In a previous post, we came up with a piece of really good and long awaited news: from now on, you will be able to use your Smartphone for organizing and controlling your torrent use from a distance like a BitTorrent Remote. In the event of stumbling upon a torrent you’d like to add to your download list while browsing from your Smartphone, up until now you would have been faced with the unpleasant probability of forgetting about it until you reach your PC. Another unpleasant situation is that in which you already have your desired torrent list clearly opened with your torrent client downloader, but you are currently away from your computer and you’d like to change something, prioritize one download over another in order to make sure you have what you need by the time you arrive home.
From now on, you can turn your Smartphone into a remote control for your torrent client by simply installing its corresponding software (app). This will minimize all the above-mentioned difficult or annoying situations, helping you keep better track of your downloads, torrents/data, while saving tons of time in the process. Considering that we tend to use mobile devices such as a Smartphone or a tablet considerably more than a few years ago, the more apps respond to our increasing need of working from these devices, the better. If properly used, such an app could really manage to turn time management around for the better in the hands of a constant torrent user. Bear in mind that even though torrents have been associated with some copyright controversial debates lately, they are for more than just online piracy of copyrighted content, since there is plenty of free data which can be managed and transferred between users via torrents such as indie documentaries, movies, classical movies or books, open source software and so on.
Use Your Smartphone as a BitTorrent Remote Control
How To Install the BitTorrent Remote Access App on Your Smartphone
All of the major torrent clients have developed a corresponding remote access app for Android (to be used on a mobile device such as a Smartphone), but in today’s guide we will show you how to install the one for BitTorrent. If you’re using any of the other major torrent clients, such as UTorrent (who is also owned by BitTorrent, anyway) or Vuze, rest assured that the app installation process is very similar, so if you go over the one here you’ll be able to install yours as well in no time.
The first step, as you can see in the picture above, is to go into your Preferences window in your BitTorrent client and select the ‘Remote’ tab from the left column. Then, tick the box which says ‘Enable BitTorrent Remote Access‘ in order to begin the installation process. With the help of the fields directly below, give your computer a name and a password on the torrent client’s hub and then click ‘Apply’. This identity which you just set for your computer will be the virtual identity your mobile device connects to in the future, so make sure you write down that name and password safely somewhere.
Next, on your Smartphone or tablet, it’s time to install the BitTorrent Remote app from the Google Play store (it’s free). Once you complete the installation (it should only take a few minutes), it’s time to sign in with the same name and password which you used when configuring the BitTorrent remote access from your computer. After a while (the connection can take up to a few minutes to establish), the mobile device should be connected to your torrent client and you’re good to go.
How To Use The BitTorrent Remote Access to Download
Next, all that remains is to actually start using the app to download away and organize your torrents for the better. In order to do that, you first need to find torrents. There are a few ways to do that:
- Browsing on Tails, the super-privacy hub of torrent distributions for Linux users;
- Choosing a bundle of torrents from the BitTorrent website (they usually have pretty interesting bundles for entertainment purposes);
- Checking in with the Pirate Bay’s main page from time to time, considering that they sometimes have legal non-copyrighted content available for download (and it’s even promoted on said homepage);
- Checking Vuze’s wiki page which lists many websites with non-infringing torrents available for download;
- Regular browsing via Google.
Last, but not least, after finding interesting torrents, you will need to add them to your torrent client’s download list. This is simple enough to do: just copy the torrent’s link and add it to the required field in your mobile app. As long as your home PC is on and has a valid internet connection, the download list will be updated and the download will start right away. In case the PC isn’t on or connected to the internet at the moment, the remote access app will give you an error message. That’s it, it’s as easy as it sounds! Happy downloading!