The Pros of VPN over TorrentFlux

[Reuben]

Before I begin let me clear up a big confusion of people wanting to use TorrentFlux

DOWNLOADING THE FILE AT 4 Megabytes/sec to THE TORRENTFLUX SERVER MEANS NUTS IF YOU HAVE TO DOWNLOAD IT AGAIN FROM THE TF SERVER AT YOUR STREAMYX SPEED

I find a lot of people are wowed by the large download speed numbers that TorrentFlux services post when they are misleading. Large numbers that have little effect to you. Why? Cause when you download it to your PC, once again you're limited by your Streamyx line. Also note that these large numbers are only achievable on well seeded torrents. It is almost like having a Formula 1 car in KL traffic except that you also have a speed limit imposed (in this case by Streamyx).

In a nut shell:

Pros of TF:

1) If the TF host does not cap the upload and has only a few people, it is great for maintaining ratios for private trackers (however this is rare from my recent survey of available TF services)
2) Works on all operating systems, only requires configuration of a download or ftp manager that supports multi-parting.
3) Ability to have a few people in different locations download from your TF account
4) Not limited by most firewalls if the download to your pc is http based.
5) Don't have to keep your PC on for the torrent download and only for the HTTP download. Good for those who cannot keep their computers on for extended periods of time.

Cons:

1) Dual download, one to TF server, one to your computer (possibly longer time to reach your pc)
2) Subject to space quota limitation on your TF account
3) Will take longer to download moderately/poorly seeded torrents.
4) Increased CPU/memory and bandwidth strain on the server so less users can be on one server (which tends to result in higher cost)
5) If customers download illegal files, the files are stored on the server and is clearly illegal since the Admin has control over the files.
6) TorrentFlux when dealing with many users can result in huge lag in its GUI due to the immense CPU strain.

Pros of VPN

1) Good for most things. Works as if you are unthrottled and gives you the speed as fast as the torrent and your Streamyx line can give to you.
2) Single download, straight to your computer with no space quotas. Download a single dvd (or a few) without worrying about clearing your quota on TF.
3) Minimal effect from other people using the VPN as we allocate bandwidth instead of sharing it completely.
4) More legally secure as none of the files are held on the server unlike TF which keeps the file on the server. This is not an issue if the TF host is in an offshore country.

Cons:

1) Requires more expertise to set up
2) Subject to Streamyx upload speed (384 or 512) in seeding so might be difficult to maintain ratio in private tracker sites.
3) Requires OpenVPN so it does not work on Windows ME/98/95.
4) Firewalls can block us unless we reconfigure our server


There is a reason why we do not offer TF services. We understand some users have a preference for it but we strongly believe that a VPN service is superior to TF and more cost efficient since TF consumes a lot of CPU and resources.

The benefit of VPN is that you don't have to download the file twice. Also you are only limited to the hard disk of your hard drive and not your space allocation on the TF.

TF works like this

1) You ask the TF server to download your file at a good speed. (this is still subject to seeder/peer ratio). You save it on your TF server subject to your size quota.
2) You download it via HTTP or FTP from the TF server at your regular Streamyx speed.

Therefore there are two downloads happening here:
Once to your TF server. Then another time to your PC.

This isn't really a problem with very well seeded torrents as in those who use good private trackers (not demonoid) since it takes maybe 5 minutes or less to download the entire file into the server. Then it takes another how many minutes to download it to your computer based on your Streamyx speed.

But on a poorly seeded torrent (which are the majority of public trackers), even a fast connection on the TF will not help you. So you're still subject to the seeder/peer limitation and then have to download it AGAIN to your computer on your Streamyx speed.

Another disadvantage is that with the size limit, let's say you buy a 6 gb account for TF, you cannot download two dvds at a same time (4.8 gb each). You have to download one at a time AND download it off the server before starting on the other DVD download. Only AFTER you clear the space on your TF server can you start with the 2nd dvd download.

Also remember you are sharing the upload/download speed with other TF users so depending on how your TF service caps it, you might not get the full potential of the server anyway. It is all fine and dandy that the TF services post download speeds of 1-2 megabytes a second on their server but to be honest that isn't really impressive since that is the DOWNSTREAM torrent connection to the server. We have hit 7 megabytes a second DOWNSTREAM to our server so this is nothing to be overly excited about.

[Reuben]

Update after trying some TF services:

I just noted that many TF services employ very strict uploading restrictions removing one of the MAJOR benefits of TF which is seeding back (MX510's service severely limits upload for example).

I also found due to the massive multiparting invoved, you need to configure download managers and such which isn't all that easy (i would say almost similar difficulty to setting up VPN) thus removing the easy configuration benefit. It isn't THAT easy to configure. I had to fiddle with a couple of things before getting it to work properly on Free Download Manager.

So the remaining benefits are, bypass of firewall and save electricity. Even save electricity is debatable since if you are not seeding, you still have to keep your computer on to download the file via http and even at max speed, this takes time.

For e.g.

Let's say you download a 170 mb file (I base this on an anime download I did).
On a TorrentFlux it takes 5-10 minutes for it to finish downloading to the server. It then takes around 20 minutes to come to your computer on a 1.5 mbit connection.

On a VPN it takes you around 24-25 minutes for the whole thing to reach your computer.

[adam7979]

i subscribed to a tf service too. The advantanges, at the moment, that i'm enjoying, are:

1) i don't have to worry about getting a stupid ip range or stuck in traffic jam even if it's good ip range, thus i could almost guarantee a 100% download in less than like 10 minutes time for my favorite variety show before it dies away in like a day or two, which sometimes i couldn't do it properly over vpn with 50kbyes max, together with other 3 or 4 shows.
2) save energy, ya. i can now turn off my pc at night, and wake up tomorrow morning with guarantee that i could download the show into my pc (*almost* regardless of ip range) at 100++KB/s
3) yes, quota is some kind of problem, so is the "max number of concurrent download" but i could get some 300~400 KB/s download easily onto the tf box, almost 700++ (2 concurrent download, for the box i subscribed to) that's some kind of "you will definitely get to enjoy your show, only matter of time" feeling...

My two cents about tf. How about yours? (not you reuben )

[Reuben]

Not true. Using a TF service if it's located overseas will still be subject to routing issues...perhaps even more so.