Frequently asked questions

Contact and debug reports

What makes Tribler different from others?

Tribler is developed at the Delft University of Technology and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Fundamental research to network technology, P2P networks, video streaming, user interaction helps us to integrate state-of-the-art knowhow into our software. We aim for an open source, fully decentralized peer-to-peer network, available for everybody, in every part of the world.

Is tribler spyware free?

Yes, tribler is spyware free. To convince you we had Softpedia to test our software. Please click the picture for more information at the Softpedia website.

Do you support Linux?

Yes, we do. You do need to install some additional software. Check out the Tribler readme.txt in the source code available from our Download page and our SourceForge page.

Alternatively, you can try our Ubuntu 8.04 (hardy) package, by adding our Ubuntu repository to the Synaptic Package Manager, as follows:

Start the package manager from the System / Administration menu
Open the Repositories menu from the Settings menu
Click on the Third-Party Software tab
Click on the Add+ button
Type deb http://ubuntu.tribler.org/ hardy main
Click the Add Source+ button
Close the Repositories menu
Click the Reload button to retrieve the package info from the Tribler repository
Click Search and search for "tribler"
Mark Tribler for installation by clicking
Ignore the warning about authentication, it is harmless
Install Tribler by clicking the "Apply" button at the top

You can now start Tribler from the Applications / Internet menu.

We have discontinued our support for Debian, but it should be easy to build a Debian package of Tribler yourself, by adjusting the dependencies.

Do you support MacOS X?

Yes, as of 3.4.0 we also provide a Mac installer. You should also be able to build it yourself on MacOS using these instructions.

Where's live streaming?

With the release of the SwarmPlayer in July 2008 and Tribler 4.5 a new version of live-streaming is now available. See the pages describing our large-scale trial for more info. Also checkout our description on how to setup live feeds yourself.

Do I need to configure my NAT/firewall? and other network issues

Hopefully not. We support UPnP to open a listening port on your firewall automatically. The so-called UPnP "mode 3" is on by default as of 3.6.0. If this mode doesn't work for you and you're on Windows, you can try selecting a different mode, using the "Preferences / Network / Advanced" menu. Try "Mode 1" first. If your OS/NAT doesn't support UPnP you may have to open the port by hand. This is necessary to use the download booster and recommendation features of Tribler. More importantly, it will speed up your downloads as peers can now also connect to you instead of just you connecting to them. As of 4.1 you should open the port both for TCP and UDP traffic, as this is needed by the (mainline) DHT feature we now support which helps you find more download peers.

Tribler 4.5.0 uses port 7762. Previous versions used different ports (<3.3 used 6881, 4.1 used a port in the range 7763-7774). You can check in File / Preferences / Network to see which one your Tribler uses.

When you're defining friends by sending mail to your friends (see below), make sure the IP address shown in the generated mail is your actual external IP address. Tribler will do its best to detect this external address, but it does not always succeed. If the address in the mail starts with 192.168. you need to replace it (consult your ISP's documentation).

You can change the address that shows up in the invitation mail by setting the "Preferences / Network / Advanced / IP to bind to" field. Note that if you have more than one network interface, setting this field will make your client inaccessible from clients on the other network interfaces.

Tribler currently has only limited support for hosts that change addresses frequently. You will have to explicitly connect to your friends by requesting their help in a cooperative download to update their databases. Otherwise, cooperative downloads will probably not work. See below.

Legal P2P, does that exist?

Yes, and it is rapidly picking up speed. Tribler will be cooperating with the Dutch public broadcasters to make content available via peer-to-peer. You should also check sites like

www.vuze.com distributes movie trailers in HD via BitTorrent
www.publicdomaintorrents.com
www.legaltorrents.com

And a lot of free software is being distributed via BitTorrent, for example, the OpenOffice office suite. You can try the following samples from the Internet Archive that we seed:

Elephants Dream (2006), the world's first animation movie created entirely with open-source video tools.
Sailor meets Ali Baba's thieves (1937)
Popeye the Sailor with Li'l Swee' Pea (1936)
Betty Boo and the Musical Mountaineers
Tom and Jerry - The Rocketeers
Superman (1941)
Superman in "Billion Dollar Limited" (1942)
Gulliver's Travels (1939)
Alfred Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934)
Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" (1932)

Privacy

From our license: [Tribler] will by default exchange your download history with others. This feature can be disabled by disabling the recommender in the Preference menu. See also the disclaimer at [the bottom of this page]

Where do recommendations come from?

Recommendations are made using a collaborative filtering algorithm. This algorithm will compare your download history to that of other Tribler users you connect. If the user has content in his download history that you have not downloaded it will recommend it to you. The recommendation value assigned to a content item depends on how similar the user's download history is to yours. So the higher the value, the more you are predicted to like it.

How do I use the Download Booster / Cooperative download feature?

To use the download booster, you first need to define who your friends are, and your friends will have to add you as their friend. You can send friendship invitations by looking up your friends in the Persons view and then click on the "Add as friend" button on the right. Your friend will then receive a popup with your invitation. If your friend is not visible in the Persons view, you can also use the "Invite Friends" button at the bottom of the Friends overview. This will start your email client with a generated mail that you should send to your friends. When receiving this mail, your friend should add you as his friend via the "Add Friends" button and fill in the information from your email. He or she should then press "Invite Friends" to send a similar generated mail back to you. Once you've added your friend's PermID, IP address and port to Tribler you're ready to go.

Next, to boost your downloads simply press the "Boost" button for the download you want to accelerate in the Library view. You'll then see a window with your friends on the left and an empty box on the right. By selecting your friends and clicking "Request Help" you will ask them to help. You can check if the help requests are successful by looking at the Friends view, it should say "helping with ..." as their status. The helpers will see a new download in their Library view that says "helping <your name>".

Tribler won't start again

Unfortunately, you have stumbled upon a bug. To get things working again, you should delete some files from the .Tribler directory:

For Windows:

C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\.Tribler

where "User" should be replaced by your own user name. To locate this directory, you may have to enable "Show hidden files and folders" in the "Tools / Folder Options / View" menu of the Windows explorer.

For linux
The directory is $HOME/.Tribler.

For mac
On a Mac you can access this folder by going to your Finder and click in your menu "...." then fill in '~/Tribler'.

For Tribler >= 4.5, delete from this directory:

dlcheckpoints directory
sqlite directory
itracker directory
bsddb directory
Everything starting with 'torrent'
Everything ending in 'cache'

For Tribler < 4.5, delete from this directory:

bsddb directory
Everything starting with 'torrent'
Everything ending in 'cache'

I don't get my normal 20 KB/s download speed

The recommendation feature of Tribler will exchange torrents with other Tribler clients. As most people are not yet using our Merkle torrents this will consume some bandwidth, at most 5 kbps. If you have a small connection, you could disable the torrent collecting part of the recommendation feature via the "Preferences" menu. In that case, you will see the recommendations made, but won't be able to download the content directly. You'll need to look elsewhere for the torrent if you see something you like.

Contact and debug reports

Please contact us via our forum

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