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POWhy isn't bittorrent more widespread?
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copied!<p>I suppose this question is a <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21475/why-havent-torrents-replaced-http-downloads">variation on a theme</a>, but different.</p> <p>Torrents will never replace HTTP, or even FTP download options. This said, why aren't there torrent links next to those options on more websites?</p> <p>I'm imagining a web-system whereby downloaded files are able to be downloaded via HTTP, say from <code>http://example.com/downloads/files/myFile.tar.bz2</code>, torrents can be cheaply autogenerated and stored in <code>/downloads/torrents/myFile.tar.bz2.torrent</code>, and the tracker might be <code>/downloads/tracker/</code>. </p> <p>Trackers are a well defined problem, and not incredibly difficult to implement, and there are many drop in place alternatives out there already. I imagine it wouldn't be difficult to customise one to do what is needed here.</p> <p>The autogenerated torrent file can include the normal HTTP server as a permanent seed, the extensions to do this are very well supported by most, if not all, of the major torrent clients and requires no reconfiguration or special things on the server end (it uses stock standard HTTP Range headers).</p> <p>Personally, if I setup such a system, I would then speed limit the <code>/downloads/files/</code> directory to something reasonable, say maybe 40-50kb/s, depending on what exactly you were trying to serve.</p> <p>Does such a file delivery system exist? Would you use it if it did: for your personal, company, or other website?</p>

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