Torque: A Bridge Between File-Sharing And Web Browsing

July 10, 2012 by
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

A team of developers working for BitTorrent Inc. have announced their newest project – Torque. Here are the details.

The same team which invested time and effort into developing the popular uTorrent client revealed a fresh project called Torque. By using the new Btapp.js library, Torque is able to turn web browsers into file-sharing hubs.

“Btapp.js provides access to a browser plugin version of uTorrent/BitTorrent via a tree of Backbone Models and Collections. The intent of this project is to allow access to the extensive functionality of a torrent client, from web apps that are as simple as a single Backbone View. Btapp.js takes responsibility for getting the plugin installed as well, so you’re free to assume that its available. In addition to the local torrent client, you can also easily access a torrent client anywhere else in the world (assume you either configured it originally or have access to that client’s username/password),” explains an article posted by Ghacks.net.

Although Opera has already integrated the BitTorrent protocol within their browser, the file-sharing company takes one step further as they believe that there’s much more to be done from a browser environment.

Torque’s leading engineer Patrick Williams told TorrentFreak:

“Torque is both an underlying, fully fledged torrent client, as well as a simple JavaScript interface designed to make the technology as accessible as possible.”
“Our hope is that the development and use of torrent technologies can scale the same way that a torrent swarm does, and this is our initial effort towards that goal.”

At the time, Torque has been released as two applications:

The first is a Chrome plugin allowing users to download torrent files as regular files, while the second is called “Paddle Over” – a website where people can share files between each other from any browser. All you have to do is enter a name (no need to be real) and install their plugin.

“One of our aims here is to help artists and publishers build better ways to reach fans, and we believe that Torque can be a powerful tool for them to distribute their work. The overarching goal here is what it’s always been for us as a company; open innovation on the Internet,” Williams told TF.

Software developers are invited to look into the Btapp.js library.

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