[tag]Transmission[/tag] is a [tag]free[/tag], [tag]native[/tag] [tag]Bit Torrent[/tag] [tag]client[/tag] for [tag]Mac[/tag] [tag]OS X[/tag] which is, as far as I can see, a lot nicer than the original [tag]Bit Torrent[/tag] client.
I conducted a little [tag]test[/tag] [tag]download[/tag] to see how it works, and I must say the [tag]performance[/tag] is pretty good. I’d recommend it. Download Transmission.
The main window of the [tag]application[/tag] is very neat indeed - it makes very good use of [tag]OS X[/tag] [tag]interface[/tag] components and is really [tag]simple[/tag] to use.
Having a good [tag]inspector[/tag] window is a nice addition, although most of this you can see directly in the main window quite clearly.
A very nice little added bonus is that [tag]Transmission[/tag] will display the [tag]upload[/tag] or [tag]download[/tag] speed it’s currently running at in the [tag]Dock[/tag]. It’s not magnificently legible at smaller dock sizes (and it would be nice if they could make it bigger), but it does the trick I suppose.
I also feel that the icon is a little too detailed - I can’t make out exactly what it is when it’s in the dock and small, but it is nice and original.
On the technical side I don’t get the feeling it takes up too much [tag]CPU[/tag] or [tag]memory[/tag], because it looks so [tag]native[/tag], but essentially I bet this varies with usage. Downloading/Uploading a lot of [tag]torrents[/tag] is much more likely to soak up the [tag]RAM[/tag] and [tag]CPU[/tag] cycles. On my test, downloading one while uploading another used up about 35MB of real [tag]RAM[/tag] and an average of around 10% of my 1.9 GHz. Not bad at all, really.
Update: On top of that, it performed very nicely when downloading file torrents. Now that I am seeding two torrents worth 0.5 GB in total, [tag]CPU[/tag] usage is at about 3±1% and RAM usage is at about 30 MB still. I’m also told by a regular user that resource usage is generally rather low.
Be sure to keep on top of updates for this beast, it’s still very much in [tag]development[/tag]. For example, the latest nightly build fixes an issue with the main 0.6 release which stops a minimised window from popping back up when you click on [tag]Transmission[/tag]’s [tag]dock[/tag] [tag]icon[/tag].
Here’s an idea for anyone when putting a link to an application download on a web page: Say (right near the link, like next to it) what minimum OS version the application requires in order to run. I know, a crazy, waywood, outlandish idea, but you never know it might be worth doing (FFS).
While transmission is fast and very useful, it does hog up the cpu and cause the fans to kick in more than any other app I’ve ran.