[Macworld]

Post your comments for Transmission 1.22 here

[ct77]

I recently switched to Transmission from Azureus, another cross-platform BitTorrrent client.
Transmission works just as well, if not better, and looks and behaves much more like a Mac app.
If you're an Azureus user, Transmission is definitely worth a look.

[chomxxo]

I concur, Transmission is much lighter than Azureus and the interface work is the best I've seen for a Bittorrent client.

[dougoftheabaci]

Transmission is fantastic. It has all the features you need and has them in a much more user-friendly interface than Azureus, which is horridly bloated.
The only issue with the latest stable build is it no longer shows you proper port-forwarding status due to the site it used to test with being down. However, this doesn't mean it's not working and you can get around it by using one of the nightly builds.

[Bearfrieze]

Transmission is an amazing application with a lovely set of features and an idiot-proof interface :)

[goobimama]

Transmission is the awesomeness. Really well designed app which is surprising considering that it is open source. Proves that OSS can produce quality software.

[vfx2k4]

Yeah weird- you can't even get Azureus anymore without Vuze or whatever it is they call all that bloatware.

[bennym]

I agree that Transmission has a simpler interface, but after that, I disagree about it being better and faster.
Azureus has the Dashboard option if you want simple options whereas I like the Advanced option where it gives me better details about what is going on with my downloads.
Wouldn't rate Transmission anywhere near awesomeness or fantastic, maybe 4 out of a 10 !!! Seemed more like a Windows-type app. Azureus gets a 9 out of a 10 from me !!!! See why below.
Here's why - I started the same 2 torrents in Vuze / Azureus app and Transmission app. After 5 minutes, I compared the results and found that Transmission had only found about 25% of the Peers / Seeds that Azureus had found.
Both app's were set for unlimited download speed. Azureus had already achieved 10x speed in the first torrent and 5x in the second compared to what Transmission had in the same 5 minute period. Azureus actually kept slowly increasing DL speed whereas Transmission seem to top out.
As to the On Vuze part of the interface, this is about the closest thing I've found to the Stage6 website that has been shutdown by Divx. It got too popular and management decided to longer support it. Maybe thats where the bloatware comment came from, but my computer can handle Azureus and it's an 8 year old Mac G4 (some upgrades to it).

[Rhywun]

I wouldn't know if Azureus is better than Transmission -- I have never been able to get it to function properly. And I'll pass on the "hi-res content" and the "friends".

PS. I went to the Azureus and Vuze sites and haven't seen such a content-free site in a long time. Almost no information about the actual application. Just links to "content" I don't want.

[dougoftheabaci]

Wow, there's a lot of that which I take issue with...

bennym said:

I agree that Transmission has a simpler interface, but after that, I disagree about it being better and faster.
Azureus has the Dashboard option if you want simple options whereas I like the Advanced option where it gives me better details about what is going on with my downloads.

When people say it's UI is better we aren't just talking about when you view torrents downloading. The entire app has a very clean UI that is very easy to understand and customise to your heart's delight. Azureus has more options to let you fine-tune the download but they're extremely badly laid out. Also, 99% of the information you get from Azureus is completely useless other than for you to be able to keep a closer eye.

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Wouldn't rate Transmission anywhere near awesomeness or fantastic, maybe 4 out of a 10 !!! Seemed more like a Windows-type app. Azureus gets a 9 out of a 10 from me !!!! See why below.

Windows how? It uses Mac standard elements in a Mac-style interface full of Mac features. Azureus was built on Windows first then ported to Mac and the UI very much reflects this. The lack of organisation and the feel that it's extremely utilitarian is highly Windows-centric. I'm not saying it's a Windows-only trait, just that it's more prevalent on that OS. No offence, but your numbers seem rather arbitrary.

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Here's why - I started the same 2 torrents in Vuze / Azureus app and Transmission app. After 5 minutes, I compared the results and found that Transmission had only found about 25% of the Peers / Seeds that Azureus had found.

How many were you connected to and downloading from? Also, 5 minutes is not enough time to compare two apps.

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Both app's were set for unlimited download speed. Azureus had already achieved 10x speed in the first torrent and 5x in the second compared to what Transmission had in the same 5 minute period. Azureus actually kept slowly increasing DL speed whereas Transmission seem to top out.

The beauty of Azureus is if you know how to properly configure it it will be faster. However, doing so is extremely complicated and the Wizard is almost no help at all. At default configurations they both tend to be about the same on speed.

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As to the On Vuze part of the interface, this is about the closest thing I've found to the Stage6 website that has been shutdown by Divx. It got too popular and management decided to longer support it. Maybe thats where the bloatware comment came from, but my computer can handle Azureus and it's an 8 year old Mac G4 (some upgrades to it).

Bloatware doesn't just refer to whether or not it slows the app down, it applies to features that are added in but completely unnecessary and are there simply because the developers wanted them to be. Azureus/Vuze is full of these things. It would be one thing if these features were at least in a clear and clean interface, but they aren't. It's the kind of interface that, as a designer, I am certain was created by a developer. And the parts that actually look designed I point to and say, "Ah, some poor designer was told to skin it!"

Look, it all comes down to this: Transmission is more user friendly and in normal conditions is a much better choice for the average user. For those who want to geek over their downloads and tweak the app to get every last KB of speed then Azureus is a good choice. However, for that customisability you sacrifice usability in a big, big way and have to slog through extra features that hinder more than help.

The only thing I wish Transmission had that Azureus did was the dynamic speed capper, or whatever it's called. It's useful, but otherwise I would say I'd rather Azureus took a few hundred pages from the book of Transmission.

[bennym]

When I ran my tests, both torrents were downloading at the same time.
I ran Transmission first then Azureus and I was surprised at the difference at how many Seeds/Peers there were between the two.
Both app's were set to default DL speed which was Unlimited on both.

[batchtaster]

Transmission doesn't grind my entire system down to a halt. Speed, schmeed; bandwidth utilization means jack if your computer won't work properly. Both T and A max out my connection, but one doesn't render my computer otherwise useless. Guess which?
It's just a shame there was such a rocky period between 0.9 and 1.2, with one disastrous (ie: data loss) bug after another. That does seem to be behind them now, and I've not had any problems with T for quite a while.

[4evermaat]

because I loved uTorrent so much I was actually running it in Fusion and using 1.7.x or 1.8. uTorrent was the best at what it did for windows, but as a transitioning mac person, I found that you want to run as many programs natively in mac as possible, and use windows emulation only when necessary. So I came across transmission. I found the interface very intuitive, straight-forward, and fast download speeds. It was annoying to have to copy files back over to the mac client or copy to the external drive and then have to reconnect that drive so that the mac could read it outside of fusion. So transmission is the way to go for me using a mac. Cannot do a comparison among other mac bit torrent clients because I haven't used them yet. I rarely try several apps for the exact same same purpose unless I run into something i cannot do with one i already use.
I used azureus years ago as my first bittorrent client. Once I switched to uTorrent, I never looked back. I cannot wait for the mac version to come out. Transmission will have some competition indeed.