Looking for a lightweight bittorrent client that doesn’t bog you down with all kinds of excessive interface features and options, and that won’t slow down your system because it’s built on top of something like Java? Well, if you’re a Linux user and you typically only download one bittorrent at a time, you might want to take a look at BitStorm Lite.
BitStorm Lite is a bit like the standard Gnome client, called BitTorrent Download Client (“gnome-btdownload” in your Ubuntu repositories). But if forced to choose between the two, I’d go with BitStorm Lite every time. Why? Both have very comparable features for the most part. A simple, single-window interface, that prescribes to the one-window-per-torrent ideal, as opposed to other clients, such as Azureus, which show all open torrents in the same window. You’ll get arguments for the merits of both, and to be honest, I prefer the multiple-torrents-in-the-same-window ideal, although in the stripped-down fashion used by Transmission. Which is why I said that BitStorm Lite is perfect for those who usually download one torrent at a time.
So why use BitStorm Lite instead of BitTorrent Download Client? For the simple reason that not every person wants to download the entire contents of a torrent each time. I’m currently downloading a live concert (the B-52s from an on-air radio performance a couple days ago), and with BitTorrent Download Client, if I only wanted to listen to a couple of the songs (or wanted to download a single song first, to check out the quality before committing to downloading the entire show), I would be out of luck. BitTorrent Download Client doesn’t allow the downloader to specify which items in a torrent file should be downloaded. BitStorm Lite, on the other hand, makes this option easy and presents it right up front.
When you open a torrent file with BitStorm Lite, you’re immediately shown a dialog window that prompts you to choose which items (if applicable), you’d like to download. By default, all items are checked, so simply uncheck the ones you don’t want, specify where you’d like to download the torrent, and click to start. It’s that easy!
Also, as opposed to other, more powerful clients, BitStorm Lite presents all your download information in one window, as mentioned. You’ll see the name of the file, how much hard drive space it takes up, your percentage through the torrent, how much time has elapsed, an estimate of how much time remains, and more. You’ll see where your torrent will be downloaded to, along with statistics such as how fast you’re downloading (and uploading), how much you’ve downloaded (and uploaded), and how many people you’re connected to. If you are using a torrent website that demands a particular upload/download ratio, BitStorm Lite shows that as well. You are also given the option to cap your upload and download speeds, as well as set the cache.
About the only thing I wish BitStorm Lite would show is a status icon in my Gnome Panel. Other Bittorrent clients (in fact, I think every BitTorrent client I’ve ever used, such as KTorrent, Azureus, BitTorrent Download Client and Transmission), have all supported this feature. Sure, I could simply minimize BitStorm Lite, but I’d prefer to have it placed in the Panel, and while there are solutions to this (AllTray, for instance, which will iconize any application to your Panel), I’d prefer a more elegant, built-in solution.
Still, you definitely pay what you get for, and BitStorm Lite is both a small, and fairly new project. At the moment it’s very good, and who knows, with a few more users, and therefore a few more testers, it could grow into a great program. So if you’re looking for something like what I’ve described – a lightweight, fast and easy BitTorrent client – you should really give BitStorm Lite a try.
