I see from my server logs that many visitors come here after searching for Opera 9 and bittorrent. It could mean that bittorrent is a popular feature in Opera — had it not been for an additional word in many of the searches: Disable. While some want to know more about how bittorrent is used, quite a few (of my visitors) want to know how to disable the feature. Quick answer: Type opera:config in the address bar, find the bittorrent section, uncheck enable.
Does this mean that the inclusion of bittorrent in Opera is a failure? Oh no, far from it. While it’s easy to get started with bittorrent this way, without needing to learn something new to start using it, the bittorrent client in Opera is a simple client. People who already are using bittorrent will most likely want to use the client they’re already using, as it may have more features or they’re just used to it. New users on the other hand may appreciate it a lot.
Not everyone knows how bittorrent works, and how to get started. Downloading a .torrent-file, then open it in their bittorent client? For some that don’t know how this work and how to set it up, this is an obstacle they can’t pass, and thus give up. The way Opera solves this problem is to make the process very simple: Click a link, and choose where to download the file. Just like you download any other file. The only difference is a couple extra messages from Opera during the process, one in the beginning and one when the download has finished, to explain what is happening. But you don’t have to learn anything new to get started.
Maybe those who get started with bittorrent on Opera will continue to use it, or maybe they will prefer other clients later on. In any case, Opera will be a nice and easy introduction to bittorrent for many.