The BitTorrent protocol, which was introduced in 2001 has grown into the most widely used file sharing method over the internet. Thanks to Android’s open nature, several full fledged Android torrent clients have been coming up to the Play Store lately and a quick search in the Play Store for “torrent” reveals that there are no less than 20 such apps. How many of them are actually useful? Here are our favorites Android torrent apps.
BitTorrent
BitTorrent app is the official app made by the team that originally designed the BitTorrent protocol. It was previously only available as a remote app that could remotely manage torrents on a PC, but is now also available as fully featured torrent client for Android that can handle downloading torrents directly to your phone.
One of the most impressive feature of this app is that it supports RSS, using which you can schedule it to automatically download new torrents from an RSS feed. This can really come in handy for users who regularly download TV serials. Here’s a nicely compiled list of RSS feeds for TV serials by DailyTvTorrents.
Features
- Wifi-only mode now available
- Access exclusive content from featured artists
- Share personal media
- Subscribe to RSS feeds
Play Store: BitTorrent (free)
aTorrent
Although BitTorrent should fulfill most of your torrent needs, it’s User Interface design definitely demands a facelift. This is where aTorrent comes in — an Android torrent client with as much features as BitTorrent, but with a much neater design and a Holo UI.
Features
- Add torrent from file
- Partial download (choose specific files from torrent)
- Option to limit downloads by Wi-Fi
- Option to pause downloads when external power supply is not connected
- Supported protocols: BitTorrent P2P, DHT, Advanced DHT Bootstrap, Magnet links, HTTP & UDP trakers
- Large files support (for FAT32 SD cards – 4Gb maximum)
Play Store: aTorrent (free)
Swarm
The third and the last app in our list is Swarm. It’s a lightweight Android torrent client, which supports all the basic features you’ll look for in a torrent client and has a very neat UI design as well.
One handy feature of Swarm is that it supports TOR (through ORBOT) using which, you can freely download torrents bypassing any security restrictions that have been enforced by your institution. Please note that this might be illegal in some places and so, use it on your own risk.
My only gripe with this app is its short list of features, which wouldn’t have been a problem if the app wasn’t priced so high at $4.
Play Store: Swarm ($4)
In pirate terminology, Swarm is used to refer to the total number of users (seeders + leechers) sharing a particular file among each other.
Other Worthy Android Torrent Clients
tTorrent and aDownloader are two other Android torrent apps that were not included in this list despite being solid in terms of functionality because of their horrendous UI design. The developers seriously need to give them a massive design facelift. Anyway, you can always try these alternatives if the above three featured apps don’t work for you.
ThePirateBay Browser
The last app in our list is not an Android torrent client, but a Pirate Bay browser app that will help you in finding and downloading torrents from ThePirateBay website directly on your mobile. It has a very nice UI with options for sorting torrents according to their categories (Videos, Music, Apps, etc.).
Play Store: The Pirate Bay Browser (free)
