Tribler

Short description: Peer-to-peer filesharing software and protocol

Tribler

Tribler 6.4.3 (2016)

Developer(s)| The Tribler Team at Delft University of Technology and VU University Amsterdam
Initial release| 28 February 2006; 20 years ago (2006-02-28)[1]
Stable release| 7.12.1 (September 20, 2022; 3 years ago (2022-09-20)) [±][2]
Written in| Python
Operating system| Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Android
Platform| ARM, IA-32, MIPS, PowerPC, x86-64
Size| 110.58 MiB
Available in| English
Type| BitTorrent client
License| GPL-3.0-only[3]
Website| www.tribler.org
Part of a series on

File sharing
Technologies

* File hosting services
* Online video platform
* Peer to peer
* Usenet
* Web hosting
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Video sharing sites

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BitTorrent sites

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Academic/scholarly

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File sharing networks

* BitTorrent
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* eDonkey
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P2P clients

* BitComet
* DC++
* Deluge
* eMule
* μTorrent
* qBittorrent
* Shareaza
* Soulseek
* Transmission
* Tribler
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* WinMX

Streaming programs

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Anonymous file sharing

* Anonymous P2P
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* Private P2P
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Development and societal aspects

* Timeline
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* BitTorrent issues

By country or region

* Canada
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Comparisons

* Comparison of BitTorrent clients
* Comparison of BitTorrent sites
* Comparison of eDonkey software
* Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients
* Comparison of Usenet newsreaders

* v
* t
* e

Tribler is an open source decentralized BitTorrent client which allows anonymous peer-to-peer by default. Tribler is based on the BitTorrent protocol and uses an overlay network for content searching.[4] Due to this overlay network, Tribler does not require an external website or indexing service to discover content.[5] The user interface of Tribler is very basic and focused on ease of use instead of diversity of features.[6] Tribler is available for Linux, Windows, and OS X.[7]

Tribler has run trials for a video streamer known as SwarmPlayer.[8]

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Features
* 2.1 SwarmPlayer
* 3 Development
* 4 Reception
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 Further reading
* 8 External links

## History

The name Tribler stems from the word tribe, referring to the usage of social networks in this P2P client. The first version of Tribler was an enhancement of ABC aka Yet Another BitTorrent Client.

In 2009, the development team behind Tribler stated that their efforts for the coming years were focused on the integration of Tribler with television hardware.[citation needed]

In 2014, with the release of version 6.3.1, a custom built-in onion routing network was introduced as part of Tribler.[9] Users can load any clearnet torrent, and by leaving the box for anonymity ticked, the files will be routed through other Tribler.[10] Because the custom onion network does not use Tor exit nodes, it is enhanced to make every Tribler user to function as a relay.[11]

## Features

Tribler adds keyword search ability to the BitTorrent file download protocol using a gossip protocol, somewhat similar to the eXeem network which was shut down in 2005. The software includes the ability to recommend content. After a dozen downloads the Tribler software can roughly estimate the download taste of the user and recommends content.[12] This feature is based on collaborative filtering, also featured on websites such as Last.fm and Amazon.com. Another feature of Tribler is a limited form of social networking and donation of upload capacity. Tribler borrows bandwidth capacity from connected nodes regarded as helpful to boost the download speed of files.[13]

### SwarmPlayer

The SwarmPlayer is a Python-based BitTorrent Internet TV viewer. It allows one to watch BitTorrent-hosted peer-to-peer digital media distribution of video on demand and plays live Tribler streaming media. It is based on the same core as the Tribler TV application.

The core software is free and open source software based on the Tribler platform, licensed under the LGPL 2.1.

## Development

Tribler was created by university researchers at the Delft University of Technology, who are trying to improve peer-to-peer technology.[14] Tribler is designed to enhance BitTorrent by removing the need for central elements such as the websites for finding content, as well as being anonymous.

The European Union's P2P-Next project to develop an Internet television distribution standard builds on Tribler technology.[15]

## Reception

After a news article on TorrentFreak in February 2012 mentioned Tribler's decentralization and the fact that its index is impossible to take down, the website became hugely popular, causing it to be reduced to just the download page to satisfy demand.[16] A warning about Tribler security appeared on the tor-dev mailing list on Dec. 20, 2014[17][self-published source?] and was addressed shortly thereafter via GitHub.[18][non-primary source needed]. Daniel Aleksandersen has pointed out in 2021 some privacy concerns due to the project's goals and priorities.[19] He considers these issues are still not addressed in 2023.[20]

## See also

* Comparison of BitTorrent clients
* GNUnet an active project for peer-to-peer filesharing. In opposition of Tribler, GNUnet uses a mesh network topology (over TCP, UDP, HTTP, HTTPS, WLAN or Bluetooth) and provides chat and VPN features.
* Hyphanet an active project sharing same goal of privacy-friendly peer-to-peer filesharing. Hyphanet has also been designed for censorship-resistant communications.

## References

1. ↑ Van der Sar, Ernesto (2006-02-28). "Tribler: Social BitTorrent Beta version Leaked". torrentfreak.com. https://torrentfreak.com/tribler-social-bittorrent-beta-version-leaked/.
2. ↑ "Releases". https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/releases.
3. ↑ tribler/LICENSE at devel · Tribler/tribler, GitHub, https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/blob/devel/LICENSE, retrieved 2019-09-04
4. ↑ "The Bittorrent Overlay Swarm". tribler.org. http://tribler.org/OverlaySwarm.
5. ↑ whatIsTribler/2
6. ↑ Milestone Tribler V5.0 | Tribler.org
7. ↑ "Download Tribler". http://dl.tribler.org/download.html.
8. ↑ "Tribler". https://www.tribler.org/SwarmPlayer/.
9. ↑ "Researchers Make Bittorrent Anonymous and Impossible to Shut Down". 18 December 2014. https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-anonymous-and-impossible-to-shut-down-141218/.
10. ↑ "Tribler - Anonymity" . tribler.org.
11. ↑ ""Our custom onion network is enhanced to allow everyone to function as a relay."". http://www.tribler.org/anonymity.html.
12. ↑ "Decentralized Recommendation". https://tribler.org/DecentralizedRecommendation.
13. ↑ "Cooperative Download". https://tribler.org/CooperativeDownload.
14. ↑ J. A. Pouwelse; P. Garbacki; J. Wang; A. Bakker; J. Yang; A. Iosup; D.H.J. Epema; M. Reinders et al. (30 January 2007). "Tribler: a social-based peer-to-peer system". Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience (Wiley InterScience, Department of Computer Science: Delft University of Technology; Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands) 20 (2): 127–138. doi:10.1002/cpe.1189. http://www.pds.twi.tudelft.nl/~pouwelse/CPE-Tribler-final.pdf. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
15. ↑ "Europe funds internet TV standard". BBC News. February 25, 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7259339.stm.
16. ↑ "Tribler Makes BitTorrent Impossible to Shut Down". TorrentFreak. 2012-02-08. http://torrentfreak.com/tribler-makes-bittorrent-impossible-to-shut-down-120208.
17. ↑ Yawning Angel (20 Dec 2014). "N reasons why the spooks love Tribler (Number N' will surprise you)". https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2014-December/007999.html.
18. ↑ synctext (22 Dec 2014). "Addressing the various security improvements #1066". https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/issues/1066.
19. ↑ Daniel Aleksandersen (17 August 2021). "A privacy review of Tribler, the onion-routed BitTorrent app". https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/tribler-onion-routed-bittorrent.html.
20. ↑ Daniel Aleksandersen (2 July 2023). "Comments on A privacy review of Tribler, the onion-routed BitTorrent app". https://comment.ctrl.blog/discussion/tribler-onion-routed-bittorrent.

## Further reading

* "Truly Decentralized BitTorrent Downloading Has Finally Arrived". http://torrentfreak.com/truly-decentralized-bittorrent-downloading-has-finally-arrived-101208/.
* P2P-Next: technical and legal challenges
* Tribler: P2P media search and sharing
* https://torrentfreak.com/p2p-next-introduces-live-bittorrent-streaming-080718/
* https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/tribler-bittorrent-and-beyond
* https://www.delta.tudelft.nl/article/tu-delft-pioneers-internet-tv
* lessons learned over past 15 years May 16, 2013
* https://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2008/02/eu-broadcasters-give-thumbs-up-to-p2p-startup/'
* http://iptv.tmcnet.com/topics/iptv-technology/articles/21510-introducing-p2p-next-european-union-internet-data-tv.htm
* http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Tribler-a-better-society-with-P2P-1588063.html
* https://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2009/01/31/31gigaom-bittorrent-researcher-copyright-will-be-obsolete--17305.html
* https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ppsp-survey/07/
* https://spectrum.ieee.org/europe-looks-for-a-peertopeer-tv-alternative-2650250846
* https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-anonymous-and-impossible-to-shut-down-141218/
* https://torrentfreak.com/?s=tribler
* https://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/120530.html
* https://www.reddit.com/r/tribler/
* Tribler: a (worrying) P2P client'
* http://digitale-grundversorgung.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Tribler_P2P-Next.pdf
* http://p2p-next.itec.uni-klu.ac.at/
* https://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2009/12/05/05gigaom-bbc-and-p2p-next-test-hd-bittorrent-streaming-49840.html
* https://www.eetimes.com/eu-funded-project-shapes-next-gen-internet-tv/
* https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-583/paper04.pdf
* https://ag-projects.com/press/p2p-next-delivers-world-class-real-time-communication-toolkit-based-on-sip-simple-suite-of-protocols/

## External links

* v
* t
* e

Peer-to-peer file sharing

Networks,
protocols|

| List|

* List of P2P protocols

|

Decentralized|

* Ares
* BitTorrent
* FastTrack
* OpenFT
* Gnutella
* Gnutella2
* Overnet
* WinMX

Server-based|

* Direct Connect
* eDonkey2000
* Kad
* OpenNap

Anonymous|

* Freenet
* GNUnet
* MUTE
* Oneswarm
* Perfect Dark
* RetroShare
* Share
* StealthNet
* WASTE
* Winny

Single client|

* DAT
* Filetopia
* Fopnu
* Soribada
* Soulseek

Comparisons
of clients|

* Advanced Direct Connect
* BitTorrent
* Direct Connect
* eDonkey
* Gnutella
* Gnutella2

Hyperlinks|

* eD2k
* Magnet
* Metalink

Uses|

* Backup
* Broadcatching
* Segmented file transfer
* Disk sharing
* game & video sharing
* Image sharing
* Music sharing
* Peercasting
* Sharing software
* Web hosting (Freesite, IPFS, WebTorrent, ZeroNet)
* Legal aspects

Concepts|

| Privacy|

* Anonymous P2P
* Darknet
* Darkweb
* Friend-to-friend
* I2P
* Open Music Model
* Private P2P
* Seedbox
* Tor
* Virtual private network

|

Internal
technologies|

* Distributed data store
* DHT
* Merkle tree
* Mix networks
* NAT traversal
* PEX
* Protocol Encryption
* SHA-1
* Super-seeding
* Tracker
* UDP hole punching
* µTP

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