| Developer(s) | Daniele Castagna Alessandro Bahgat Shehata |
|---|---|
| Written in | Java |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Peer-to-peer |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | BitLet.org |
BitLet, abbreviation for BitTorrent Applet, is a BitTorrent program that enables the use of this file sharing protocol inside any Java-enabled web browser, without the need of an external dedicated client program.
The software intends to make the use of BitTorrent very simple. To make a download, the user first needs to obtain a valid torrent metafile URL. The user then copies the URL to BitLet's main page and clicks the download link, initiating the downloading process.
All the sharing is done by the user's computer, which is actively uploading and downloading as long as the program window is open[1]. This differentiates it from other services like ImageShack's torrent download feature, which does the sharing on the server side, allowing the user to download the torrent by HTTP in the end.
This system also allows webmasters to easily distribute files using the BitTorrent protocol without requiring the visitors of their sites to install and know how to use a BitTorrent client. To do that, a webmaster needs to find a tracker that directs the BitTorrent downloads and uploads of his file, host the .torrent file, and then display a link in his site, prefixing a URL code to the torrent's online location[2]. The BitLet site provides a code generator to create the HTML for that link[1]; some sites that distribute torrent files already provide such links along with the URL to their torrents, including Fenopy and Suprnova. However, no means of embedding the applet and player into third-party sites exists as of July 2009.
BitLet also allows streaming audio in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis formats, an experimental streaming video feature (mostly using Theora, with optional HTML 5 playback), and an uploader for turning a file into a torrent.