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Mozilla

FoxTorrent

I said back in 2004 that Firefox needs built in support for BitTorrent. My idea was it would be integrated into the download manager so that it was “just another protocol” and would be transparent to a typical user. I still stand by that.

Fast forward to 2007: FoxTorrent is by RedSwoosh (now owned by Akamai).

I’d personally love to see something like this ship built in. It’s a great feature. BitTorrent is a great protocol for distributing large downloads without having to buy expensive infrastructure. Akamai’s interest is proof of that.

FoxTorrent has a blog if you want to keep an eye on it. FoxTorrent is MIT licensed as well. It seems like a very interesting product. I’ll have to dig into this and look at it a bit closer.

[Hat tip: TechCrunch]

8 replies on “FoxTorrent”

Why built in, if you can bundle an extension? Also it is sad that Firefox needs to support FTP for legacy reasons, why add another one which will likely become obsolete too soon?

Sorry I’m being a bit thick…how do I get this to work? I download the torrent file and then what? If I open it with firefox it just downloads again and I can’t see any other download options.

🙁

Oh by the way yes I have installed the extension…what I should have said there is “I download “a” torrent file and then what?”…

re David Naylor
I actually said that torrent will become obsolete soon enough (as P2P protocols are fast moving) and I also stated that FTP currently needs to be supported specifically because “Loads of downloads are provided via FTP servers” ( “legacy reasons” as HTTP is much more suitable for providing downloads ).

nul: The reason that P2P services are fast moving is that most to date have been for copyright infringement purposes exclusively. BitTorrent has been around for a few years because it can be used for legitimate purposes. Unlike many P2P services BitTorrent is just a protocol not part of a larger service (Napster like services for example).

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