uTorrent developers introduced a new feature for the client: Altruistic Mode is a great thing for users who want to share more than they download. The problem is that once Altruistic Mode is enabled, downloads using the feature may never complete.
Normally, the more people upload the healthier the swarm, and this might be the reason for BitTorrent Inc. to release the new feature to both uTorrent and BitTorrent clients. Altruistic Mode is aimed at people who want to guarantee that they always upload twice they download. For some reason, this is achieved not by uploading more, but by downloading less. As a result, users who enabled Altruistic Mode find out that the torrent they’re downloading might never complete, because the importance of a finished download places second to a healthy swarm. Ironically, if too many people decide to act selflessly and turn the feature on in the same swarm, everyone’s download may never complete.
In any case, it’s quite an interesting feature for the uTorrent and BitTorrent clients and is regarded as an experiment that could be later developed. The developers explain that they may further roll out another feature where a peer starts out in Altruistic Mode and later switches to regular Download Mode. This wouldn’t change the upload ratio much but would help other peers download faster at the beginning, thus allowing peers to get a complete file faster.
So far, the Altruistic Mode is available in uTorrent 3.4.9 and above and BitTorrent 7.9.9 and above. The new feature is disabled by default but can be enabled in the menu Preferences/BitTorrent and then activated for individual torrents.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
Normally, the more people upload the healthier the swarm, and this might be the reason for BitTorrent Inc. to release the new feature to both uTorrent and BitTorrent clients. Altruistic Mode is aimed at people who want to guarantee that they always upload twice they download. For some reason, this is achieved not by uploading more, but by downloading less. As a result, users who enabled Altruistic Mode find out that the torrent they’re downloading might never complete, because the importance of a finished download places second to a healthy swarm. Ironically, if too many people decide to act selflessly and turn the feature on in the same swarm, everyone’s download may never complete.
In any case, it’s quite an interesting feature for the uTorrent and BitTorrent clients and is regarded as an experiment that could be later developed. The developers explain that they may further roll out another feature where a peer starts out in Altruistic Mode and later switches to regular Download Mode. This wouldn’t change the upload ratio much but would help other peers download faster at the beginning, thus allowing peers to get a complete file faster.
So far, the Altruistic Mode is available in uTorrent 3.4.9 and above and BitTorrent 7.9.9 and above. The new feature is disabled by default but can be enabled in the menu Preferences/BitTorrent and then activated for individual torrents.
Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.
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