Although Chrome doesn’t offer support for BitTorrent clients, there are ways to torrent on this platform. If you have a Chromebook, you can still use popular torrent clients like uTorrent with the help of some tools that work on Chrome OS and Chrome browser. These tools are Put.io, JSTorrent, Bitford and Bitport.io. Put.io and Bitport.io are paid services that offer subscriptions that let you store downloaded data on a personal cloud. Once you have downloaded the files and they have been saved to the cloud, you can access them on your device. This helps you to save space on your Chromebook.
JSTorrent and Bitford are Javascript extensions that are available for free and when you download videos they are store to your computer and you can stream them as downloads. While not all these tools are set to allow you to upload files to BitTorrent, they can be use to seed files that can be used by others. They are not suitable to be used as seedboxes. Seedboxes are cloud services that can be used to distribute uploaded content to torrent users. Here is more about each one of these tools, including information about how they work. Keep in mind that regardless of the option you select, you should consider using a VPN service to keep your torrent traffic protected from eavesdroppers.
Bitport.io
Bitport.io hasn’t been around for too long and it is still evolving in terms of features and performance. However, it gas managed to attract the attention of many users thanks to some practical features that include virus scan and support for magnet links. You can also stream video from the cloud and the free trial offers 1GB, as well as one torrent-per-day. The free trial uses an unencrypted HTTP connection for downloads and your downloads are not prioritized. In order to enjoy a safer, more flexible experience, you can upgrade to a paid plan from $5 per month. This gives you unlimited torrents and bandwidth, as well as encrypted transfers and virus scan.
The basic plan offers 30GB of storage and five download slots. It is possible to stream videos that has been downloaded to the cloud from torrent straight to the browser without having to download the files onto your device, although this can’t be done while the download is in progress. Keep in mind that in order to watch videos, they have to be converted to a format that can be read by Bitport’s media player. Although the conversion process can take a while, Bitport.io offers great speeds.
Using Bitport on Chromebook
- Create an account at Bitport.io
- Copy and paste the link for a torrent or download link into the top field on the dashboard. Click Add new torrent.
- Make sure that the information is correct under Torrents for Download and select the “Download to my cloud” option. You will be directed to the download queue and once the download is completed, you can open the downloaded folder and click the thumbnail to watch a video. You can also download it by clicking the download button that is shown when you hover the mouse over the thumbnail.
- The majority of video formats have to be converted in order to watch them. You can click the Convert button that appears in the video player to get started. Just wait for the video to be converted.
Put.io
Put.io is another paid solution, but unlike Bitport, it doesn’t offer a free trial. Although it is more expensive, it is worth considering thanks to its efficient speeds. It is very solid and supports a great selection of features. There is an option to try the service before committing to a subscription but it costs $3.99 for 5 days. On the plus side, the money is donated to the EFF. You can get the basic plan for $9.99 per month or $99 for a full year and it gives you 100GB of cloud storage.
Apart from its efficient performance and incredible speeds, Put.io is gaining popularity due to the variety of apps and devices that offer integration with the service. Thanks to the RSS feed support, it is possible to automatically download new episodes of your favorite TV shows as soon as they are released. It is also possible to share files between users meaning that you can stream video files from your friends on your browser. With Put.io, you can download content from a variety of sources including YouTube and Soundcloud.
Using Put.io on Chrome
- Create an account at Put.io and click New Transfer in the top right corner.
- Copy and paste the torrent or magnet link into the filed, or go to the file on your computer if Upload was selected. Select “Start Transfers”.
- Once the download is completed, click Go to file. Then you can select an action from the drop-down menu like adding the video to a VLC playlist or sharing the link. You can also download it to your computer. The video can be streamed directly on the website, you just need to click the link for the file.
Bitford
Bitford is a Chrome extension that is based on Javascript and it downloads files straight to your computer via torrents. Bitford stands out from other options thanks to the fact that it is completely free. However, it has some stability issues and it is not the fastest option. In addition, it only supports a handful of features and it don’t work with magnet links. Although the video playback option works well, loading the video takes a long while due to the slow speed. It is convenient choice if you don’t want to spend money on torrent tools, but it is not exactly impressive in terms of performance.
Using Bitford on Chrome
- Download and install Bitford. Go to Chrome://apps and select Bitford to open the tool in a separate window.
- Download the torrent file you want. Keep in mind that it is not possible to cop/paste the link so you will need to download the torrent file to your device.
- Select the Load Torrent option at the bottom of the app. Then go to the torrent file you previously downloaded and click on it.
- The download will start automatically and you can watch a video while it is being downloaded by clicking the Stream button that appears besides the video file.
JSTorrent
This Javascript app runs on your device and it offers direct storage (the files are saved to your computer), without cloud storage available. JSTorrent supports magnet links and the free trial version allows up to 20 downloads. The paid version costs $2.99 (one time fee) and although unlike Put.io and Bitport.io, JSTorrent does;t offer cloud storage, it is a convenient option to stream video while it is downloaded, as long as the format is supported. This Chrome extension has a high rating in the Chrome store.
Using JSTorrent on Chromebook
- The first step is to install JSTorrent and the JSTorrent Helper extension. Right click the torrent link ans select “Add to JSTorrent”. Alternatively, you can open JSTorrent from chrome://apps and paste the URL for the torrent into the top field.
- You will see a JSTorrent window and if it is the first time that you use JSTorrent, make sure that you click on the Settings tab to select the download folder you prefer to use. It is possible to adjust other settings that you want to manage.
- Leave the Settings menu and select the torrent from the download list. You may see an error in the status, if it is the first time you use it. You just need to click Start to restart the download.
- When it comes to magnet links, you can open the Settings menu and scroll to the bottom. Under Handle Magnet links, select Setup and follow the instructions in the new tab that is opened in Chrome. After the download is finished, you will see the file in the folder you selected. You can stream a video as it downloads and click the Files tab in the bottom half of the app. Next to the video file, you will see a link to stream the video in Chrome. The tab loads once you press Play.
