Ktorrent/general

General

Folders

Here you can configure where KTorrent should store its files. These files can either be the torrent data you want to download, or the torrent settings and stats KTorrent keeps track of. Downloaded files and torrent profile files will have to be saved in their own folders.

The temporary folder is the folder where KTorrent stores a profile for each torrent which includes information such as the settings for file priority on a multi-file torrent, settings for which files you do not want to download, the torrent file for the torrent itself, and symlinks so that KTorrent knows where the data for a particular torrent should be saved.

The setting “automatically save downloads to” will effectively disable the dialog which requests you to choose a save location after you open a torrent.

System tray icon

The setting, show system tray icon, is for selecting whether you want to have an icon placed in the system tray while KTorrent is running. If you have enabled this option, it will change the function of the quit button from quitting program to only minimizing the window into the system tray. Clicking on the system tray icon will also display a menu to control some of KTorrent's settings. The system tray icon is useful for users who want quick access and control of torrents while using other programs.

The Show speed bar allows you to enable an additional bandwidth indicator on the system tray to easily monitor how fast your torrents are being uploaded and downloaded.

Show system tray pop-up messages is a useful option if you like passive messages to pop up when events such as a torrent getting completed, a torrent reaching its configured share ratio, or a chunk failing the hash test while uploading occur.

Custom IP

You can configure KTorrent to send a fixed IP address or hostname to the tracker. This is useful if you use a proxy.

DHT

Use DHT to get additional peers to enable or disable DHT globally. While using DHT, you can:

• potentially find more peers for a torrent
• make use of DHT as a second method for collecting peers, especially if a tracker goes down
• run KTorrent with trackerless torrents

KTorrent respects the private flag inside torrent files and will automatically exclude private torrents from using DHT.

NOTE: DHT will increase the load on a router. If you are finding that your Internet is bogging down, you can disable DHT to increase the Maximum number of Downloads and Seeds available. The

Encryption

Encryption was introduced by the maintainers of two other BitTorrent clients after some ISPs decided to throttle their customers' internet connections. Throttling was introduced because some ISPs thought it would be a good idea if they could spare themselves costs generated by the use of the BitTorrent protocol. Encryption in BitTorrent was designed to obfuscate BitTorrent traffic so the detection of BitTorrent traffic, and therefore throttling of bandwidth, would fail. The encryption standard used in BitTorrent, RC4, is BY NO MEANS designed to make data secure. It was designed only to get around bandwidth throttling.

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KTorrent is able to establish both unencrypted and encrypted connections.

Even if your ISP is not throttling your connection, you still may find enabling encryption helps some peers to send data with a proper download bandwidth. Other peers may use BitTorrent applications that do not support encryption, and you will not be able to connect to them. You will need to experiment with the encryption settings to see what works best with the torrent you are trying to download.