Recs.
Updated
Specs
Pros
Pro Extensible via plugins
Vuze has a lots of plugins available that are capable of performing a wide variety of tasks including automatically categorizing torrents, adding remote access solutions and even playing games such as Sudoku.
Pro I2P support via plugin
I2P or Invisible Internet Project is a decentralized anonymizing network. Vuze has a plugin accessible from the plugin wizard that adds support for I2P downloading, seeding, and I2P DHT support.
Pro Swarm merging
Combines the swarms of multiple torrents that have the same file, allowing for faster downloads, and completion of torrents lacking available pieces.
This means if a torrent is stuck at 99%, Vuze can add another torrent with the same file, and only have to download the 1% from other other torrent's peers.
Pro Full-featured
Vuze covers basics such as Prioritization, Selective Downloading, DHT, PEX and Magnet URIs as well as Broadcatching, Sequential downloading (paid) and Search. It includes MSE/PE for security. It has graphical and web interfaces. Has UPnP, NAT-PMP, NAT traversal for automatic router configuration. Has UDP tracker and µTP data transfer protocol support. Even covers IPv6, web seeding, Embedded tracker, Super-seeding and proxy servers. And it auto-updates.
Pro Can bind downloads to VPN
Vuze can detect if it's running over a VPN. Once a connection to the VPN is lost, all traffic becomes public. To avoid this Vuze can be set to run only over a VPN.
Pro Built-in video player
Vuze has a capable video player built-in with reasonable support for most common video formats, subtitles and audio switching.
Pro Perfect for Tivo
The way it works hand and hand with Tivo is awesome. It allows you to have all your media in one box.
Pro Extensive wiki for support
Although an ongoing work, almost everything one needs for proper config is there.
Pro Vuze is a reliable client with many plugins that actually work. intuitive interface and seamless operations make it an easy choice
Pro Control download priority
You can control which files are downloaded, in what priority, and not have to go searching for the features.
Cons
Con Pushes crapware
The installation bundles a lot of useless pieces of software. While they can be opted out of, it is not a pleasant experience.
Con Has ads
The free edition of Vuze includes ads. Ads can be removed by purchasing the $29.99 Vuze+.
Con Enclosed sequential downloading support is behind a paywall
Sequential downloading can be used to stream media files such as video and audio while the download is still in progress. This can be streamed via the html protocol into another video app for free, but doing it with the built in video player is pay-locked.
Con Subscription options are lacking
Although Vuze supports subscriptions (RSS feeds) the custom options are seriously lacking. In uTorrent you can set it up so that it only downloads the most recent episode of a show and only one copy of it, with Vuze if you have Auto Download turned on you get everything you didn't manually filter out. In a TV series with 30 episodes per season you need to manually add every episode that you've already downloaded to the "do not download" list and if there are multiple versions of the latest episode you can expect to have Vuze download them all. There is a plugin that promises to make this process simpler, but it seems that there are a lot of unnecessary hoops to jump through.
That said it's a small price to pay to get the functionality back. uTorrent/BitTorrent's feeds have suddenly stopped working for many due to the recent shutdown of Torcache
Con Upgrading is equal to manually downloading the latest version and installing it
It can't be done silently in the background without notice.
Con Slow and heavy app
It's just too much for people who just want a torrent downloader. The app is difficult to understand, but above all is very slow. uTorrent would download films, games, etc so fast (up to 3.5mbps), this app is too slow.
Con Causes kernal panics on OSX (Mac) almost everytime
This is extremely irritating and this has been an issue for some time. Apple isn't in a hurry to fix it. Vuze should have taken care of this a long time ago.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Pro Open source
Vuze software is open source (with platform being proprietary). It's licensed under GPL with source code available here. Being open source allows anyone to check if the software has no malicious code, is secure and respects privacy.
Pro Has a plugin for accessing Mainline DHT
Vuze has a plugin that allows it to connect to the Mainline DHT pool allowing you to access both DHT pools for increased availability of the file you're trying to download.
Con the Con
the app does not remember being paid for. My complaint is that I had to re-install the app i had, my version is without the pro feat. I would like to have that back, I think I dont want to buy it again! That would make it buggy in favor of repeated charges to my credit/debit card, in order to get the same version I had before I paid for it. that kinda sucks. well thats about it! :)
Pro fast downloads for Windows XP machines
what they have here is a work around for XP machines. Its almost impossible to get a port forwarded with xp now because MS has disabled many features trying to move ppl to 7 8 and 10
where that leaves us, with literally millions of computers going into landfills and dumps. I have a couple of machines that still use xp, and this ap greatly enhances my downloads without all the port forwarding nonsense, as well as the fights with my ISP server people who get bent out of shape when asked to open ports etc.
good on you Vuze, its nice o be able to open the app and it just grabs what ever torrent you have been struggling with while using Utorrent.
Its
Pro Direct cerebral entanglement through *plasma infused fiber optics allows the user to integrate 100% of cognitive functions with the interwebs. (*Special Purchase Required)
Learn anything, like super fast.