and uses very little resources. uTorrent also allows the used to configure it to a large extent. It may seem too complex to many newbies, but the default settings will suit most users.

Available for Windows, Mac and Unix-like systems (Wine is officially supported).

You may notice from the illustrations that BitTorrent 6 and uTorrent are very similar.

Vuze (formerly known as Azureus) – http://azureus.sourceforge.net

Apart from the general BitTorrent features, Vuze allows its users to publish and share original DVD and HD video content. The content is categorized into channels such as Movies, TV, games etc. Users may choose to publish original content for free or receive money from downloaders for the content. Vuze is now positioned on the market mostly as an HD video network.

Vuze is available for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.

BitComet – www.bitcomet.com

BitComet is a download/upload manager that allows users to work with HTTP and FTP protocols and of course BitTorrent. BitComet is famous for exploiting super-seeding feature of BitTornado (see below), and this isn’t the client’s only sin. That is exactly why BitComet is banned from a number of trackers. Nevertheless, some testers have proved that BitComet almost doesn’t break any rules. The client has received many awards, too.

On the other hand, the interface may seem overloaded with features and may scare new users by the large number of icons and advanced users by a “user-friendly” interface which gives little possibilities for tweaking the software.

The only platform that BitComet supports is Windows. But the software boasts availability in 52 languages.

Shareaza – shareaza.sourceforge.net

A piece of software that can truly be called a peer-to-peer client, not just BT client, as it works with Gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey, BitTorrent, FTP and HTTP protocols and handles magnet links, ed2k links, Piolet links, and Gnutella links. One of the biggest advantages of Shareaza is the multi-source download feature, aka Swarming.

Shareaza offers its users a simple media player, as well.

Before use, Shareaza requires users to register for free. Registration, nevertheless, takes no more than a minute.

Shareaza only works in Windows operating systems.

Opera – www.opera.com

Opera is one of the most popular web browsers, available on the market. But did you know that it isn’t just a web browser? It’s a BitTorrent client, too. Opera introduced the BT feature in version 9 of the software and has been keeping up the good tradition ever since. Opera treats torrent files almost like direct HTTP or FTP downloads. However, you keep sharing all the torrent files you download when you download them and after the download is complete.

Of course, you will not be able to find tools for tweaking the BT client in Opera. Opera is available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, QNX, OS/2 and BeOS.

FireTorrent – addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10931

Unfortunately, Mozilla Firefox, Opera’s rival, does not have inbuilt BitTorrent features. However, Firefox may boast a number of plug-ins available, among which are a few for managing BT uploading/downloading. The first ones of them were BitFox and FoxTorrent but these have not been doing a good job lately.

FireTorrent, on the other hand, is a very new plug-in which claims to “have finally achieved truly native integrated support for BitTorrent into Firefox with competitive download speeds.”

Keep in mind that Mozilla still rates FireTorrent as “experimental,” so bugs may be occurring.

With FireTorrent, torrents are treated as simple HTTP downloads.

Mozilla Firefox and its FireTorrent add-on are available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Deluge – http://deluge-torrent.org

Deluge is another freeware BitTorrent client which is however mainly intended for Unix-like and Mac OS users. Nevertheless, the software is available for Windows as well. Most of Deluge’s features are supported by other clients, too. On the other hand, Deluge has something to boast too – a rich plugin collection including Torrent Search, Network Health Monitor and others. It means that whenever there is a feature you would like Deluge to support, you can simply contact the developers and ask them to create a plugin for this sake – you can even find Plugin Ideas section on Deluge’s official website and post your ideas. The only major flaw revealed during the testing of the program is the inability to switch languages once the application is installed on your computer.

Transmission – http://www.transmissionbt.com

The developers promote Transmission as “A Fast, Easy, and Free BitTorrent Client”. First created for BeOS/ZETA, this open source client was later adopted for other operating systems and even became the default BitTorrent client for Ubuntu. The software is currently available for Mac OS X, Unix-like systems (including Linux, of course), BeOS/ZETA, iPhone OS (unofficially) and Android (for this mobile OS, Transmission goes by the name of Transandroid). Some sources state that Transmission is currently the most popular BitTorrent client for Mac OS computers.

rTorrent – http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no

rTorrent may be called a BT client for professionals – it is written in C++, it’s only available for Unix-like systems, and it is text-based, meaning that the user runs commands through a command line. On the web, you can find numerous articles about using rTorrent professionally, but it’s very doubtful that a common user would give up a comfy and easy-to-understand-and-use interface of uTorrent or Deluge for rTorrent, even if it’s an extremely resource-friendly product for professionals.

Wyzo – http://www.wyzo.com

Wyzo is a Web browser, referred to by its developers as Media Browser as the application offers the user a wide range of possibilities for working with media. Wyzo was brought to life by Radical Software Ltd which also happens to have created the FireTorrent extension for Firefox. Moreover, Wyzo is based on Firefox – frankly, it is hard to notice much difference between Wyzo and Firefox except for a few modifications of interface and the fact that FireTorrent is built into Wyzo from the very beginning. At the moment, Wyzo is in beta-development stage and is available for Windows and Mac OS X. According to the official website, Linux support is coming soon, too. Unfortunately, while testing Wyzo for Windows, major flaws have been detected – some torrents didn’t start downloading, incorrect information about file sizes was provided etc.

As you see, there is a perfect BitTorrent client out there for everyone. If you use Opera or Mozilla Firefox and don’t wish to bother installing additional software and setting it up, simply use the inbuilt Opera BT client or install FireTorrent plug-in for Opera. However, if you wish to have an access to more complex features, we recommend that you use

uTorrent – the client which supports all features a BitTorrent user will need and is economical when it comes to using the computer resources. In case uTorrent doesn’t suit your needs for any reason, BitSpirit is a very good choice, too.

For Mac OS X and Linux fans, Transmission seems to be the most logical choice.