I’m a big fan of the BitTorrent Protocol.  It’s an amazingly simple yet clever protocol for easily and efficiently moving bits around on the internet.  By grabbing small chunks of a given file from multiple peer computers anywhere in the world, it can quickly and efficiently move files from one place to another. 

Sadly, BitTorrent has a bad reputation, as it is commonly used to move pirated software, music, movies, and TV shows around in violation of any number of copyright laws.  But the fact that it is used for nefarious purposes doesn’t make BitTorrent itself evil or illegal, anymore than cars are illegal for being used as bank robbery getaway vehicles.  It’s a shame that many companies and other organizations feel that they can’t avail themselves of BitTorrent because of its bad reputation.

In fact, there are plenty of legitimate uses for BitTorrent.  Many companies do use it to distribute their software.  For instance, Ubuntu provides torrents for their Linux distributions.  It’s a nice way to make large files available to customers fast and free – there’s no bandwidth limit or any fee associated with BitTorrent.  But be advised of one thing – once a torrent is out in the wild, there is no getting it back. It is totally roaming free out on the Interwebs.

Below is a screenshot of my µTorrent client, showing the torrents that I’m serving up from a server at my house.  Those Ubuntu files are quite popular, and because there are so many “seeders” (that is, other people making the file available for downloading), I was able  to download many of those files at rates over 2MB per second meaning I was downloading 650MB files in a matter of minutes.

In addition to the Ubuntu files, I also went to ClearBits.net and downloaded a number of legal, free-and-clear torrents. I leave my client running 24 hours a day, and gladly give up some of my upstream bandwidth to support the good folks at Ubuntu and the furthering of the distribution of fine literature via completely legal torrents.  I like to think of it as a small contribution back to the community and doing my part to contribute to the legal side of BitTorrent.

So if you haven’t checked out BitTorrent, give it a look.  There are plenty of legitimate uses for it out there, and there’s no reason you can’t be using it  to distribute your software -- and maybe even providing a bit of bandwidth to the world.