BitTorrent Sync Tool Unveiled For Android

Bittorrent 7.2 logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BitTorrent's released the beta version of its widely-anticipated Sync software, promising a fast, reliable alternative to services such as Dropbox.

The company claims that by using peer-to-peer file sharing it's faster than cloud-based services - and with file transfers encrypted, it should be safe from prying eyes too. Available here, the service is free, with no limits on file size. It includes mobile file synchronization for Android users, and Apple support is being promised further down the line.

"Sync is a response to what we see as real, fundamental challenges to personal data movement: the limitations on speed, size, space, privacy, and security that come with cloud dependency," says Brett Nishi, BitTorrent's director of product management in a blog post. "BitTorrent Sync is free, unlimited, and secure file-syncing. It's designed for fast file transfer: between users and machines; between editors and collaborators."

With mobile file syncing, Android users can now sync files between their phone or tablet and other devices and share files directly from their phone. The software also includes a basic versioning capability, SyncArchive, giving users access to earlier versions of files.

The alpha version's been out since April and has already, says BitTorrent, been used to share more than eight petabytes of data - for comparison, that's not far off the size of the entire Internet Archive media repository - so it's already pretty popular.

But the music and movie industries are likely to be a lot less enthusiastic, with BitTorrent already a popular tool for piracy. Indeed, earlier this year, Marianne Grant, senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), told a Congressional committee that it was "the best way to get what you want" in terms of pirated movies and television shows.

BitTorrent's been attempting to distance itself from this perception, working with artists and content companies on legal ways to monetize their work, and clearly has hopes of recruiting corporate users for BitTorrent Sync - rather than just fans of Game of Thrones.

While some users may be wary of a service that doesn't have a nice safe multinational corporation behind it, in some ways the service is more reliable. While Dropbox and Google Drive are vulnerable to outages, for example, the decentralized nature of BitTorrent Sync means that users can always access their files.

And with widespread fears that hosting companies may be sharing private information with governments, many users will appreciate the security of the system, with all transfers between devices secured using 256-bit AES encryption.