Download Windows Client Updates via Bittorrent [Feature] [Not an issue] [OS: Windows] [Wishlist]

[jamesaepp]

qBittorrent version and Operating System

4.1.3 (64-bit)
Windows 10 Pro x64 Version 1803

Help/About Libraries Tab

Qt 5.11.1
Libtorrent 1.1.9.0

What is the existing behavior

When qbit routinely checks for updates, it redirects to an https site to download the update

What is the suggested behavior

Qbit is literally an HTTP/bittorrent client. Why don't we offer Windows users the download path through the Bittorrent network and release the software in this way? Why do we launch the download through the web browser when the qbit client can already do it?

Processes

Release/Build/Package

• Compile the windows builds (32, 64, arm, etc)
• Sign the individual NSIS installers with pgp
• Make a .torrent for the individual builds/packages, including the pgp file and NSIS installer
• Advertise the magnet links to clients as they check for updates (Advertisements I assume are already signed via https)

Client Updates

• Check for updates
• Retrieve advertisement which includes magnet links
• Present the option to the user to download their updated client (for their architecture) via the appropriate magnet link
• If user chooses to update, present the normal dialogue (or silently add, obeying their client settings) the torrent to their download queue as normal
• Torrent downloads in the background as normal
• User chooses when to complete the pgp signature verification and update at their leisure

Other thoughts

This doesn't seem like a very unique idea, but I couldn't easily search if this has been brought up before. Is there a historical or other reason that the qbit clients don't already do this? With the traditional https download the pgp signature would have to be downloaded in two steps, but wrapping both in one torrent file and encouraging the checking of pgp signature checking is trivial when distributing the files in this manner. Being that web seeds are always an option to add to the torrent file, it seems like a no-brainer to implement this change as then we can add as many https mirrors as we want.

I understand why this wouldn't make sense in a *nix environment as the package managers are already so well entrenched it wouldn't be a wise idea. But for Windows, the qbit development team is responsible for advertising updates, so this simply makes the most sense (to me).

[sledgehammer999]

Somewhat duplicate of #9539 (and a lot others)

Serving a torrent means that we still need a server/seeder. Checking pgp sigs means that we need to incorporate the opengpg libs into qbt. Honestly it is much less work for us to have it work this way.