BiglyBT

Since work on Vuze (formerly Azureus) has come to a halt as off April 2017, two developers from the original Azureus team have decided to fork the project and release a new BitTorrent client. Say hello to BiglyBT, a free and open source torrent client that can handle torrent files, magnet links, URLs and hashes. But best of all, it doesn’t ask for money to remove all the annoying ads, like Vuze+ does, because it doesn't have any ads!

BiglyBT is available as an installer for Windows (32- as well as 64-bit editions, Windows 7 or newer), MacOS, and Linux. The Quick Look video that accompanies this article presents all the steps you must go through to install BiglyBT on a Windows-powered computer. You’ll get to choose where the torrent client will be installed, what shortcuts will be created, if BiglyBT will be associated with torrents, what UI mode will be enabled, and what extra components will be installed.

These are the extra components that BiglyBT presents:
Swarm Discoveries – view content that is related in some way to the torrents you are already downloading.
Message Sync – decentralized public and anonymous chat.
Location Provider – various parts of BiglyBT are able to display location details about a peer.
BiglyBT Remote Plugin – remotely access the torrent client.
Tor Helper – backup connectivity via the Tor network if connections to services fail.
I2P Helper – download via the anonymous I2P network.

From a visual point of view, BiglyBT looks a lot like Vuze, which means that you will immediately feel at home if you’ve used Vuze before. And speaking about using Vuze, you need to know that BiglyBT lets you copy and migrate the configuration settings, downloads and plugins from your existing Vuze or Azureus installation. Getting back to the interface, there is one very important thing you need to know about: there are no ads. Unlike Vuze which wants you to pay for Vuze+ to get rid of the ads, BiglyBT doesn’t display any. There are no ads!

BiglyBT is packed with enough features to keep any torrent fan happy: it can handle any type of torrent you give it; pause and resume downloads; set download and upload limits; let BiglyBT analyze your internet connection and automatically set an upload limit; lots of plugins to install; remotely control BiglyBT from another computer or from a mobile; a Configuration Wizard will guide you through the main settings; tons of settings to play with; and more.

BiglyBT version 1.0 is basically Vuze with a different name and with some useless features taken out: no ads, no games promotions, no DVD burning, not content network. The developers plan to keep BiglyBT free, ad-free, and open source. They also plan to come up with new features and a new style for the torrent client. Hopefully it will become a much more popular torrent client than Vuze and will appeal to a wide range of users.

BiglyBT is a feature-rich, user friendly and robust BitTorrent client that’s been forked from the Azureus project. It’s a great alternative for Vuze and a great choice for anyone who wants an open source and ad-free torrent client.