BitTorrent for Mac is one of the first ever BitTorrent clients.

Torrent sharing consists of sharing large files, like movies, software, or games with other peers. The file you want to download is cut up into small segments shared by users, creating what is called a swarm, and does not go through a central server, significantly reducing the bulk of file transfers. The Bittorrent client was actually the first P2P application to use this technology and became immensely popular when it was released.

Thanks to a straightforward, uncluttered interface BitTorrent for Mac appears as a friendly torrent client that beginners will feel comfortable with. In fact, the latest version looks uncannily like uTorrent although the functionality is nowhere near as good unfortunately.

Once you’ve found the torrent you want, download it to your Mac, open it up inside BitTorrent for Mac and let the client do its job. The speed at which you download will depend on the number of seeds, that is people who have the complete file and are sharing it. The more seeds there are the quicker files will download. However, a frequent complaint with BitTorrent for Mac is that downloads rarely start and when they do, they can be notoriously unstable.

You can improve things slightly by changing the settings of multiple torrent downloads but there are few diagnostic tools to help you work out the problem. At the very least, you should choose the right port and setting upload and download rate limits to avoid hogging your bandwidth. It’s also good to set your downloads by priority to monitor more precisely how your torrents are doing.

Compared to the exhaustive Azureus, Bittorrent is very simplistic. And compared to uTorrent, it doesn't work half as well despite similarities in appearance. It doesn’t provide many statistics and doesn’t let you customize the interface. Integrating a search box is a great idea, but it limits searches to the BitTorrent website, not considered the most thorough source by torrent aficionados.

Note that BitTorrent gives you access to a huge number of digital files and should only be used for sharing legal P2P content.

BitTorrent for Mac may have once been a good starting point in the P2P world but there are now several other clients which are far more effective.