WebTorrent: torrents through the browser. No plugins, pure JavaScript
Now, to download and watch movies from torrents, you do not need a separate torrent client. As well as for distributing files using the BitTorrent protocol, a separate client is also not needed. A normal browser is enough, Chrome, Firefox and Opera (desktop and Android) are supported.
All this thanks to WebTorrent - a hybrid of BitTorrent and WebRTC. Download and distribution take place directly through the site. The built-in player starts showing the movie as soon as a few percent has been downloaded.
The site https://instant.io/ works to indicate files for downloading or distribution . It indicates a magnet link or a hash for downloading (for example, as in RuTracker blocked distributions).
Alternatively, the standard torrent client interface is implemented in the unofficial βTorrent project .
WebTorrent is the brainchild of a Stanford graduate, programmer Feross Aboukhadijeh. This is a fairly well-known developer, before he had already spoken with several extraordinary projects. For example, it showed an exploit HTML5 Fullscreen API for a phishing attack. In this case, the victim’s browser is forced into full-screen mode, in which the interface of the same browser is drawn.
Prior to this, the developer created a peer-to-peer content delivery network PeerCDN, which was sold by Yahoo in 2013.
The latest project of Feross can breathe new life into torrents, because many modern users, fed up with online video services in the Netflix style, are already too lazy to download the torrent client and do not want to distribute files. WebTorrent does this in the background, imperceptibly share a person, through a normal browser, using WebRTC technology.
Maybe in the future, using the WebTorrent protocol, people will not only distribute individual files, but entire websites. Such sites, which are hosted on the computers of thousands of users, can neither be closed nor blocked.
WebTorrent is the first torrent client that runs on the web, it does not require plug-ins, extensions, or the installation of other additional software. It is fully written in JavaScript and uses WebRTC for honest peer-to-peer data transfer.
The first raw versions of WebTorrent appeared a couple of years ago, but so far the technology has already matured for serious use. Moreover, six months ago, even Netflix itself in one of the job applications indicated knowledge of WebTorrent as one of the desired requirements for the candidate. This means that even large companies see P2P streaming as a potential business opportunity.
In fact, such a technology can significantly reduce traffic costs and even improve the quality of service.
“If Netflix used WebTorrent, users would get a better video stream during peak hours, ” the author says . - WebTorrent enables customers of one Internet service provider to exchange video clips with each other without leaving the provider's network. This guarantees the best quality even when the channel between the provider and Netflix is completely full. ”
Unfortunately, not all browsers support WebRTC, but there is reason to believe that the future of the web is precisely behind such decentralized technologies.