Mozilla and BitTorrent? 117
mcrbids asks: "Recently, I submitted this bug report to Mozilla's bugzilla requesting the additional feature that Mozilla should support BitTorrent files natively, so that Moz could support inline image tags with BitTorrent, among other things, so that high-bandwidth sites can survive the dreaded 'Slashdot effect'. However, Torrents (and many other P2P suites) have been used largely for warez and porn. Do you think the potential politics behind this outweigh the benefits of BitTorrent, such as getting a full Linux distro with record download speeds?" Update: 04/29 16:16 GMT by C :One of the links in this article was removed at the request of a site administrator.
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
First.
Torrents (Score:1, Insightful)
Aurelius (fp?)
Problems, Early Adopters (Score:4, Insightful)
This brings another problem with BitTorrent - it doesn't work well unless clients are connected for a while after they finish the file. This could be "quick-fixed" by leaving the client open until it has sent at least one copy of the file out (or that many bits, your choice).
The third problem that it would have is that BitTorrent generally opens a whole bunch of network connections. Many of those are incoming (NAT people won't work as well), and many are outgoing. This large amount of sockets tends to make some of the cheaper commodity cards break. You see alot of these problems on the BitTorrent mailing lists.
Also, Porn has always been an early adopter of new technology. VCR tapes, DVDs and the internet are excellent examples. Because porn uses it isn't a reason to count the technology out.
No (Score:5, Informative)
There is no such length. Length, usage patterns, and network connection speed are all fundamental factors.
This brings another problem with BitTorrent - it doesn't work well unless clients are connected for a while after they finish the file.
It works *better* if this is the case, but it's not really a problem.
If someone is downloading from the original source, and another person begins, then the first immediately becomes another source.
BitTorrent isn't designed to make the original source unnecessary...it's designed to simply reduce load on the original source. Which it does quite well. The original source tends to send out around the bandwidth of a single upload at any one time.
Many of those are incoming (NAT people won't work as well), and many are outgoing.
As a result, they'll get slower transfers. This is simply a problem with NAT -- NATted users are using a broken network, and have problems with many, many protocols. FTP is included in mozilla, and NAT is even worse with FTP.
This large amount of sockets tends to make some of the cheaper commodity cards break.
Sockets have nothing whatsoever to do with the NIC. They exist at a higher level, and will not cause the card to break.
Yes, but... (Score:2, Informative)
The calculations are not exact -- they assume a perfect network, generally. This will be perturbed by the real-world data, but they generally aren't more than an order of magnitude off. The reason is because connection speed doesn't matter unless you have highly asynchronous connections. The client will stay on the swarm as long as it needs to in order to receive the entire file, and subsequently
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:NAT -- Network Address Translation, right? (Score:2)
This is fundamentally bad. The Internet's purpose is free exchange of information, where any node can serve bits to the rest of the network. The reason letting kludges like NAT take root is dangerous is tha
Re:No (Score:1)
This is not true, or at least is potentially misleading. BitTorrent's 'original source' is actually a peer setup by the
Re:Problems, Early Adopters (Score:1)
Seems to me that running Bittorrent inside the browser would be ideal for this. After the browser donwnloaded the inline image, it could keep the 'client window' open in the background and act as a source for a while. How long it do
Slashdot linking to warez sites?! (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot linking to warez sites?! (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot linking to warez sites?! (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot linking to warez sites?! (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot linking to warez sites?! (Score:1)
Whiny little.. (Score:5, Insightful)
At worst, its the Mozilla team saying (rightly) that the best way to handle
From the discussion on the bug report, it sounds like the torrent dev's havent made a plugin, dont realize the power of plugins, or dont want to make a plugin.
If there was a fully functional plugin that couldnt do some particular thing, that would be different. Instead, its just a standalone app, asking for the Moz team to 'link it up'.
Again, just my take on it.
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:1)
I don't know if protocols are pluggable in Mozilla, but I doubt it. And torrent would have to be a 'protocol plugin' if it was any kind of plugin. Otherwise, torrent would have to be built into Mozilla to be used everywhere that http is.
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:2)
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:2)
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:2)
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:2)
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:2)
BitTorrent's official plugin associates with application/x-bittorrent for good reason.
Re:Whiny little.. (Score:2)
Treating BitTorrent as a media type reduces the number of things you can do with it. For example, you can't use it for displaying streaming video, since application/x-bittorrent isn't a video format.
But when you treat BitTorrent as a protocol, you can use it for inline video, or images, or (shudder) Fla
Good point, but there's a couple problems (Score:2)
Why BitTorrent? (Score:2)
Can somebody explain what makes BitTorrent unique from other P2P systems? I'm not familiar with it. I don't quite understand why this request would be any different than asking Mozilla to include gnutella.
What seems rather important here is that P2P appears to be the only solution to at least one other problem besides the "How do we get free music". If So, building a solution to the browser problem into Mozilla seems like a good thing, although I'd prefer SVG support first. On the flipside, what exactly pr
Re:Why BitTorrent? (Score:5, Informative)
It's unique in that it is a highly efficient and secure cooperative system -- and is very low-profile, as well. It is capable of delivering large amounts of data that is originating from a source which cannot normally afford that sort of bandwidth. It can move more bandwidth than even large companies can afford; when Red Hat 9 [slashdot.org] was released through BT, traffic peaked at nearly 1.5 gigabits per second, or the full bandwidth of ten OC3 connections.
Re:Why BitTorrent? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would expect that mozilla can have a plugin that asks to handle a given protocol when it is encountered. Anybody know if my expecation is reality?
Finally, how exactly do they know what the total bandwidth of distributing RH9 via BitTorrent was?
Re:Why BitTorrent? (Score:2)
As for how they knew what the bandwidh was, BT is based around a central server called a "tracker"; which helps nodes find each other, and also collects statistics.
Re:Why BitTorrent? (Score:2)
Re:Why BitTorrent? (Score:2)
Re:Why BitTorrent? (Score:2)
Quoting from the bit torrent faq:
It seems like introducing a new service with new ports is kind of a big step to take for Mozilla from that standpoi
Re:Why BitTorrent? (Score:1)
OK, so it's a protocol, like say ftp or http, but different. So it seems, as per the bugzilla discussion, that the problem should be solved by creating a mozilla plugin to handle URL's written torrent://domain.name/localpath/file.torrent .
The real problem is that it doesn't use just one protocol, it uses two protocols. The first protocol is the traditional protocol (http, ftp, email, whatever) you use to download the dot torrent file that contains the description of where to get the proper file. The seco
Move it to the proxy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Squid normally runs on a gateway machine and usually has better connectivity internally and externally.
It could connect better and provide the cache benefit both internally and externally. There would be no need to configure your browser to share files, while it might be possible on your proxy. Actually, squid almost does this with it's proxy-to-proxy protocols, which is almost like what adding BitTorrent would do.
What BitTorrent really needs... (Score:4, Interesting)
Bit Torrent is great (Score:4, Insightful)
Bit Torrent allows webmasters to overcome these problems. Because of BitTorrent you can put a link to a video on your web site, without paying out the ass or crashing and burning from the load. Your visitors have to go through very little effort to get the file. Even if nobody else is sharing, you have to be, so at least they are guaranteed to get the goods. And they are guaranteed to get the correct goods. And they don't have to search relentlessly for it.
One thing that pisses me off, however, is that every time I want to download something with bit torrent I have to open up Internet Explorer. I used to use IE until I discovered Phoenix(Firebird) months ago. I don't want to have to keep opening IE every other day to download a single file. If BitTorrent doesn't work with Moz it's either a fault in Moz or a fault in BitTorrent. And it should be fixed either way.
Re:Bit Torrent is great (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Bit Torrent is not understood by /.ers (Score:4, Informative)
What?!? Of course they should. If someone wants to have a video blog they sure as hell are going to have to host it somehow. bandwidth doesn't grow on cat5 trees.
slashdotters obviously have no clue how bittorrent works and the actual details about what bandwidth it can actually partially recover. so i'll explain something to all of your deaf ears and eyes:
it is only going to be useful when the bandwidth load on the server is high due to sudden large instant demand (ie: slashdotting) for large objects (cd images, large distributions, hi-hi-red images, videos, etc). at that point many of the peers downloading will help save bandwidth by serving the portion they have already downloaded to others. but after the initial rush is off, not many seeds will be left as most people have downloaded it and bittorrent has been closed or exited on its own (nor should there be any) as the server has plenty of bandwidth to satisfy requests itself at that point. that's the servers job. to be the reliable source of content. bittorrent just helps lower the peaks during high load (peaks over short periods of time are often what server-colo sites charge for).
quit trying to use bittorrent as your sole hosting solution so that you never have to use any bandwidth. that's what MNet [sf.net] is for (distributed storage and hosting) or possibly freenet.
Re:Bit Torrent is great (Score:1)
I propose torrent.google.com
A solution already exists. (Score:2, Interesting)
Search for the file you're looking for. View the ratings people have given files, click on the 'magnet://' link for the file you want.
The 'magnet://' link (actually a crytographic hash) opens in Shareaza (see Shareaza.com [shareaza.com] for the excellent Windows client, bitzi lists a few other clients for other platforms), finds the exact file you're looking for (or waits and keeps searching every now and then if it's not available) and downloads the file.
When downloading (while simultaneously uploading
Re:Bit Torrent is great (Score:2)
Re:Bit Torrent is great (Score:2, Informative)
Why is that? I've been using BitTorrent with Mozilla for several weeks now, and it works great! Just set up the MIME-type (and file extension) correctly and it should work fine!
Don't click on the Torrentse link (warez and porn) (Score:5, Informative)
It redirects to Tubgirl now.
Re:Don't click on the Torrentse link (warez and po (Score:1)
Re:Don't click on the Torrentse link (warez and po (Score:2)
Re:Don't click on the Torrentse link (warez and po (Score:1)
I did notice that the Jap-porn politely obsfucates the girl's sexual organs...leaving the fountain from her anus flowing onto her face clearly seen. I think we should bomb Japan one more time...
Some problems (Score:2)
Re:Some problems (Score:2)
BitTorrent support not what you're looking for (Score:2)
I agree that generic BitTorrent support in Mozilla would be great. The problem is that it's really not all that useful for most *images*, which are perhaps up to 100KB. BitTorrent needs larger files to chew on to help much.
BitTorrent would be great for downloading game demos, isos, etc.
Re:BitTorrent support not what you're looking for (Score:2)
Re:what's so great about bittorrent? (Score:2)
I don't see any analysis of why I might want to "donate" my bandwidth to some person I don't know, or why I should expect bandwidth from anyone except the person I'm downloading from.
There is no need for any analysis to convince you. If the method is effective, it will be used simply due to economics. Suppose a thousand people behind cable modems want a video from a server on a modem link. Here is a simple CS101 problem: figure out the schedule t
Re:what's so great about bittorrent? (Score:2)
The example you used (the red het ISOs) is irrelevant. Bittorrent only works if people are still using the torrent - if nobody's using it, there's nowhere to download it from. Wait for the next distro release.
I don't see any analysis of why I might want to "donate" my bandwidth to some perso
bit torrent? (Score:2)
This idea is based on misunderstanding (Score:5, Informative)
This RFE does not make much sense.
First, I like to point out that the name of the protocol/application in question is not "Bit Torrent", but "BitTorrent".
This aside, let's differ between two kinds of possible content to be handled via BitTorrent: web content (HTML, images, Flash animations, etc.) and offline content (software, music, video, etc.).
The first kind of data is not suitable for BitTorrent because they are too small. (This is a "basic knowledge" about BitTorrent, if you don't understand why, please refer to general technical readings regarding the protocol.) The second kind of data is mostly not suitable for being embedded into a website, people normally download them and proceed with them outside of their webbrowser.
But even if any data of the second kind is indeed embedded into a website (like a video, although I never watch video embedded in my webbrowser), it's not a good idea to bind this embedding process to BitTorrent, because every "BitTorrent connection" has a lifespan which need to be specifed by the user himself. A file keeps being uploaded after its download completes within BitTorrent, until the user decides to "finish" this file. If a video embedded into a webpage is downloaded via BitTorrent, when should the upload of this same video stop? Immediately after the download completes? Or when the user leaves the website? Both are rather too soon to keep the file healthy alive.
What would make sense, however, is to write a BitTorrent download manager plugin, perhaps a sidebar, similar to the new download manager of Phoenix/Firebird. The user could handle his BitTorrent downloads within the interface of the webbrowser, and at the same time keep control over the lifespan of each of the files being transfered.
In the end, I fully agree with Olivier (Bugzilla comment #1 [mozilla.org]), this is a plugin issue and WONTFIX.
No offense here, but I think the original "bug reporter" has not understood BitTorrent's field of application and mode of operation quite well (and, has not got the name "BitTorrent" right).
Henry 'Pi' James
BitTorrent dev team member
PS: My opinion here is personal and does not represent Bram (the author of BitTorrent) or any other co-developers, although I'm pretty sure they would agree with me.
show some initiative (Score:4, Interesting)
An exercise (Score:2)
Don't cheat!
Mozilla and Bitorrent - see what happened (Score:1)
BitTorrent is not suitable for webpages (Score:4, Interesting)
First of all, torrents are not that useful for small files. If a website had a LOT of images it might be reasonable since you can create a torrent of a number of files and somewhat avoid the small file penalty.
Second, the BT protocol is far from established and stable. Bram mades non-trivial changes in minor release numbers, eg the 3.1 to 3.2 changes. He is very interested in backwards compatibility but things are still at the stage where that is not guaranteed and there are all kind of extensions that people would like to add to the protocol.
Finally, BT would be of little use to the "average joe who has a few pictures of his backyard roller coaster" that gets posted to slashdot and dies. First of all, he or she would not know that a slashdotting was coming, and therefor would have to have a tracker running all the time, ready to serve the torrents. Currently the "reference" tracker is written in Python, which means joe schmoe needs to somehow get that running on their server... in the case of peoples' homepages that are susceptible to slashdotting, usually it's lightweight/free hosting and they don't have the option of saying "Hey sysadmin, can I run this Python server on some funky port (that will need to be opened on your firewall)?"
Also, any change in the web site would require the torrent to be rebuilt, and the old one removed.
Finally, the tracker would die under a slashdotting. While BitTorrent allows the "heavy lifting" of the transfer to be spread out amongst the swarm, every user that wishes to join must contact the tracker... indeed, as users download they constantly contact the tracker to get updated peer lists and keep the tracker's info fresh. If a site cannot survive serving a slashdotting through Apache (which is highly tuned for what it does) then it's certainly not going to be able to provide the CPU and Ram that the poor little python tracker is going to require to manage a swarm of tens of thousands. Go to any of the illicit trackers (such as torrentse.cx) and note that while the web pages may be relatively snappy, the tracker is what gets killed and always has very long connect times and LOTS of timeouts. The admins of torrentse say that they are getting about 4000 hits a day, and they are pulling their hair out writing custom trackers in php and mysql (and spread over multiple ports) to cope with the load. Now, how for the love of god is joe average's tracker supposed to support a near-instantaneous 50,000 hits or more? It makes no sense.
DO NOT CLICK ON THAT LINK! (Score:1)
First slashdot troll article summary?
tubgirl link (Score:1)
p2p: Analogy = Gossip. as hard to battle (Score:1)
We're gonna see big political change on IP but before we get it it looks as if lots of people are going to have to suffer 1st, inc. record companies and p2p'ers.
- p2p? gossip as analogy. Imagine there's a rumour going around at work about you and so-and-so, and
Some of this is the hosting problem's fault... (Score:4, Informative)
The web server needs to send out the correct content-type info. Does BitTorrent have a mime type? Or just an extension?
For example, on some sites if you click on a file that ends in .wmv it doesn't open in windows media player. .wmv is not in the mime.types file of your standard RH distro (at least as of 7.3). The solution is to add..."
" to the mime.types file on the server, apache then sends out the correct content-type, and if Mozilla has the wmp client registered for that mime type, all works wbell.The reason IE works is that Microsoft will trust a file extension to determine content type over content-type info, and that little tidbit has been the source of many an exploit over the years...
Downloading distros (Score:2)
Re:Downloading distros (Score:2)
good idea (Score:2)
BTW, I've never been successful at getting
Re:good idea (Score:2)
OffTopic? (Score:1, Offtopic)
"Do you think the potential politics behind this outweigh the benefits of BitTorrent, such as getting a full Linux distro with record download speeds?" "
Politics?
Um...lawyers?
Sheese.....we all know where it will end up.
I think it'd be a great feature....but it would also suck Mozilla into the P2P world
Ain't the next Napster... (Score:2)
If you want to see the next Napster, try WinMX, or Shareaza [shareaza.com], or any of the "lite" versions of the various P2P sharing systems you can find at ZeroPaid.com [zeropaid.com]. They're much more suited to trading stuff, rather than people helping each other downloading particular files.
And yeah, BT can help sites trade pirated music and movies
Don't hide your light under a barrel. (Score:2)
If the program has the ability to share data, it's already "there". Besides, I think there is now some good case law reaffirming the point in the landmark Betamax US Supreme Court case to point to. It's a good thing to tell people such programs are no more copyright infringing by nature than a VCR or a copying machine is. At least Judge Stephen Wilson said something similar in his dec
Re:OffTopic? (Score:3, Insightful)