82 LXF257 December 2019 http://www.linuxformat.comHOTPICKS
VIDEO PLAYER
MUSIC PLAYER
Don’t wait for a
video file to be
downloaded –
start watching it
right away.
itTorrent is an awesome technology that
is both fast and social. When it comes to
downloading large video files, torrents often
outperform other download methods in terms of speed,
provided there are enough seeders for such a torrent.
What we have here is an application for watching videos
using their torrent files.
The idea is not new: Popcorn Time and other similar
video streaming services have used it. However, even
though such software doesn’t share DRM video content
directly, the whole concept of giving away a catalogue
of torrents to commercial movies is unlawful in most
countries. WebTorrent Desktop is a better alternative
for watching videos while fetching them from torrent
files. It is fast, simple and does not infringe anything.
The application provides a friendly GUI where you
can drag and drop a torrent file and start watching the
video behind it right away. All you need is a decent
network connection and some other people who are
seeding the video at the moment. The benefit is that
you get a no-wait service and much more free diskt’s been more than four years since the
previous version of the Exaile music player
(3.4.5) was released. In the past years the
music player scene has split between classic media
organisers and streaming services such as Spotify.
Exaile truly belongs in the first category.
Visually there are not so many changes, but Exaile
has moved from GTK2 to GTK3 and also has many big
changes under the bonnet, such as the transition to the
modern version of GStreamer and other base
components. Still, it’s the same old (and nearly perfect)
Exaile with some face-lifts here and there.
The concept is very similar to Amarok or Clementine,
but transferred to the GTK world. As such, there is a
great sidebar in Exaile, which allows for easy switching
between your local music library, the filesystem
browser, online radio stations, podcasts and lyrics. It’s
remarkable how much useful information fits into the
clean and compact interface! Still, we have some more
‘pro’ arguments if you’re unsure about switching. ExaileWebTorrent Desktop
Exaile
space, as nothing is stored permanently on your side.
Under the bonnet, WebTorrent Desktop is made of
Electron, Node.js and JavaScript. The application brings
up a local webserver, which receives the video content
via Webrtc and plays it back locally.
In a sense, WebTorrent Desktop is a next-generation
web torrent app because it does not pull FFmpeg or
VLC with it. Thanks to Electron and Webrtc you only
need a good web browser engine in order to play videos
without any third-party dependencies. As a bonus, you
get a nice system tray integration and support for
Magnet links together as well as torrents.has a massive set of nearly 50 powerful plug-ins, from
the Pidgin music tracker to colourful moodbar
visualisation. Hopefully, you will be saved from
searching for extra plug-ins elsewhere as nearly
everything you might every need is already bundled
with Exaile.
Another thing worth noting is the player’s
performance with a large music collection. Exaile
stores metadata in a SQLite database and maintains
swift music library speeds even if you have many
thousands of tracks.
With all that plus smart playlists, the new shuffle
mode and the super-long list of fixed bugs, Exaile
makes a good replacement for other media players
and organisers.Version: 0.21.0 Web: https://github.
com/webtorrent/webtorrent-desktopVersion: 4.0
Web: http://www.exaile.orgLoad your music
collection or let the
player entertain
you with some
online radio tunes.B
I
82 LXF257December 2019 DDDecmbr 20198Pea09
HOTPICKS
VIDEOPLAYER
MUSICPLAYER
Don’twaitfora
videofiletobe
downloaded–
startwatchingit
rightaway.
itTorrent is an awesome technology that
is both fast and social. When it comes to
downloading large video files, torrents often
outperform other download methods in terms of speed,
provided there are enough seeders for such a torrent.
What we have here is an application for watching videos
using their torrent files.
The idea is not new: Popcorn Time and other similar
video streaming services have used it. However, even
though such software doesn’t share DRM video content
directly, the whole concept of giving away a catalogue
of torrents to commercial movies is unlawful in most
countries. WebTorrent Desktop is a better alternative
for watching videos while fetching them from torrent
files. It is fast, simple and does not infringe anything.
The application provides a friendly GUI where you
can drag and drop a torrent file and start watching the
video behind it right away. All you need is a decent
network connection and some other people who are
seeding the video at the moment. The benefit is that
you get a no-wait service and much more free disk
t’s been more than four years since the
previous version of the Exaile music player
(3.4.5) was released. In the past years the
musicplayer scene has split between classic media
organisers and streaming services such as Spotify.
Exaile truly belongs in the first category.
Visually there are not so many changes, but Exaile
has moved from GTK2 to GTK3 and also has many big
changes under the bonnet, such as the transition to the
modern version of GStreamer and other base
components. Still, it’s the same old (and nearly perfect)
Exaile with some face-lifts here and there.
The concept is very similar to Amarok or Clementine,
but transferred to the GTK world. As such, there is a
great sidebar in Exaile, which allows for easy switching
between your local music library, the filesystem
browser, online radio stations, podcasts and lyrics. It’s
remarkable how much useful information fits into the
clean and compact interface! Still, we have some more
‘pro’ arguments if you’re unsure about switching. Exaile
WebTorrent Desktop
Exaile
space, as nothing is stored permanently on your side.
Under the bonnet, WebTorrent Desktop is made of
Electron, Node.js and JavaScript. The application brings
up a local webserver, which receives the video content
via Webrtc and plays it back locally.
In a sense, WebTorrent Desktop is a next-generation
web torrent app because it does not pull FFmpeg or
VLC with it. Thanks to Electron and Webrtc you only
need a good web browser engine in order to play videos
without any third-party dependencies. As a bonus, you
get a nice system tray integration and support for
Magnet links together as well as torrents.has a massive set of nearly 50 powerful plug-ins, from
the Pidgin music tracker to colourful moodbar
visualisation. Hopefully, you will be saved from
searching for extra plug-ins elsewhere as nearly
everything you might every need is already bundled
with Exaile.
Another thing worth noting is the player’s
performance with a large music collection. Exaile
stores metadata in a SQLite database and maintains
swift music library speeds even if you have many
thousands of tracks.
With all that plus smart playlists, the new shuffle
mode and the super-long list of fixed bugs, Exaile
makes a good replacement for other media players
and organisers.Version: 0.21.0 Web: https://github.
com/webtorrent/webtorrent-desktop
Version: 4.0
Load your music
collection or let the
player entertain
you with some
online radio tunes.B
I