Transmission is a very nice torrent client available for Mac and Linux users. It is currently in version 0.7.1, but it has been around long enough that it has a full set of features and is stable enough for everyday use.
While not as feature-filled as a program like Azureus, Transmission will undoubtedly meet the torrent downloading needs of basic users. As you can see from the screenshot, Transmission is a very nice, one-pane interface. In that window you will see all the torrents that are currently downloading. Click on a particular torrent to highlight it, then click the Inspector button, and you will be shown a pop up window that provides more information about the particular download. Included in the inspector is information about the activity of specific torrents, such as the number of pairs with seeds and the number connected, as well as your file and the remote hours of that particular file.
In addition, the user is indicated a list of all files in a particular torrent and their completion percentage. For example, in the screen shot attached to this article, you can see that I have now downloaded four concerts. Clicking the viewer button shows me every single song from that concert, and how close a particular song file is to completion. Therefore, if the concert itself is far from being complete, but a particular song has already been finished with a reduction, I can listen to it in order to judge its quality. This can be a lifesaver, as it could save me from taking out a whole concert, not knowing that it didn’t sound very good.
To add torrent files for transmission, you have two options. The first step is to simply set Transmission as your default torrent client, so double-clicking on a torrent file will automatically start Transmission. The second method of transmission is to look at a specific folder. For example, if you always send your torrents to your “Torrent” folder, you can have a Transmission Guard for that folder. Then, every time you drop a torrent file into the downloaded torrent folder, Transmission will see this and immediately start cutting it out.
If you typically find yourself downloading many torrents at once, then the smallest Transmission option will be for you. Instead of the main window showing your completion percentage, time and number of pairs remaining, the smallest view shows only the name of the torrent. This allows the user to view multiple torrents at once. You can still see the progress bar, of course, so you’ll have an idea of how far along it is in a particular stream, but you won’t know exactly how long it has left or how much is left to download until you hit the Inspector button. .
The one thing I want Transmission to do is to enable the release of partial torrents. If I want one song from a concert, I have to download the whole show. This is different in other clients such as Azureus or KTorrent. But the programs are bigger, taking up more hard drive space and memory, and, as mentioned, delivered for basic users. more will be enough.
Transmission is free, open source software, available for Mac or Linux. It can be downloaded here and the user forums can be found here. Pay attention… it’s a great program.
