Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ

The easiest way to download using Tribler is to search from the search panel at the top of the screen. Just type in what you're looking for and press the ENTER button. You will be taken to the Results tab and your search results will start coming in. When you've found what you're looking for you can click search result to show the download details. If you're happy with the anonymization settings (ON by default), you can click the button to start downloading.

For a step by step introduction, see the example below:

1. Type Sintel in the search bar and press ENTER; (Visit the Sintel website for more information about the movie.)
2. The results view should come forward and give you a number of results. At least one of them should be named Sintel. You can now click, which will show you the download information dialog.
3. Tribler will now gather information about the torrent. When this is completed, you will see a list of files in the torrent. Optionally, you can select or deselect files for downloading.
4. You then have to select a location where to place the file. Click "Download" when you're satisfied with the location;
5. The file now starts to download and will be visible in the downloads tab. Notice that you see the current progress here. This will tell you how much has been downloaded, how large the file is and how much time it will take at the current downloading speed.

Yes, Tribler has been specifically designed to download torrent files. To download a specific .torrent file present on your computer, click on the big plus button in the top-left corner of the screen. Magnet links or torrent files present on websites can also be downloaded this way.

A special pop-up exists for this. You get it automatically after you start a download. This popup appears after adding a .torrent or magnet link. When a torrent is downloading, you can change the files that are being downloaded from the downloads page by clicking on the torrent. A pane at the bottom will appear. You can manage files by clicking on the FILES tab.

If you wish to upload something you have already downloaded you can just start the download for it as usual and point to the same directory where you stored the files when downloading them. Tribler will then start by checking all the data to see if it's there. After that Tribler will try to download any missing data and will start uploading the data you already had.

We take bug reports very seriously and try to investigate each of them. When Tribler encounters a crash, you will be prompted with a dialog that allows you to send additional information to us. This helps us with debugging and fixing the issue. If you have a suggestion for us or another problem, you can either create an issue on Github.

Go to the download page to download the right installer for your operating system.

For Windows users: just open the downloaded file by double clicking on it and Tribler will be installed.

For Mac users: drag the downloaded .dmg file to your Applications folder to install Tribler.

For Linux users: if you're using a fairly modern Linux distribution, like Ubuntu, just download the package and double-click it to begin the installation. If that doesn't work, follow these instructions. If you're not familiar with using a terminal program, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal for more on terminals in Ubuntu.

1. Download the latest package. Make sure to save the file in your personal home directory. To choose where to save the file, right click on the link and choose 'Save as...' (or similar)
2. Open a terminal program (e.g. Gnome Terminal)
3. Try:
       sudo dpkg -i tribler*.deb
   You will have to give your password to proceed. If this succeeds without errors you can now find Tribler in the list of installed applications, or you can just type:
       tribler
   and Tribler should start.

Note: if you do not run a supported system (see the download page) the following steps might not work.

If the above did not succeed, try the following:
sudo dpkg -i --force-depends tribler*.deb sudo apt-get -f install

The first line will forcibly install Tribler despite dependency errors occurring and the second line will try and fix that again. If everything succeeded at this point, you can type:
    tribler
and Tribler starts. If not, then be sure to run:
    sudo dpkg -r tribler sudo apt-get -f install
to first line to remove Tribler again and the second line to make sure the system is in order.

Just install the new version, see here for instructions on that. Tribler will automatically upgrade data from old versions, if possible.

You can limit the download or upload speed of active downloads and seeds by going into the Settings and, under the Bandwidth tab, setting the desired values. Note, however, that this limits the speed of active downloads and seeds, not of Tribler in its entirety. The overhead of the Tribler protocol, in particular, can't be limited at this point.

No, you can't. Although this feature has been requested a number of times and is available in some other clients, it is not one that is likely to appear in Tribler. The first use of the feature is to manually block certain peers. This usage scenario just asks for abusive behaviour, since actual reasons for blocking (such as freeloading) are very hard to investigate for a human being and easy to misjudge. The second usage scenario is using block lists to keep out unwanted eyes, such as governments that don't wish to upload or download but want to spy on you. This usage, however, is not very effective and provides a false sense of security at best.

If you still wish to block lists of peers to prevent spying parties to connect to you, you can use external software such as PeerBlock that is specialised in this.

If you can't seem to download anything there are a lot of possible causes. The first and most easily checked ones: you're trying a search or download of something that's not readily available. Try and search for something you're sure is widely available. Terms such as Linux or Ubuntu should certainly give you some result. Try and download a recent Ubuntu version or try and download something with a (partially) green health indicator. If searching doesn't work you can see if you can at least download something using external .torrent files, such as the ones for the Ubuntu or Debian releases.

If the above doesn't give results or the downloads don't start, then you're likely to have connection problems. Such problems can have many reasons. Some common ones:

• You have not allowed an exception for Tribler in the Windows firewall or other firewall software you're running;
• You are behind a firewall somewhere in your network, because:
• You are on a company network and the company doesn't allow BitTorrent, try again when you're at home (same goes for, for example, schools and universities);
• You have hardware or software that provides your internet connection and has a firewall built in. Common examples are ADSL routers, VPN software and advanced switches.
• You connect through hardware or software router and need to forward the ports.

This is all assuming that you actually have a connection to the internet and can, for example, read this page from the same computer you're running Tribler on. While there are many ways to configure a firewall or router, each should most likely be configured to one of these common settings:

• Allow the Tribler to connect to the internet and to receive connections from the internet - this is most common for software running on the same computer at Tribler, such as software firewalls (including the Windows firewall), virus scanners, VPN software, internet connection software, etc;
• Allow incoming connections to the ports used by Tribler and forward those ports to the correct computer - this is most common for hardware you connect through or software running on computers you connect through, such as routers, (local) servers, computers providing shared internet to your computer or advanced switches.

For a description of which ports to open, see below. How you open ports completely depends on the device or software you're trying to configure, but PortForward has excellent coverage of most of them.

Note that some routers actually provide both port forwarding and a firewall. The two are not the same, but both can hinder your connection. Forwarding the ports is needed to have incoming connections to your router to be forwarded to the computer running Tribler, while allowing those incoming connections is needed to allow them in the first place.

If all of this doesn't help you get your downloads going, you can always check out our GitHub for more help.

The main port that Tribler uses for BitTorrent traffic can be set under Settings, General. The default port number is 8085.

Additional, optional, settings to use a manual proxy can be found under Settings, Connection.

You are most welcome to configure a different port, but keep in mind that ports below 1024 are privileged and therefore most likely unavailable to Tribler. Choose a value higher than 1025 to be safe. Also keep in mind that each port number can be used by only one program at the same time. If you have other BitTorrent software running, for example, and want Tribler to use the same port then you will first have to close that other program completely before running Tribler or configuring Tribler's port.

To completely reset Tribler you can remove the settings directory in its entirety (%APPDATA%/.Tribler for Windows and ~/.Tribler for other Operating Systems). This will completely wipe all settings and active downloads or seeds, as well as your download and upload history (and hence reset your reputation). Note that it will not remove the actual data, either partial or complete, of your downloads, just the knowledge that you were downloading them. Unless you put your downloads in the settings directory yourself, of course.

If you're concerned about losing things nonetheless, you can also just temporarily rename the directory and start Tribler again to see what happens. If this does not give the desired results, you can restore your backed up directory again.

To find your settings directory, see below.

Under Windows the directory is set to %APPDATA%\.Tribler

You can enter the %APPDATA% directory by opening an explorer, typing %APPDATA% in the address bar and then hitting Enter.

Under Linux or Mac the .Tribler directory is stored in your home directory, /home/USERNAME/.Tribler (or ~/.Tribler). Note that, since it begins with a ., it will be hidden by default. Search the web to find out how to see hidden files depending on your environment ( Ubuntu / Gnome / Nautilus, Kubuntu / KDE / Dolphin / Konqueror, MacOS / Finder).

Unfortunately, there is no way to remove such content from the decentralized network.

Even for highly illegal content, such as child porn, you can't get in trouble if you don't actively download it. If you see it in a channel all you have done is hear about it from another peer, which most likely has only heard about it just like you have. You have, however, not downloaded the actual files. It's like this gossip in the pub where you've heard about that neighbor brewing illegal booze. You then know where to get the illegal booze, but as long as you don't you won't get in trouble. Tribler does not automatically download actual files, only data about the files (.torrent files) so you could find those files if you want to.

Tribler is a BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) client with various extensions such as integrated search and Video-on-Demand. Tribler is also a not-for-profit research group. We are supported by EU and Dutch research funding. Our aims are to further research, education and progress in peer-to-peer applications, build EU skill capacity in this important area and reach out globally for cooperation and exchange of ideas. As academics we publish our findings so anyone can follow our progress. Tribler is an open source project so anyone can participate in the development of our work and utilize it.

While Tribler uses the BitTorrent protocol to download and upload files, and is fully compatible with most BitTorrent clients, it adds a number of important extensions:

• Fully integrated content search without any central server;
• Anonymous downloading and seeding using a Tor-like overlay;
• An overlay swarm for communication between (Tribler) peers;

In short Tribler is the evolution of P2P technology building on but also going beyond the successful BitTorrent protocol.

Tribler supports anonymous downloading and seeding. Check our Anonymity page for details.

Please note that, although other Bittorrent clients support encryption, that does not make them anonymous.

Yes, you most certainly can. Check out our Github link in the Developers page. Tribler is released under an open source license, mostly LGPL, partly MIT license. See the license.txt file in the source package for details.

Contact us via Github.

Tribler supports encryption of torrent traffic and anonymity. Check our Anonymity page for details.

Tribler runs in a browser by default. If you're feeling adventurous, you can even use its REST API manually.

The collected torrent files are collected while you are online. They are part of the distributed library of torrent files you search through when you search using Tribler. All Tribler peers in the network participate in that large library by exchanging torrents and keeping a part of that library available by storing it locally.

The database with collected torrent files will at first be filled to contain up to 50,000 .torrent files. You can remove the .db files in the sqlite folder of your settings directory if Tribler outgrows your disk space.

No, you are not. Tribler is a normal BitTorrent client in that it participates in Torrent swarms like any other BitTorrent client. You can download from and upload to all the other peers in that swarm. However, when seeding anonymously, only other Tribler users can download your content.

Yes, it does a lot more. Tribler peers are part of an overlay network that exchanges information about channels and torrents, among other things. This overlay network is the basis for the features Tribler offers, such as the integrated search.

Could you stop it? Theoretically, yes. And if you stopped it, it would take your client a few minutes to do searches, but otherwise it would function. You would be leeching on the network, then, taking and not giving. If everybody else stops it, though, you might just as well use any plain old BitTorrent since all of Tribler's features will break down. So yes, theoretically you could stop it, but you shouldn't.

Imagine a large circle of users (called peers), each of whom use Tribler file sharing software. File sharing software only functions if it can communicate with other peers. File sharing software requires the Internet address of others in order to search, download and share content with others. On initial startup, the sharing software must bootstrap and find at least one other peer.

A file sharing program needs a fresh list of peers to bootstrap. Thus a pre-defined list of peers is included in the software installer. As peers can go offline it is important that at least one peer out of possibly thousands on the list is still online. This pre-existing address list of possibly working peers must therefore remain valid for as long as possible.

Bootstrapping is done by contacting peers in the list, possibly in parallel. If a single peers replies, we are connected. Once connected, the peer requests a fresh list of working peer Internet addresses. The peer tries to connect to the nodes it was shipped with, as well as nodes it receives from other peers, until it reaches a certain quota.

By default, Tribler software itself has hard coded some well known online peers. Different online peers for bootstrapping can be used by modifying your configuration.json file in your settings directory.