FAQ

• Q1: How is Tribler different from other file sharing clients?
• New way of watching TV

Tribler makes Internet TV easy. It offers the best of the web: easy keyword search and online friends. This is combined with the ease of television. It's all in one package.

• Wealth of content

Tribler offers a wealth of content by providing access to all Bittorrent content and aggragating various video websites such as Youtube and Liveleak.

• All-in-one solution

With one simple program you automatically find content, download it, and start viewing. You no longer need to search various websites for the best Torrents. Install proprietary plug-ins (e.g. Flash), or reguarly install new codecs to keep up with the latest DivX version. Tribler offers all this in a single program.

• Want to see Tribler in action?

Check out our Tribler Video on Youtube!

• Q2: What is the difference between the two download versions?

If you select the left download version, the Tribler client will upload as much as it downloads. This version is "balanced" in the sense that for every piece that you want to download you also have to upload a piece of the same size. If you select the right download version, the Tribler client will optimize the file sharing algorithm to speed up your downloads, minimizing your upload to others. While this improves the speed of your personal video downloads, other users will not be able to benefit from your videos as much as with the left version which then consequently reduces their download speed.

• Q3: If Tribler is serverless, then how does it find files and other peers?

When Tribler is started it will automatically search for users that have tribler running. When a connection is established it starts exchanging information. First it exchanges personal information (such as your avatar picture, your friends list, download history, etc.) and information about files that are available in the network. These files can be personal, shared files, but also files that one has received from another person.

• Q4: Tribler has discovered many people and files, but how do I start downloading?

By browsing through the files and persons each user can find their prefered files and users. The tribler program helps you by giving extra information about each item (whether it is a file or a person) and also shows what other users think about it. When you find a person you like you can add him as a friend. An interesting file can be downloaded and will be available in your library. When you press download your computer will make an inventory of which computers actually have this file (or a part of it) and then will download the parts from the different computers.

• Q5: What is the "recommendations" feature?

With the wealth of content out there it can be hard to pick something interesting. Tribler shows suggestions in the form of 'People who like this also like'. This allows you to discover new content. After a few downloads the program also shows which people have similar taste and shows what files they like.

• Q6: What is the "download boosting" feature?

The download boosting feature in Tribler lets you achieve higher downloads speeds with the help of online friends. This form of work collaboration is made possible by the combination of social network technology and P2P file sharing. Your friends do work on your behalf by making upload bandwidth available in return for downloads you want.

• Q7: What does the "all-in-one" feature mean?

Tribler is both a P2P client and a web browser. The integrated web browser uses a technique we call 'deep content searching' in combination with 'deep linking' to browse the web and aggregate search results. Tribler allows access to video websites without the requirement of proprietary (non Open Source) software such as the Flash plug-in.

• Q8: My upload/download bandwidth ratio is 1:8. Will I ever earn enough "virtual currency" to download sufficiently fast?

Obviously, the upload/download ratio averaged over the whole file sharing network has to be 1:1. Thus, it is a serious problem that many users have an asymmetric Internet connection. This is one of the biggest problems with the BitTorrent protocol, where most trades happen with a tit-for-tat mechanism. Thus, even though you might have 1Mbit of download bandwidth, your 125kbit upload bandwidth prevents you from fast downloads. With virtual credits, we want to alleviate this problem. The idea is that when you leave your computer on (over night, during vacation, when you are working,...) you can earn credits such that when you actually want to download a video (or watch something on demand) you will get get the full download speed.

• Q9: What about other Linux distributions than Ubuntu?

As of Monday September 10th, Linux users who do not use Ubuntu should now automatically get a tarball of the sources when clicking on the download button here.

• Q10: Tribler is not not running or it behaves strangely. What shall I do?

There was a bug in the first software release. On Friday August 31st, we released version 4.1.2 that is now working fine for Windows, Linux and MAC. Please download the new version here!