Also just released is a small update to the Torrent Search library (directly available at transdroid.org/latest-search) to version 1.4. It has a small improvement to get The Pirate Bay’s .torrent links over the magnet links, while they’re still available.

Let me know about bugs you find in the issue tracker, so I can fix them for a next release. Transdroid development might be slow these days, but far from dead.

Get your hg tool out and: hg clone https://code.google.com/p/transdroid/

Note, too, that both the android and lib projects as well as the required external ActionBarSherlock library are now in the default repository. Want to read more about contributing to the project? Read our code contributions wiki page.

This is a notification that the application, Transdroid Torrent Manager with package ID org.transdroid has been removed from Android Market due to a violation of the Developer Content Policy. Please review the Content Policies and Business and Program Policies before you create or upload additional applications.

Note that Transdroid has been available for around 2 years on the Android Market. During this time there have been over 400.000 users who downloaded the app, who rated the app with a very high 4.6 stars average. Also, the Torrent Search module connecting to news feeds of sites that link to trackers by which media content can be obtained is still available.

I have requested an explanation on the specific reasons behind the removal of the app, to which I will post any follow-ups here. Until a hopefully soon reappearance it is possible to download Transdroid directly from this site or even get the full source code, hosted at Google Code, as you like, under a GPLv3 license.

Thanks to all Transdroid users for their support and enthusiasm. Let me be clear that I am happy to build a version for the Android Market that does satisfy their policies and can still help thousands of happy BitTorrent users around the world. If you feel the same way and can spare a donation, please consider a PayPal donation.

Update: Transdroid’s removal from the Market has been covered by sites such as Slashdot and TorrentFreak. Irony: Google hosts Transdroid’s code and Google awarded the app with a free phone.

Update: I have asked Google for reinstatement of the app on the Android Market. Torrent Search has been removed from the Market and a new version of Transdroid, stripped from the search and ezRSS features, has been mailed to them.

Dear Android Market Team,

Attached you will find an updated version of Transdroid. I kindly ask to consider reinstating Transdroid Torrent Manager on the Android Market by evaluating this new version. Since I have not received any details regarding the exact violations with the Android Market Content Policies, I have made the assumption that the violations applied to searching for media (as provides by internet sites and the now-removed Torrent Search application). This functionality has been removed.

Thank you for your consideration and hope to hear back regarding the reinstatement (or additional problems with the content policies) soon.

Regards,
Eric Kok
2312 development

The new version can be downloaded from the Google Code project website. Google is fully entitled to set rules for their own application market and I hope to yet again comply with these in the new stripped-down version.

Update: Feature on AndroidGuys, too. And Android Police. And Planet Android. And Digg. And Geek.com. And others…

Update: Google replied!

Thank you for your note. We apologize for our delayed response and appreciate the opportunity to review your appeal regarding the suspension of your application from Android Market. After an investigation, we affirm our initial decision and will not be reinstating your original application at this time.

If your developer account is still in good standing and you would like to upload a new, compliant version of this application to Android Market, please apply the following Content Policy guidelines to future releases:

[zip]

We are unable to reinstate applications that have been suspended due to policy violations. Please upload a new instance of the application which complies with Android Market Policies and Guidelines.

I am considering uploading a new Transdroid Lite version without torrent search and ezRSS feeds. The full version will, of course, remain available from this site.

Transdroid is, and will always be, open-source and free to use. If you love Transdroid, please consider donating by buying the donate version form the Market or making a direct PayPal donation. It keeps Transdroid development going.

Transdroid has become a mature product but I will keep on fixing bugs, tweaking the UI, adding small features and providing support for (new) users.

I’ll end with a word on 2312 development’s newly release app ‘Control Panel for cPanel’. If you own a web server that uses the cPanel tool to manage files, e-mail, domains, etc. then get the free or donate version of the app from the Android Market.

First of, why? I often find debugging against a real device doesn’t suit my needs. I have to switch to different devices too often, for one. Testing witwith the SDK emulator works fine, especially to test different configurations. It can be slow, though, in particular when connected to a debugger. A new option – one I just realised might just be possible – is debugging against a virtual machine instead. Depending on the software and your hardware it often even bypasses your host OS. Here is what I did.

Head to the Android x86 project website and download their Android 2.2 generic purpose ISO file. Next, open your VirtualBox or VMWare Player software and create a new virtual machine. Use the downloaded ISO file as startup/install mount. VMWare said to me it’s a FreeBSD system and I accepted this choice. I did set the HDD to 2GB (which is too much, actually).

Start up your new virtual machine and install it locally. Now I’m not sure you can create the needed partitions here using the installer (I messed around a little with the partitions manually first) but I believe you can. Don’t forget to let it create a virtual SD card as well. Now restart and Android should start just fine!

Now open the browser to see if you’ve got network. I set the virtual machine to use NAT mode. Everything okay? We need to find the IP of your device. Use Alt+F1 to open a terminal in the virtual machine and in this Busybox shell enter ‘ifconfig eth0′. This is the IP that adb will connect to. Hit Alt+F7 to go back to Android. Open a terminal on your host computer and run ‘adb connect ‘. It should say ‘connected to :5555′ now. If not, try killing and starting your adb server. If it does connect it still doesn’t necessarily show up in ‘adb devices’! Don’t worry. Try to push a file and see if it works – it should.

Finally start Eclipse or whatever you use and start debugging your app! (Don’t forget to allow application installs from external sources in Android.) Pretty cool huh? Note: I just tested this on my Ubuntu 10.10 machine with VMWare yet.

Next time I’ll write about Transdroid again, promise! Did I say a new release was coming soon?

Since December 2007, SeedM8 has been providing users with ways to use the BitTorrent protocol to it’s full potential with unparalleled support and inexpensive solutions. Today, SeedM8 is one of the largest seedbox providers with over 375 members and 30+ servers. Our servers pack new stable processors with plenty of RAM and harddrive space to insure your files are getting to their peers. No waiting lines, no subscription requirements, no costly accounts, no weary privacy policies and no unfair agreements are what you are guaranteed with SeedM8.

Users of SeedM8 can start using Transdroid very easily: filling in your server, username and torrent client password(s) and you’re set! If you like, you can use all of Transmission, Deluge and rTorrent (with your RPC password) at once. See what the speed of SeedM8′s hosting can do with the magic of Transdroid: see the offered monthly plans.

Did I already say that Transdroid finally supports The Pirate Bay as in-app search site?

To at least make something nice out of this post, check out this nice review by AppJudgement. Although it doesn’t really go into the great features of Transdroid, it’s a nice introduction into how to set up Transdroid.

1. Swipe to switch Do you have multiple servers configured in Transdroid? Many people do, like keeping a config for home Wi-Fi connections. You can switch between server configurations via the menu, but it’s easier to swipe. Just make a right-to-left (or left-to-right) motion to switch to the next (or previous) config. Want to switch using the server list? Tap the active server bar at the top of the screen.
2. Restricting transfer rates If your server is overloaded with traffic, you might want to restrict the bandwidth usage on your torrents. The ‘Set transfer rates’ menu option allows you to set both maximum upload and download rates. Want easy access? Tap the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
3. Filter-while-typing A feature that is a bit hidden and probably only for users of Android devices with keyboards: filter-while-typing. In any list in Transdroid (say, the main screen) you can start typing to filter the shown list. Looking to remove one torrent from your huge list? Type the first letters and you’ll find it quickly.
4. Active transfer filtering If you have many torrents running, it sometimes is easier to consider only actively transferring torrents as active instead of those that are not paused. Choosing ‘Filter list -> Only transferring (> 0KB/s)’. Started torrents that have an upload and download rate of 0KB/s will show up in the ‘inactive’ torrent list.
5. Barcode scanner I am still not sure how useful it is, but many users have requested it: a barcode scanner that starts torrent searches. Any barcode is translated to an (EAN or UPC) code that is translated into a search query. I believe it works surprisingly well with some results filtering and string magic. Accessable via ‘Add -> Scan barcode’.
6. Auto-refresh If you are connected on local Wi-Fi or have a stable connection, you might want Transdroid to automatically refresh the torrent screen. Choose ‘Settings -> Interface settings ->Refresh interval’ to set how often it auto-refreshes.
7. In-app search switching Did your query not show satisfactory torrent results? You can switch between the in-app search providers easily using the menu. And left-to-right swiping works here as well.
8. File-level priorities To be honest: this feature isn’t even released officially yet, but from the next version onwards you can set priorities on a file level. Open the details screen of an active torrent and view the file listing. Long-pressing allows you to adjust a file’s priority or disable its downloading at all. As with search result, you can use the checkbox to perform actions for many at once.

Any tips you want to share yourself? Feel free to leave your comments here.

And from the next release on connecting to your seedbox cannot be easier. Transdroid partnered with Xirvik to offer even easier setup. Depending on your Xirvik server plan (starting at $4,95 a week), you can connect to rTorrent, Torrentflux-b4rt or uTorrent with on 4 simple setttings. Moreover, Xirvik will sponsor Transdroid development to build new features and improve existing ones. Are you a Xirvik user? Make sure to pass them your Transdroid feature requests so they get pushed forward in the work queue.

I am a strong supporter of free and open-source software. Although not always possible, I believe software should be free to use, adapt, redistribute or even sell. However, I also believe that software released under such conditions should always be free. In particular, I believe we should encourage any derivative works to be free and open-source as well. Until now Transdroid was released with an Apache License 2.0, which is pretty much fully permissive. The change to the GPLv3, which is a copyleft license, ensures any work based on Transdroid version released in the future needs to be released under GPLv3 as well.

Any Transdroid version based on source code, documentation, meta files, etc. of revision 138 or earlier (released Transdroid version 0.13.5 and earlier and beta versions 0.14.0 beta 3 and earlier) are still under the Apache License 2.0, while from revision 139 and onwards (including any future Transdroid releases) will be licensed with GNU General Public License version 3. Transdroid reuses some code released by their own licenses (Apache and LGPL), which will be left in tact.

Hopefully this explains why all future works of (or based on) Transdroid will be open-source forever.