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Introducing Bitdroid! The dedicated torrent tracker for Android ROMs!
After a couple of weeks of trial-and-error, I have finally got a torrent tracker site setup and running for Android ROM developers; a place for them to create and track a torrent for their ROMs.
Why use a torrent tracker like Bitdroid.org versus regular download links? Easy: better flow of download traffic, which equates to faster downloads!
Peer-2-Peer, or P2P, (torrents in this case) are better for high-flow traffic compared to normal HTTP (sites like Mediafire) or FTP. In HTTP or FTP, users can only download, and it's only from a single server. The more people downloading a file from a single server, the slower the download for everybody on that server requesting the same file. This is not the case for P2P connections. Every user that's downloading, downloads from another user. All of the users download are also uploading to other users, so the traffic is not coming from a single source. It is coming from many sources, alleviating slow downloads, enabling higher traffic. P2P is a much superior way to distribute large files (such as Android ROMs).
So where did this idea come from? After the release of several popular ROMs, I saw people complaining about slow download speeds, and having to upload to several different download mirrors for others to download at a fast pace again, until those became "clogged" for a while as well. P2P, as previously mentioned, would have alleviated this and reduced (or even eliminated) the need for several HTTP / FTP mirrors. HTTP download links could still be provided, but torrent links could also be provided to help alleviate high traffic, congested downloads.
P2P also allows tracking and stats of an individual download. Each file is tracked by the amount of seeders (people uploading), leechers (people downloading), and total downloads.
I've searched, and I couldn't find a dedicated torrent tracker for Android ROMs; I could only find trackers for general use, or other specific uses (movies, games, etc.), of which not all of these are completely safe due to concern of possible copyrighted content. With Bitdroid, only Android ROMs are allowed, and it is preferred that the original developer of the ROM uploads the file (or with permission from the developer, a 3rd-party user could upload the ROM). Since Android is open-source, there aren't any legal concerns of piracy and such due the open-source licensing of the Android OS.
For an added layer of "security" only an approved member group is allowed to upload files. You must be manually added to the group before being able to upload torrents, to try and further discourage potential piracy or unauthorized uploading of ROMs.
I currently have a splash-page setup, that links to the actual tracker, as well as a forum (work-in-progress).
If you're a developer or know a developer, please sign up on the torrent tracker and/or forum and I can get you setup to upload your torrents, and don't forget to spread the word!
If you have any questions or comments, please either post here or on the website! Come and check it out!
Note: I have permission from YZ to post this.
