When people think of the term "BitTorrent" they often think of piracy and illegal filesharing...but they shouldn't. BitTorrent is simply a protocol just like HTTP, FTP, and POP3. So obviously "banning" a protocol would be ridiculous, but this hasn't stopped some ISP's and web hosts from doing this.

I've tested out some S60 BitTorrent clients in the past with mixed results but I think finally found one that takes the cake. The freeware app SymTorrent has been developed by three authors inside the mobile laboratory of BUTE's Department of Automation and Applied Informatics in Budapest. I'm not going to go into the basics of BitTorrent filesharing, I'll assume you know how it works. The functionality off this app is rather limited compared to the clients you'll find on your desktop, but the essentials are there.

When you load up the app you're shown your active torrents which tells you how much each torrent is completed, how many other clients you're connected to, and your current download speed. If you move to the other tab, you'll find your overall upload/download speeds and total incoming connections.

Finding torrents to download is easy, finding legal torrents can be a bit more difficult. I fired up the Web Browser for S60 and found a torrent called "Photos of horses", sounds innocent enough. I clicked on the file, saved it to my memory card, then went back into SymTorrent clicked "Options" then "Add Torrent File" and navigated to my memory card to select the file. I chose my connection - use WLAN if you have it, otherwise you better have a high-speed, flat-rate connection or else it'll be slow and expensive. After a few seconds the transfer began.

The torrent then loads up in the main window, when you click on it you're offered three tabs. One gives you a progress bar and more details about the torrent, the second shows you a list of files within the torrent, and third displays the torrent's properties. I was unable to select which files within the torrent I wanted to download and which ones I didn't, this is the only request I'd have to future versions.

In the options, you can tell it where you want it to save the files. After a few minutes I check the folder and there they were, photos of horses. So all-in-all another nice piece of freeware for S60!