Opera pours itself into BitTorrent

Posted on 8 Jul 2005 at 18:00

Opera Software is incorporating built-in support for BitTorrent into its eponymous browser.

The company is hoping to make it easier for users to complete the download of popular files via the BitTorrent system - making the most of available bandwidth and reducing the chance of in-transfer delay when multiple users are downloading the same file.

To Opera it will just be another protocol. Alongside existing support for file transfer protocols such as FTP and HTTP, it declares support for BitTorrent as 'the logical next step in the company's strategy to make protocols available that increase productivity'.

'While BitTorrent has been on Opera's radar screen for more than a year, the true value of the technology became evident when the company launched Opera 8 in April this year,' said Christen Krogh, VP of Engineering, Opera Software. 'The massive response, with more than 100 downloads per second, dealt a technical knock-out to Opera's servers. With BitTorrent, users would have had an alternative download mechanism.'

Described by its makers as a 'free speech tool', BitTorrent is a distributed system where users co-operate in downloading elements of a file or digital object. Effectively, files are recreated, for end users, from sub- elements that others are also downloading. It's a way for multiple people to assist each other with a single download. In its own words, 'BitTorrent trades pieces you have with pieces your peers have'.

Note that it is only a Technical Preview that is available - Opera emphasizes that it should be used for preview purposes only. It is available for download at the Opera Community beta forum, and runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X.

The browser will also be offered for download as a torrent file.

You can read more about BitTorrent at the project's homepage: www.bittorrent.com/.