Editing BitComet (section)

== Controversy and criticism ==
=== Hash reporting ===
Since version 0.86 BitComet includes discussion and stat-tracking features which send information about torrents to the Bitcomet.com servers, including the torrent [[Hash function|hash]].{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

=== DHT exploit ===
During version 0.60, BitComet received bad publicity because its implementation of the [[Distributed hash table|DHT]] feature, which was new at the time, could be exploited to ignore the private flag of a tracker. This allowed users to avoid download and upload ratio restrictions, which are common on private trackers. Some private trackers responded to this by [[blacklist]]ing version 0.60.<ref name="slyck BitComet Banned">{{Cite web
| url=http://www.slyck.com/story1021.html
| title=BitComet Banned
| access-date=2007-01-15
| year=2005
| author=Thomas Mennecke
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070124131627/http://www.slyck.com/story1021.html
| archive-date=2007-01-24
| url-status=dead
}}</ref> BitComet developer RnySmile reverted the client back to version 0.59 in response to the blacklisting.<ref name="slyck BitComet Reverts to Version .59">{{Cite web
| url=http://www.slyck.com/story1030.html
| title=BitComet Reverts to Version .59
| access-date=2007-01-15
| year=2005
| author=Thomas Mennecke
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070124132253/http://www.slyck.com/story1030.html
| archive-date=2007-01-24
| url-status=dead
}}</ref>

The [[Distributed hash table|DHT]] exploit was fixed in version 0.61.<ref name="slyck BitComet 0.62 and You">{{Cite web
| url=http://www.slyck.com/story1094.html
| title=BitComet .62 and You
| access-date=2006-12-03
| year=2006
| author=Thomas Mennecke
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070518105128/http://www.slyck.com/story1094.html
| archive-date=2007-05-18
| url-status=dead
}}</ref><ref name="slyck BitComet 0.64 Released">{{Cite web
| url=http://www.slyck.com/story1152.html
| title=BitComet .64 Released
| access-date=2006-01-15
| year=2006
| author=Thomas Mennecke
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071008092503/http://www.slyck.com/story1152.html
| archive-date=2007-10-08
| url-status=dead
}}</ref>

=== Padding files ===
Starting with version 0.85 (from early 2007), BitComet added a non-standard option to its torrent maker that ensures that no two data files in a multi-file torrent occupy the same BitTorrent "piece." To accomplish this, BitComet includes in the torrent a collection of empty "padding" files which houses the remainder of each file's last "piece". While these files are transparent to BitComet users, they damage the performance of other clients, because peers must devote resources and bandwidth to the padding files, with no benefit to the non-BitComet users. These files can constitute up to 10% of the total data transferred, creating a substantial drain on the swarm.<ref name="TorrentFreak">{{Cite web
| url=http://torrentfreak.com/bitcomet-pollutes-bittorrent-with-junk-data/
| title=BitComet Pollutes BitTorrent with Junk Data
| date=2007-08-23
| author=Ernesto
| publisher=TorrentFreak
| access-date=August 24, 2007
| archive-date=2007-08-24
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070824150123/http://torrentfreak.com/bitcomet-pollutes-bittorrent-with-junk-data/
| url-status=live
}}</ref> BitComet developers added this feature to allow support of a feature called Long-Term Seeding in which the BitComet client can download files from other BitComet clients who have an identical file but not from the same torrent.  It also allows the downloading of individual files from other non torrent sources like ED2K links. The addition of the padding file ensures that a complete version of the file can be obtained rather than being unable to complete the relevant file or last "piece"  <ref name="Bitcoment Wiki">{{Cite web
| url=http://wiki.bitcomet.com/align_file_to_piece_boundary
| title=align_file_to_piece_boundary [BitComet Wiki]
| access-date=May 13, 2015
| archive-date=May 12, 2015
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512043305/http://wiki.bitcomet.com/Align_File_to_Piece_Boundary
| url-status=live
}}</ref>

Creation of padding files has been enabled by default since version 0.85, and as of version 1.36 is still enabled by default.{{citation needed|date=May 2008}}

=== FileHippo controversy ===
{{confusing|section|reason=the relationship/relevance of AppHit.com to either party in this 'controversy'|date=December 2023}}
The download site [[FileHippo]] ceased carrying new versions of BitComet in April 2008, with this announcement.

<blockquote>
As of April 2008 FileHippo will no longer be updating BitComet. As they have copied the FileHippo site text, files, images and update checker and are passing it off as original work. We recommend you use a different more reputable torrent client such as uTorrent.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.filehippo.com/download_bitcomet/ |title=Download BitComet 0.99 – FileHippo.com |date=April 2008 |access-date=2009-12-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080420170253/http://www.filehippo.com:80/download_bitcomet/ |archive-date= 2008-04-20}}</ref>
</blockquote>

This occurred after FileHippo reportedly noticed that the design and code of the AppHit.com site was very similar with the one FileHippo used, copying not only icons, but text from FileHippo's website and FileHippo's own original update checking software.

Because AppHit and BitComet were contractual partners, FileHippo decided to stop carrying BitComet.  BitComet has since terminated the partnership; by 2015 FileHippo made BitComet available once more.

=== Torrent file format ===
According to the official BitTorrent specification, 'All strings in a .torrent file that contains text must be [[UTF-8]] encoded'.<ref name="BitTorrentSpec">{{Cite web
| url=http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0003.html
| title=The BitTorrent Protocol Specification
| author=Bram Cohen
| access-date=2009-08-26
| archive-date=2014-02-08
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140208002821/http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0003.html
| url-status=live
}}</ref> When generating torrents on non-Latin character systems such as Chinese or Japanese, BitComet versions prior to 1.20<ref name="BitComet release notes">{{Cite web
| url=http://www.bitcomet.com/doc/changelog.htm
| title=BitComet release notes
| author=BitComet
| access-date=2010-03-27
| quote=Core Improve: use UTF-8 encoding when making torrent file by default for all language versions of Windows.
| archive-date=2010-12-17
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101217053502/http://www.bitcomet.com/doc/changelog.htm
| url-status=live
}}</ref> encoded the files' names and paths using the Windows Chinese/Japanese code page, and stored a UTF-8 version in a non-standard attribute.<ref name="BitCometSpec">{{Cite web
| url=http://blog.bitcomet.com/bitcomet/post_413/
| title=BitComet – Torrent File Format
| author=BitComet Support Team
| access-date=2009-08-26
| quote=In BitComet v0.58 or before, the string is encoded using MSCB (user's code page), and a ".utf-8" key is added for UTF-8 encoded string. In v0.59, the default encoding is changed to UTF-8 if the user's code page is neither Chinese nor Japanese.
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090514092326/http://blog.bitcomet.com/bitcomet/post_413
| archive-date=2009-05-14
| url-status=dead
}}</ref> Starting with the March 2010 release of version 1.20, BitComet's torrent format now conforms to the standard.