Transmission FOSS BitTorrent client hits version 4.0
- Reference: 1675870206
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/02/08/transmission_bittorrent_v4/
- Source link:
[1]Transmission is the default BitTorrent client for quite a few Linux distros. As a general rule we advise against running anything-point-zero releases of, well, pretty much anything if you have any choice in the matter. Saying that, though, Transmission 3.0 came out nearly three years ago, in May 2020, and there was never so much as a zero-point-one version. It just worked from the day it appeared. That is pretty much unheard of these days, and as such, we are guardedly hopeful that although it's apparently a total rewrite in C++ – [2]famously a bad idea – [3]4.0 should be pretty good.
We [4]don't talk about it much any more but [5]BitTorrent never went away. Various well-known search engines such as [6]the Pirate Bay are still there. In these days of faster home internet connections, especially faster upload speeds, it works better than ever.
[7]
There are perfectly legal use cases for it. Although The Reg FOSS desk has just relocated from Central Europe to the British Isles and is suffering relatively glacial internet speeds as a result, it can be faster to grab a Linux distro ISO file over torrent than a direct download from the other side of the world. Just a dozen people on your continent sharing can be enough to grab an ISO in minutes.
[8]Belarus legalizes piracy – but citizens will have to pay for it
[9]Like Ubuntu, just a bit less hassle: Linux Mint 21 'Vanessa'
[10]Enterprise-strength FreeBSD-based TrueNAS releases v13.0
[11]Next versions of both Fedora and Ubuntu head into beta
Yes, some people do indeed use it for sharing naughty copies. Don't do that, and don't download proprietary software: if it's on a torrent site, it's stolen, and probably has viruses deliberately implanted in it. For playback, VLC is pretty reliable – just be scrupulous about [12]keeping it up to date , and run it on Linux, not Windows.
Netflix is threatening to crack down on password sharing, [13]as it has before . Although they change often and vary by region, earlier this year the company's [14]FAQs said that your devices must connect to their home Wi-Fi at least once per month or you will be disconnected.
[15]
As Cory Doctorow's exceptionally eloquent and insightful [16]essay last week observes – and we highly recommend reading it – that may not sound so bad, unless you are, say, a migrant worker. (This vulture, as mentioned, just moved house and country, followed within days by a business visit to Brussels. It's a thing, not just for migrant workers building stadiums for a [17]World Cup in the desert .) What if you're a child seeking distraction from your parents separating? How do Mum's and Dad's now-separate homes fit a corporate [18]definition of a "household" then?
Transmission runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. It's free to use and unlike some proprietary-freeware torrent clients doesn't display advertisements. Also, if like The Reg FOSS desk household at the moment, you don't have internet access at home at all , second-hand DVDs (and indeed DVD players) are very cheap in charity shops, and quite possibly in your local library too. External USB DVD drives are surprisingly affordable too, if you no longer own a computer with an optical drive. Nobody will ever revoke your right to play a physical disk sitting on a shelf. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://transmissionbt.com/
[2] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/
[3] https://github.com/transmission/transmission/releases/tag/4.0.0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/15/bittorrent_network_biz/
[5] https://www.bittorrent.com/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/pirate_bay_cofounder_criticises_parler/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y@PVLmuh1hmdUeLglEoW9AAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/10/belarus_legalizes_piracy/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/02/linux_mint_21_vanessa_released/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/11/truenas_13_released/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/31/fedora_and_ubuntu_36/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/23/remote_code_flaw_vlc/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/20/netflix_account_sharing_crackdown/
[14] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/123277/us
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y@PVLmuh1hmdUeLglEoW9AAAAJE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/02/nonbinary-families/#red-envelopes
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/16/germany_world_cup_apps/
[18] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/124925
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Second hand DVDs are not very cheap in second hand shops
You could always rip them to Jellyfin if you prefer the streaming interface, as I do.
Last time I looked, which admitedly was a long time ago, CDs actually tended to cost more when bought new than DVDs. Even if you compared the CD soundtrack to a movie with a DVD of the movie containing the same sound track with added dialogue and video.
Re: Second hand DVDs
It seems to depend where you shop - my local is doing five for a quid at the moment! The problem is that after a while you realise you have most of the films you want to watch, and the ones on the charity shop rack are either ones you've got already or ones you'd have to be forced to watch in a Clockwork Orange chair.
The other suspicion about streaming services is that (especially in the current climate) you never know whether some old favourite is going to be butchered, or suppressed entirely, at the behest of whatever activism is flavour of the month.
Nobody will ever revoke your right to play a physical disk sitting on a shelf.
Well... Yes and no...
"Region locking" means that DVDs bought in one country may not play in another, unless your player is "multi region". Some DVD players allow "region switching", but then only a fixed number of times before it sticks to one region. Woe betide anyone who switches region too often to play that Japanese import of My Neighbour Totoro and then finds their DVD player will only play Japanese DVDs.
And this sort of bullshit was baked into the very design of DVDs by the consortium of big studios that came up with them.
edit - bad example, it turns out Japan is in the same "region" as the UK (region 2). Substitute for Hong-Kong import of Enter the Dragon , rinse, and repeat.
Most DVDs
Most that came through my hands were run through handbrake, and the file is easily found in my library, where as the DVD may be in any of 7 different boxes spread over three different countries and two continents...
Second hand DVDs are not very cheap in second hand shops
They're ridiculously cheap. Round here, half a Euro for a CD and a Euro for a DVD which will have cost significantly more. That's cheap enough to pick up a handful, watch them, and take them back to the shop next week if you don't want to keep them - keep the goodness going around and help the charity too. What's not to like?
Why? I guess because, hey, everything's streaming now, granddad. You want a Dolby with that?
But some of us remember that unless the medium is in your hand (or on your shelf) you're playing it at someone else's pleasure...