Alternatives to Bittorrent?

[Grasshopper]

Can anyone here recommend any good alternatives to the official Bittorrent client program?

It used to be OK in the past but for some reason it seems to be becoming more and more buggy and resource hungry. I'm not sure whether the program's actually changed or whether it's just my perception based on the fact that I download a lot more stuff these days. But whatever the reason, the quirks of the program are really starting to annoy me.

Thanks in advance.

[AtomSmasher]

Azureus is a popular choice.

[massive88]

Azureus - Id go sub version 3.0 though
uTorrent

Both blow away vanilla BT.

[Hoopz]

I'll second utorrent.  IMHO the best client you can use.

[vorghagen]

I'll third utorrent. Been using it for quite a while with no complaints.

[somunny]

Definitely utorrent.

[ark_ader]

Yep

[shardian]

I use Azureus, and I decline all updates - they screw up the program.

[ahofle]

Has anyone else found that utorrent totally bogs down your internet connection?  I mean even if I cap the upload rate to like 10KBps, I can barely surf the web on another computer. 

[shardian]

Has anyone else found that utorrent totally bogs down your internet connection?  I mean even if I cap the upload rate to like 10KBps, I can barely surf the web on another computer. 

What you are downloading can influence that. If you are downloading a very popular file, you will be pinged to death from peers.

[massive88]

Has anyone else found that utorrent totally bogs down your internet connection?  I mean even if I cap the upload rate to like 10KBps, I can barely surf the web on another computer. 

Yes, I seem to have better success with Azureus in that regard, but it may just be in my mind.

They still have the sub 3.0 version for download, I would get that one.

[ahofle]

Hmm I'll check but I'm pretty sure I have it using the default port (I remember having to add a port forwading rule in my router for utorrent anyway). 

[shmokes]

Has anyone else found that utorrent totally bogs down your internet connection?  I mean even if I cap the upload rate to like 10KBps, I can barely surf the web on another computer. 

Remember that 10KBps is 80Kbps, which is the number your ISP uses.  That's a good chunk of your upstream bandwidth if you're only at 128k up, which a lot of people in America are.

[ahofle]

I have consistent 256 Kbps up so that should be less than half up upstream bandwidth.  What's strange is that other bittorrent clients don't seem to behave this way (but I prefer the interface of utorrent more than the others). 

[gavkiwi]

I prefer utorrent also, and I am having the same problem, getting pinged to death when I am getting a popular file, any suggestions on changing that step by step  ?

thanks

[Turnarcades]

Utorrent is easily the best as it makes best use of your internet connection and is light for resource use, wheras Azureus and others are Java dependant and heavy on system resources, meaning you can't do much else whilst they're running.

Most bittorrent clients are crap though even if configured to work with a router due to their peer-to-peer nature, so for heavy downloads (like games, movies etc.) I signed up to Megaupload (where files are stored on a server), so you always get use of your full bandwidth for maximum speed downloads. With my 20mb connection I get 2500kb/sec downloads without fail so can get about 8-9Gb an hour, or 2 full DVD's.