nu move to sidebar hide Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Special pages Search Search Appearance Donate Create account Log in Personal tools Donate Create account Log in Contents move to sidebar hide (Top) 1 History 2 WebTorrent Desktop 3 Functionality 4 Adoption Toggle Adoption subsection 4.1 Brave 4.2 Torrent Clients 4.3 Websites 4.3.1 BitChute 4.3.2 PeerTube 5 See also 6 References 7 External links Toggle the table of contents WebTorrent 6 languages Español فارسی Français 日本語 한국어 Русский Edit links Article Talk English Read Edit View history Tools Tools move to sidebar hide Actions Read Edit View history General What links here Related changes Upload file Permanent link Page information Cite this page Get shortened URL Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikidata item Appearance move to sidebar hide From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Peer-to-peer web-based torrent client WebTorrent Logo Original author Feross Aboukhadijeh Developer WebTorrent Release 22 October 2013 ; 12 years ago  ( 2013-10-22 ) Written in JavaScript Operating system Cross-platform Available in JavaScript Type Communications protocol , distributed file system , content delivery network License MIT [ 1 ] Website WebTorrent.io Repository github .com /webtorrent /webtorrent Part of a series on File sharing and online piracy Technologies File-hosting services Online video platform Peer to peer Usenet Web hosting WebRTC XDCC Video watching sites 123Movies PeerTube Putlocker BitTorrent sites 1337x BTDigg Demonoid ExtraTorrent EZTV isoHunt FitGirl Repacks KickassTorrents Nyaa Torrents RARBG ruTracker.org TamilRockers The Pirate Bay YIFY YourBittorrent Academic shadow libraries Anna's Archive ICanHazPDF Internet Archive Library Genesis Sci-Hub Shadow library Z-Library P2P file sharing networks BitTorrent Direct Connect eDonkey Gnutella Gnutella2 FastTrack Napster Hyphanet Kad network I2P Soulseek P2P file sharing clients BitComet DC++ eMule Filetopia μTorrent LimeWire OnionShare qBittorrent Shareaza Transmission Tribler Vuze WinMX Video streaming apps Butter Project Kodi Popcorn Time Torrents-Time Anonymous file sharing Anonymous P2P Darknet Friend-to-friend Private P2P Proxy server Seedbox VPN History and societal aspects Timeline Legality BitTorrent issues By country or region Canada Japan Singapore UK USA Comparisons Comparison of BitTorrent clients Comparison of BitTorrent sites Comparison of IRC clients Comparison of Usenet newsreaders v t e WebTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) streaming torrent client written in JavaScript that enables BitTorrent functionality directly within web browsers . Created by Feross Aboukhadijeh , the developer behind YouTube Instant , WebTorrent implements the BitTorrent protocol using WebRTC for peer-to-peer data transfer, allowing users to download and stream torrents without requiring traditional torrent client software. The project consists of both a browser-based JavaScript library and WebTorrent Desktop , a standalone desktop application built with Electron . WebTorrent Desktop serves as a bridge between the WebTorrent network and traditional BitTorrent networks, enabling interoperability between web-based and conventional torrent clients. The software supports common video file formats and audio file formats for in-browser streaming, making it particularly suitable for media streaming applications. WebTorrent is open-source software distributed under the MIT License and is actively developed on GitHub . The project has gained significant adoption in the web development community for its ability to bring decentralized file sharing capabilities to web applications without requiring users to install additional software or browser plugins. History [ edit ] Before creating WebTorrent, the developers first created PeerCDN, a peer-to-peer content delivery network which was bought by Yahoo! in 2013. The idea behind WebTorrent is to make a BitTorrent-like protocol that works on the web browser, maintaining as much compatibility with BitTorrent as possible. [ 2 ] Any web browser should be able to connect to a peer-to-peer swarm , fetch content, verify that it is correct, and display it to the user – all as much as possible without centralized servers relying on a network entirely of people's browsers. [ 3 ] WebTorrent uses the same protocol as BitTorrent but uses a different transport layer . WebTorrent primarily relies on WebRTC connections, while BitTorrent uses TCP connections and UDP datagrams directly. [ 3 ] WebTorrent Desktop [ edit ] The WebTorrent Desktop bridges the two networks of WebRTC-based WebTorrent and TCP/UDP-based BitTorrent simultaneously. The BitTorrent client Vuze (formerly Azureus ) less gracefully but adequately functionally incorporated WebTorrent adding simultaneous network bridging to their software. The developers used Electron that makes desktop apps using JavaScript with access to all the APIs from Chrome and Node . [ 3 ] Functionality [ edit ] Online video is the core focus as that is where WebTorrent is most useful. It is less suited for smaller files or data sets but is ideal for larger files. [ 3 ] File availability, as with BitTorrents, is dependent on torrent seeding . If only a few users are sharing a file, then an HTTP server that provides webseeding would be the fallback. There is no sharing without webseeding. However, this could have some positive implications. Rather than using a middleman upload site to share a large private file with another person, with WebTorrent you may directly connect without leaving traces somewhere or potentially being archived on some upload site. You simply drag and drop your file to create a magnet link that you can share with your friend. Connections are already encrypted, but you may add extra layers of encryption with keys to send another way. RAM limits may be managed with IndexedDB . [ 3 ] The client prioritizes downloading pieces chronologically, so that the file is able to be streamed uninterrupted even before the download is complete. [ 4 ] Adoption [ edit ] WebTorrent uses widely supported open web standards like WebRTC and therefore works in any modern browser, including Google Chrome , Firefox , and Opera for Desktop and Android, Microsoft Edge and Safari . [ 5 ] [ better source needed ] Brave [ edit ] Brave web browser bundles WebTorrent into the native executables and integrates WebTorrent into its UI. [ 6 ] Torrent Clients [ edit ] Some torrent clients supports seeding to WebTorrent peers, for example BiglyBT (has Android version) and clients based on the libtorrent [ 4 ] like QBittorrent , Deluge and LibreTorrent (Android). Websites [ edit ] BitChute [ edit ] Launched in 2017, [ 7 ] BitChute is a video hosting service that used WebTorrent P2P technology. [ 8 ] [ 9 ] It claimed in order to ease bandwidth issues of centralized streaming. [ 7 ] According to Fredrick Brennan , there is little evidence BitChute actually uses peer-to-peer technology. [ 10 ] By April 2021, the option to host videos using WebTorrent on BitChute "appears to have been deprecated", according to Ars Technica . [ 11 ] PeerTube [ edit ] PeerTube formerly used WebTorrent but stopped because of maintaining complexity. [ 12 ] See also [ edit ] Comparison of BitTorrent clients InterPlanetary File System List of video hosting services DailyMotion Vidme Vimeo YouTube YouTube Instant References [ edit ] ^ "Webtorrent/Webtorrent" . GitHub . 2 June 2021. ^ Ernesto (2018-01-04). "WebTorrent Desktop Hits a Million Downloads" . TorrentFreak.com . TorrentFreak . Retrieved 2018-11-03 . ^ a b c d e Heavybit (2017-07-06). "Demuxed - Ep. #5, WebTorrent: Bringing BitTorrent to the Web" . YouTube . Heavybit . Retrieved 2018-11-03 . @4:35+ ^ a b "WebTorrent support - arvidn/libtorrent" . GitHub . 2020-07-01. ^ "WebTorrent FAQ" . webtorrent.io . Retrieved 2022-03-12 . ^ "What extensions are built into Brave?" . Brave Help Center . Retrieved 2023-07-27 . ^ a b Trujillo, Milo; Gruppi, Maurício; Buntain, Cody; Horne, Benjamin D. (2020-07-13). "What is BitChute?" . Proceedings of the 31st ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media . HT '20. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp.  139– 140. doi : 10.1145/3372923.3404833 . ISBN   978-1-4503-7098-1 . S2CID   220434725 . ^ "BitChute is a BitTorrent-Powered YouTube Alternative" . TorrentFreak . 2017-01-29 . Retrieved 2017-12-10 . ^ Beer, Doron. "iTWire - BitChute: the first serious YouTube competitor?" . www.itwire.com . Retrieved 2017-12-10 . ^ "Bitchute claims to be a decentralized platform—that's not true" . The Daily Dot . 2019-11-27 . Retrieved 2020-12-19 . ^ Chant, Tim De (29 April 2021). "Conspiracy theorist said death threats were "jokes"—but jury didn't buy it" . Ars Technica . Retrieved 18 May 2021 . ^ "PeerTube v6 is out, and powered by your ideas !" . Framablog . Framasoft. 23 October 2023 . Retrieved 23 June 2024 . We needed to settle a technical debt: v6 removes support for WebTorrent to focus on HLS (with WebRTC P2P). External links [ edit ] Official website Instant.io for WebTorrent magnets. v t e Peer-to-peer file sharing Networks , protocols Centralized Direct Connect Soribada Soulseek XDCC Decentralized BitTorrent DAT eDonkey FastTrack Fopnu Hyphanet GNUnet Gnutella Gnutella2 I2P IPFS Kad LBRY OpenFT OnionShare Perfect Dark Retroshare Share Tribler WebTorrent WinMX Winny ZeroNet Historic Audiogalaxy CuteMX Hotline Kazaa LimeWire Morpheus Napster Scour Usenet WASTE Comparisons of clients Advanced Direct Connect BitTorrent Direct Connect Gnutella Gnutella2 WebTorrent Hyperlinks eD2k Magnet Metalink Uses Backup Broadcatching Disk sharing Game and video sharing Image sharing Music sharing Peercasting Seedboxes Sharing software Web hosting ( Freesite , IPFS , ZeroNet ) Legal aspects Concepts Privacy Anonymous P2P Darknet Darkweb Friend-to-friend Open music model Private P2P Tor Internal technologies Distributed hash table Merkle tree NAT traversal Peer exchange BitTorrent protocol encryption SHA-1 SHA-2 Super-seeding BitTorrent tracker UDP hole punching Micro Transport Protocol v t e BitTorrent Companies Rainberry, Inc. Vuze, Inc. People Bram Cohen Ross Cohen Eric Klinker Ashwin Navin Technology Glossary Broadcatching Distributed hash tables DNA I2P index Local Peer Discovery Peer exchange Retracker Protocol encryption Super-seeding Tracker Torrent file TCP UDP µTP WebRTC WebTorrent Clients ( comparison , usage share ) BitTorrent (original client) BitComet BiglyBT BitLord Deluge Free Download Manager FlashGet FrostWire GetRight Go!Zilla KTorrent libtorrent (library) LimeWire µTorrent Miro MLDonkey qBittorrent rTorrent Shareaza Tixati Transmission Tribler Vuze (formerly Azureus) WebTorrent Desktop Xunlei Tracker software ( comparison ) OpenBitTorrent opentracker PeerTracker Search engines ( comparison ) 1337x BTDigg Demonoid etree Nyaa Torrents TamilRockers The Pirate Bay ruTracker.org YggTorrent YourBittorrent Defunct sites ( comparison ) BTJunkie ExtraTorrent EZTV isoHunt KickassTorrents LokiTorrent Mininova Oink's Pink Palace RARBG Suprnova.org t411 Torrent Project TorrentSpy Torrentz What.CD YIFY YouTorrent Related topics aXXo BitTorrent Open Source License Glossary of BitTorrent terms Popcorn Time Slyck.com TorrentFreak Category Commons v t e File systems Comparison of file systems distributed Unix filesystem Disk and non-rotating ADFS AdvFS Amiga FFS Amiga OFS APFS AthFS bcachefs BFS Be File System Boot File System Byte File System ( z/VM ) Btrfs CVFS CXFS DFS EFS Encrypting File System Extent File System Episode ext ext2 ext3 ext4 FAT exFAT Files-11 Fossil GPFS HAMMER HAMMER2 HFS ( Classic Mac OS ) HFS ( MVS ) HFS+ HPFS HTFS JFS LFS MFS Macintosh File System TiVo Media File System MINIX NetWare File System Next3 NILFS NILFS2 NSS NTFS OneFS OpenZFS PFS QFS QNX4FS ReFS ReiserFS Reiser4 Reliance Reliance Nitro RFS SFS Shared File System ( VM ) Smart File System SNFS Soup (Apple) Tux3 UBIFS UFS/UFS2 soft updates WAPBL VxFS WAFL Xiafs XFS Xsan zFS ( z/OS ) ZFS ( Sun ) Optical disc HSF ISO 9660 ISO 13490 UDF Flash memory and SSD APFS FAT exFAT TFAT EROFS F2FS JFS NVFS host-side wear leveling CHFS JFFS JFFS2 LogFS NILFS NILFS2 YAFFS UBIFS Distributed parallel BeeGFS Ceph CXFS GFS2 Google File System OCFS2 OrangeFS PVFS QFS Xsan more... NAS 9P AFS ( OpenAFS ) AFP Coda DFS Google File System GPFS Lustre NCP NFS POHMELFS Hadoop SMB (CIFS) SSHFS more... Specialized Aufs AXFS Boot File System Compact Disc File System cramfs Davfs2 EROFS FTPFS FUSE Lnfs LTFS NOVA MVFS SquashFS UMSDOS OverlayFS UnionFS Pseudo configfs devfs debugfs kernfs procfs specfs sysfs tmpfs WinFS Encrypted eCryptfs EncFS EFS Rubberhose SSHFS ZFS Types Clustered Global Grid Self-certifying Flash Journaling Log-structured Object Record-oriented Semantic Steganographic Synthetic Versioning Features Case preservation Copy-on-write Data deduplication Data scrubbing Execute in place Extent File attribute Extended file attributes File change log Fork Inode Links Hard Symbolic Access control Access-control list Filesystem-level encryption Permissions Modes Sticky bit Interfaces File manager File system API Installable File System Virtual file system Lists Cryptographic Default Log-structured Layouts Master Boot Record GUID Partition Table Apple Partition Map v t e Internet censorship circumvention technologies Background Internet censorship Internet censorship in China National intranet Censorship and blocking technologies IP address blocking DNS cache poisoning Wordfilter Great Firewall of China Blocks on specific websites Facebook GitHub Twitter Wikipedia Principles With a proxy server P2P Web proxies SSH VPN PAC Without a proxy server HTTPS IPv6 transition mechanism hosts DNSCrypt Domain fronting Refraction networking Anti-censorship software Free software Psiphon Shadowsocks OnionShare Orbot Outline VPN GoAgent PirateBox VPN Gate WireGuard Proprietary software Lantern Freegate Ultrasurf Hotspot Shield Telex Proxify Shadowrocket Browser extensions Snowflake uProxy Anonymity Anonymous software Tor JAP (JonDonym) Flash proxy Mixmaster Anonymous P2P network Hyphanet I2P StealthNet Tribler ZeroNet Physical circumvention methods Sneakernet USB dead drop Relevant organizations GreatFire FreeWeibo NetBlocks OONI Turkey Blocks Reference Great Cannon Italics indicates that maintenance of the tool has been discontinued. Category Commons v t e Cryptocurrencies Technology Blockchain Cryptocurrency tumbler Cryptocurrency wallet Cryptographic hash function Decentralized exchange Decentralized finance Distributed ledger Fork Lightning Network MetaMask Smart contract Web3 Consensus mechanisms Proof of authority Proof of space Proof of stake Proof of work Proof of work currencies SHA-256 -based Bitcoin Bitcoin Cash Counterparty LBRY MazaCoin Namecoin Peercoin Titcoin Ethash -based Ethereum (1.0) Ethereum Classic Scrypt -based Auroracoin Bitconnect Coinye Dogecoin Litecoin Equihash -based Bitcoin Gold Zcash RandomX-based Monero X11 -based Dash Petro Other AmbaCoin Firo IOTA Nervos Network Primecoin Verge Vertcoin Proof of stake currencies Algorand Avalanche Cardano EOS.IO Ethereum (2.0) Gridcoin ICON Injective Kin Nxt Peercoin Polkadot Solana Steem Tezos TON ERC-20 tokens Augur Aventus Basic Attention Token Chainlink Kin KodakCoin Minds Polygon Shiba Inu The DAO TRON Stablecoins Dai Diem Pax Terra Tether USD Coin Meme coins CAR Chill Guy Coinye Dogecoin LGBcoin Libra Melania Pawthereum Trump Other currencies Chia Filecoin HBAR (Hashgraph) Helium Luna MobileCoin Nano NEO SafeMoon Stellar WhopperCoin XRP Ledger Inactive currencies BitConnect Coinye KodakCoin OneCoin Petro Crypto service companies Hyperledger IQ.Wiki Initiative Q Related topics $Libra cryptocurrency scandal 2023 United States banking crisis Airdrop Bitcoin in El Salvador BitLicense Blockchain game Complementary currency Crypto-anarchy Cryptocurrency and crime Bankruptcy of FTX Trial of Sam Bankman-Fried Scam center Pig butchering scam Cryptocurrencies in Europe Cryptocurrencies in Puerto Rico Cryptocurrency bubble Cryptocurrency in Australia Cryptocurrency in Nigeria Cryptocurrency scams Digital currency Decentralized autonomous organization Decentralized application Distributed ledger technology law Double-spending Environmental impact Initial coin offering Initial exchange offering List of cryptocurrencies Non-fungible token Token money United States Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Virtual currency Voiceverse NFT plagiarism scandal Category Commons List Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WebTorrent&oldid=1294649803 " Categories : 2013 establishments in California Anonymity networks Application layer protocols BitTorrent clients Distributed data storage Distributed file systems File sharing software File transfer protocols Free network-related software Internet privacy software Internet properties established in 2013 Internet protocols Network protocols Peer-to-peer software Video hosting Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Pages using Infobox software with version errors All articles lacking reliable references Articles lacking reliable references from March 2022 This page was last edited on 9 June 2025, at 00:52  (UTC) . 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