BiglyBT is a
BitTorrent client written in
Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
forked from
Vuze. It is
free and open-source software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...
and ad-free.
Features
BiglyBT has most of the features of Vuze, its predecessor. However, it lacks Vuze's premium and proprietary features and features the developers considered bloat, including
DVD burning, gaming promotions, the video-sharing content network, and the installer's advertisements.
Some removed features such as the embedded media player,
RSS scanner, and iTunes integration are available via downloadable
plugins.
BiglyBT's features include swarm merging, using different torrents to download the same file;
limiting download/upload speeds by tag, peer-set (e.g. country), network (public or I2P), and individual
peer;
detecting and integrating with VPNs;
support for the
I2P network; remote control
with any Android app that supports
Transmission's
RPC protocol; and "robust settings". Many of these features are included via bundled plugins.
History
Development of
Vuze ground to a halt in early 2017, with no new releases or commits being made since April, featured content from the content network becoming inaccessible, and users reporting outdated antivirus definitions. The two main developers, parg and TuxPaper, left the project and focused their efforts on an ad-free
fork called BiglyBT with goals of shedding commercial interests.
They proceeded to remove Vuze's premium and proprietary features and license the entire project under the
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...
.
In December 2017, after pushing an update for review, the Android version of BiglyBT was rejected from
Google Play
Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...
for mentioning "other brands: Bittorrent" in the app listing's description, surprising the developers. The app was restored to Google Play after all mentions of "BitTorrent" were replaced with "torrent".
Version 2.5—released 22 September 2020—added support for version 2 of the BitTorrent protocol, making it the first BitTorrent client to do so. The updated protocol features improved
checksums, including per-file hashes that allow improved swarm merging.
libtorrent, a BitTorrent library used by popular clients such as
qBittorrent and μTorrent Web but not BiglyBT, implemented the functionality a few weeks prior (with version 2.0, released 7 September 2020), but clients that use the library had yet to incorporate the functionality as of BiglyBT's update.
Reception
In April 2020,
TorrentFreak named BiglyBT the tenth popular BitTorrent client with 0.3% of the market share.
Reviewers noted the higher amount of computer resource consumption due to using Java and appreciated the amount of features, praising the swarm merging feature and amount of options.
Whitson Gordon of
PCMag described BiglyBT as "Features Galore, If You Want Them".
References
{{reflist
2017 software
Free and open-source Android software
BitTorrent clients for Linux
Java platform software
MacOS file sharing software
Windows file sharing software