Fruit Bat Docs

Colony (torrents)

The built-in torrent downloader.

Colony is Fruit Bat's built-in torrent client, powered by WebTorrent.

  • Adding torrents: click a magnet link on any page, paste one into the address bar, open a .torrent file, or download one. They all land in about:colony. When Fruit Bat is installed, magnet links and .torrent files from other apps open there too.
  • Play while it downloads: video and audio files get a Play button. The player asks for the parts it needs, and WebTorrent fetches those pieces first. The side panel shows "bats in the colony" (peers), speeds, ratio and a piece map. MP4/WebM video and MP3/M4A/FLAC/OGG/WAV audio play. MKV/MOV depend on the codecs inside.
  • Sharing rules (about:colony › Sharing rules):
    • Stop sharing at ratio 1.0 (the default), or 0.5, 2.0, as soon as it finishes, or never.
    • Upload limit: 1 MB/s by default.
    • Stop sharing while on battery: downloads keep going, and sharing resumes when you plug in.

When a download stops sharing, it leaves the engine but its files stay. - Safety: - A one-time notice explains that your IP address is visible to other peers. - Colony is off in private windows. Magnet links and .torrent downloads there are refused with a short message, because a torrent announces your IP to every peer and writes files to disk. - Downloads that include programs get a warning. A video bundled with an .exe is flagged as a likely fake "codec" installer. - "Delete files too" only deletes that torrent's own files inside the download folder. - The stream URLs carry a secret per-launch token, so web pages can't read your torrents. - Lazy start: the torrent engine only starts, and only opens network ports, once you add your first torrent. Windows may ask for firewall access at that point; allow it for better speeds. - Persistence: downloads survive restarts. Each download's .torrent metadata is saved, so resuming verifies the existing files instead of downloading again. - Notifications: you get a desktop notification when a download finishes.

Colony Catcher#

Fruit Bat's first add-on. It finds magnet and .torrent links on any page and puts a small Colony button next to each.

  • The toolbar button shows how many torrents are on the page. Clicking it opens a list with Add all.
  • Links that are already in Colony show In Colony.
  • .torrent links download in the tab, using that site's sign-in, and land in Colony.
  • Adding happens in the background with a toast, so you stay on the page.
  • You can hide the inline buttons from the list panel.
  • Its buttons sit inside a closed shadow root, so the page's CSS can't break them and the page's scripts can't click them.