Download Vuze 4.7.0.2

Softworld editor's review - 2011-06-22

Fast and different Bittorrent client

Vuze is definitely not the ordinary Bittorrent client. It offers you plenty of features and fast download speeds.

The first time you install Vuze, the program makes a "Speed Optimization Test For Your Network". Basically by doing this Vuze selects the best connection settings in order for you to have the best download speeds. You must think that this process doesn't take a lot of time. However this is certainly not the case. When i tested the program i had to cancel this process because after more than five minutes it was not yet completed. Definitely not a very good start for Vuze.

When you are looking to install on your computer a torrent client the first thing about which you are thinking is the download speeds. So as you can imagine the first thing about which I'm interested is how fast is this torrent application. I downloaded a file that did not had lots of peers and seeders and despite this the speed was constantly over 500Kb. So definitely that this is a very fast Bittorrent client.

Vuze is somehow similar to Bitcomet. I say this because just as its competitor it has a built in search bar and a similar interface. In Vuze the menus are well organized and the main interface looks pretty good. When using the search bar to look for something, the search results will be displayed in the application. However when you want to download a particular torrent Vuze will redirect you to your default browser.

However what is great is that it will send you directly on the page on which you wanted to enter. Compared with Bitcomet's search bar the one that Vuze utilizes definitely works better but not in the way as it normally should work. What i did not like about Vuze is that the moment you open a torrent and you start to download it you are not sent to the download page.

To see what download speed you have and various other statistics you have to enter at Files and click on Downloading or enter in Library. The moment the download is finished, in the Files section where it appeared Downloading, now it appears New. A feature that i really like is the built in media player. The moment you have finished to download a video file you will be able to play it directly from the application.

All that you have to do is to select the torrent that you have downloaded and then press the play sign. This is located near the search bar. When you first use this feature the application will download some files to be to play video content. However there is no need to worry because this process takes only a couple of seconds. In the left side of the main window you have the menu system. This is grouped in 6 categories: Vuze, Files, Device Playback, Subscriptions, DVD Burn, Plugins & Extras.

In the Vuze section there is a Getting started, Vuze plus and Games sections. All of these can be deleted by pressing the x icon which is located near each of these categories. In Files you can see all of your downloads. By entering Library you can see the downloads that have been competed. Bellow Library you can see Downloading if the torrent file is still in the process of downloading or New if the download have been just completed.

A feature that is still in beta development is Device Playback. By turning this on you will be able to play your videos from the Vuze library on your TV and also mobile device. Another Interesting feature is DVD Burn, however it can be used for only one playable DVD burn. To have unlimited DVD burns you have to upgrade to Vuze Plus. Going to Plugins & Extras you can find the HD video player.

To play your downloaded videos all that you have to do is to drag them into the HD Video player field or simply press the play button at the top of the page. If you want to set up Vuze according to your own taste at any time you can enter Tools and then the options menu. Here you have the chance to operate various changes to the connection, transfer, files, interface, plugins, devices etc.

Definitely that this is a decent Bitorrent client. Although it is nowhere near uTorrent in terms of speed and usability is definitely better than Bitcomet. The main issue with Vuze is that it offers to many features and because of this even a experienced PC user in the beginning will encounter difficulties in using this application. Don't get me wrong Vuze is not a bad program but it tries to hard to be more than a simple torrent client.

Good:

-plenty of features
-fast download speeds
-good looking interface
-well implemented search bar

Bad:

-much to complicated
-takes lots of system resources
-to be able to use some of the features you have to upgrade to Vuze Plus

Version 4.6 reviewed on: 22 Jun 2011

Publisher's description

Vuze is the easiest way to find, download, and play HD video. Download using the most powerful p2p bittorrent app in the world.

Vuze is a software application enabling you to find, download, play and share all kinds of content. It is a full-featured bittorrent application, plus a network of high-quality undiscovered torrents and a media player. The application is built on the original code of the Azureus Bittorrent client.

Vuze uses a special peer-to-peer based content distribution system that breaks up large files into small pieces and distributes them in parallel across the network, allowing these pieces to be downloaded from many computers simultaneously. Each person who downloads the file gets some pieces of the content from the original server, and other pieces from anyone else who is also downloading that file, thereby increasing download speeds significantly.

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