FrostWire

FrostWire is a BitTorrent client with a search box in it. Type a phrase, and the results arrive from several torrent search engines and from a set of cloud sources at once, listed inside the program with their size and seed count rather than in a browser tab. Click a result and it downloads, and an audio or video file plays in the built-in player as soon as enough of it has arrived, so a song is heard a minute into a transfer rather than at the end. The downloads land in a library with playlists, and the library can share a folder over the local network to other devices running the program.

The combination is what sets it apart from the pure torrent clients, which open .torrent files and magnet links and leave the finding to you. FrostWire does the finding, the transferring and the playing in one window, and it also pulls audio and video from a few public media sites through the same search, which is where the convenience and the questions both live.

The torrent engine underneath is the same library many clients use, with magnet links and peer exchange, encryption and bandwidth limits, and the sections below cover each part in turn, then the installer habits and the limits.

Searching from inside the program

The FrostWire search tab queries a list of torrent search engines and the cloud sources in parallel and merges the results, with filters by type and source, a size range and a sort by seeds. Each engine can be switched off, and the list changes between releases as sites come and go, so a search that returned pages one month may return less the next. Results show the file list inside a torrent before anything downloads, which is how a batch of files becomes one chosen track.

Search engines index whatever is on the public network, so what comes back is a mix of public domain recordings, creative commons releases, independent music and software distributed this way, and material whose rights holders never agreed to any of it. The program does not filter on that distinction, and it cannot. Which results a user downloads is the user’s decision, and the only honest thing a review can say is that the search finds everything the public engines find.

Transfers and the engine

FrostWire downloads run with the usual controls, from pause and resume to per-transfer and global speed limits, a scheduler for off-peak bandwidth, a choice of which files inside a torrent to fetch, and sequential downloading for media meant to play while it arrives. Seeding continues after completion with ratio and time limits, and the transfer list shows peers and availability alongside the share ratio. Protocol encryption, peer exchange and the distributed hash table are on by default.

The engine is the same one behind several popular clients, so speed and compatibility match them. What is missing is the depth those clients expose, the per-torrent trackers editor, the detailed peer views, the RSS feeds and the web interface, and anyone who runs torrents as a hobby in itself will find qBittorrent the fuller tool.

This program is for people who want to search and play rather than tune.

The player and the library

The FrostWire player handles the common audio and video formats and starts a file while it downloads, which is the feature the program is known for. Playlists and a now-playing view, shuffle, and internet radio stations sit in the library tab, where downloads are indexed by type and searched by name. The player is adequate rather than good, and a film with an unusual codec or subtitles will do better in VLC Media Player, which the program can hand files to.

The library’s sharing option publishes a folder to other copies of the program on the same network, which moves a music collection between a desktop and a laptop without a cable. Files in the library are not shared with the wider network unless they are seeding torrents, and the two kinds of sharing are kept separate, with the local one off by default.

Downloading from the cloud sources

Alongside the torrent engines, FrostWire queries a few public media sites and offers to save the audio or video they host, with a preview before downloading and a choice of quality. Whether saving a given file from one of those sites is allowed depends on the site’s terms and the file’s licence, and the program leaves that to the user as it does with the torrents.

It is convenient for a creative commons talk or a recording on an archive site, and it is also the part of the program most often broken, since those sites change how they serve media and the program has to catch up after each change, which the release notes show happening regularly.

The installer, and what to untick

The FrostWire desktop installer has carried bundled offers for other software, pre-ticked, and the setup screens deserve reading before clicking through. The program itself has moved away from advertising on its mobile side, and the desktop build is kept going by those offers rather than by ads inside the window. An update checks on launch and can be declined.

The whole thing runs on a Java runtime bundled with it, which makes the installer larger than the pure clients and the memory use higher. For a torrent client with nothing to untick, Soda Player streams a torrent straight into a player with no library at all, and the two sit at opposite ends of the same idea.

Where it falls short

The FrostWire search depends on third-party engines that come and go, the cloud downloads break when sites change, the player is basic and the torrent controls are shallow beside the specialist clients. The installer’s bundled offers are the complaint that recurs in every review. And the program’s whole premise, finding files on the public network from inside the window, puts the question of what is being downloaded squarely in front of the user with no help from the software. For someone who already knows what they are looking for and where it is licensed, none of that matters.

For anyone else it is the thing to think about before the first search.

Conclusion

FrostWire suits people who want to search and download, then listen, in one window without learning a torrent client, from fans of independent and creative commons music to anyone who finds the specialist clients more than they need. The in-program search and the play-while-downloading are the reasons it has outlived the network it started on.

It asks the user to judge what the search returns, its installer needs watching, and its depth stops short of the hobbyist clients. Read the setup screens, switch off the search engines you do not trust, and use it for the music and recordings that are shared this way on purpose.