With the release of Vuze, Azureus is jumping onto the legal torrent bandwagon. This application features the classic and extensive Azureus torrent client and adds to it an online platform from which you can download and submit legal audio and video content.
Vuze’s interface is a complete shake-up to what
Azureus users are used to. The BitTorrent developer has decided to focus on
online multimedia content and introduce user participation. The first thing the
user sees is a "Find, Download, Play" screen to introduce you to
Vuze. You can browse files by using the left side menu, divided in time, main
channels and tags. The menu at the top also links to hot and new content. Vuze
takes the web 2.0 road and you'll see that most of the files have tags. You can
write out a comment and leave a rating. The program also makes it a no brainer
to send a video by email and link to content directly from your blog or
website. Additionally, there are social bookmarking links for each file.
Downloading torrents is as simple as using the search
bar, which the gives you options to search the Vuze site and results from the
major bittorent sites such as Btjunkie. You can also easily add more sites to
that list if you wish.
We won’t expand on the qualities of the Azureus
client, for which you can read a review here.
Vuze tries to innovate by adding social tools to the program and providing
legal content in the Vuze HD Network. There are numerous channels to choose
from, yet we were disappointed with the content in general. On some channels
there's very little to watch and on others you don't necessarily find what you
were hoping for. Much of the content feels cheap and throwaway, even if it is
in glorious HD.
On the downside Vuze does nothing to atone for
Azureus's principal drawback: the overuse of your RAM and DSL connection. Yes,
Vuze is still a resource and bandwidth hog, and there's nothing you can do
about it.
The whole interface is really simple, though the
program is so heavy you will get some slow down, and the amount of legal
content is still limited, Vuze is a promising application for sharing and
enjoying legal content.
If you're already hooked on the original Azureus bittorrent
client, take a leap into the future with Vuze.
Recent changes
· Moved
some device detection code out of core
·Removed IView, AbstractIView, SWTManager and other
deprecated plugin APIs
·Button for "Do Not Transcode"
·Sidebar icon for devices that supply one
·Switched all views using IView to UISWTVIew
·Moved all non UI table refreshing code out of SWT
thread (should result in faster UI)
·Removed various left over and unused code (saved a
measly 200k)
Pros
·Fast downloads
·Lots of options
·Open source
·Free
Cons
·Uses a lot of memory
·Torrent files can expire
·Not as user-friendly as eMule