Orion For Linux

There's quite a bit of hassle involved when it comes to finding torrents, downloading them, and playing them after all of that is done.

Orion is one app that aims to simplify the previously mentioned "ordeal" thanks to its integration of the MVP, the popular media player engine, on top of the BitTorrent protocol.

What exactly is Orion? It's a powerful, fast, and surprisingly lightweight BitTorrent client that also boasts convenient video and audio streaming capabilities. In short, it's an all-in-one torrent app for those who want everything torrent related in one place.

There are a lot of reasons why you might want to use Orion, or at least give it a try. The first, and most obvious, is that it's very convenient to use, since you can do everything with a single app, and not having to rely on a browser to download a torrent file, a torrent downloader to get it, and a video player to play it.

Just like most modern BitTorrent clients, it has the ability to download multiple files at once, and it works with magnet links, .torrent files, and even torrent hashes. Peer discover is dealt with by a couple of nice technologies such as DHT (Distributed Hash Table), Local Peer Discovery (LSD)), Peer Exchange (PEX), as well as tracker servers and Web seed networks.

Orion is also boasts the ability to stream multiple torrents simultaneously (on different ports or local servers), and it can do so even if the files are fully downloaded.

Then there's the app's GUI which gives off a sort-of 90s vibe with its default dark theme, which may not be for everyone. Nevertheless, the GUI is surprisingly customizable. What's probably the best part about Orion is that it's not confusing to use, with everything being neatly organized in various tabs.

Even though Orion is a well-rounded application, and it definitely works well, the fact that it's not free and will limit access to the number of downloads and streaming sessions per day is definitely not ideal (at least not for Linux users).

The other, probably more important issue, is the fact that Orion is not open-source, hence you can't really check its source code for yourself to see what's what.

If you're looking for a fast and capable BitTorrent client that also boasts other unique features such as the ability to stream both audio and video, then Orion is not at all bad, especially considering that there aren't that many similar tools for Linux out there.

Also, do keep in mind that you're not using an open-source app, and even though the app is still usable after the evaluation period is over, you'll most probably have to pay if you want the full functionality.