Bittorrent client qBittorrent 4.4.0 released with v2 torrent support

The developers of qBittorrent, a popular cross-platform Bittorrent client, have released qBittorrent 4.4.0 to the public.

The new version introduces support for a Qt6 build for Windows 10 and later, which promises better HiDPI support according to the developers. The qBittorrent 4.4.x release branch could be the last to support Qt5, and that would also mean that it would be the last branch to support Microsoft’s Windows 7 and 8 operating systems. Releases will continue until at least summer 2022.

Windows 10 and 11 users can select to install the Qt5 version until then, or switch to the Qt6 version at any time.

An AppImage is provided for qBittorrent on Linux. “Uses the latest versions of Qt6, libtorrent, boost, openssl” and is built on Ubuntu 20.04. The developers note that it is not well tested at this time.

Mac OS X builds are not yet available, but are scheduled for release in the next few days.

q Bittorrent 4.4.0

The new version of the torrent client includes several new features and improvements. In addition to additional support for Qt6, qBittorrent 4.4.0 introduces support for torrents v2 and libtorrent 2.0.x.

The Bittorrent v2 protocol improves upon the standard by introducing new features to it. Among the changes is that torrents use SHA-256 hashes instead of SHA-1. The new torrent version is not backward compatible, which means that two different versions of an offer are created when the version 1 and version 2 torrent files are downloaded or created. However, the option to create hybrid torrents.

Another option that presents itself is the ability to reliably download files from multiple torrents thanks to unique file hashes.

The introduction of v2 torrent support ensures that qBittorrent users will have no problem downloading these new torrent versions.

QBittorrent 4.4.0 includes a new option to set the temporary folder by torrent or category, and an option to skip hash checks of watched folders. Another folder-specific improvement is support for folder-based UI themes.

Existing installations can be upgraded to the new version as usual. Interested users find the full changelog, which lists all new features, improvements, and bug fixes. here.

closing words

Support for Windows 7 and 8 will run out later this year when qBittorrent 4.4.x reaches End of Life. Users of those systems can use the older versions, but will no longer receive any more feature updates, bug fixes, or security fixes once development jumps to a new version.

Now you: do you use torrent clients? If so, which one and why that one?

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