[easrng]

BitTorrent is easier to understand (IMO) and can sometimes be faster at lookups than IPFS. IPFS dedups content, whereas if you have an identical file in 2 torrents but only one is seeded, you can't download it from the other one. As far as I know those are the only differences.

Edit: Actually BitTorrent v2 dedups files so it seems like IPFS and BitTorrent are now functionally identical.

[dudehere]

BitTorrent, in my view, is a messy format, while IPFS is more clear in design. BitTorrent, namely, has fixed chunks and data overlaps in them from adjacent files which make the format artificially merging different files and create difficulties to treat parts individually, e.g. pick a single random file and check its only hash from a torrent. It looks like they couldn't get the basics deeply comprehended at the design stage.

This is much neater in IPFS. Files and data blocks are individually handled, and there is no situation when a hash embraces several independent file fragments. Adaptive block sizes are also supported which is extremely useful for handling such collections as LG is (however I haven't checked if it's really used at present) instead of having an extra layer of hashes to rehash files individually after the torrent hashed their chopped "tape/tar" chucks. The forced BitTorrent serialization and subsequent fixed-size chunk chopping are basically absent in IPFS. This helps structuring the search and facilitates deduplication, too, through the strict Merkel tree correspondence to files, as opposed to the randomized data chunks having a fixed size for no real necessity and meaningless hashes for wider applications.

To me these are the key aspects, even torrent bug fixes, that IPFS possesses.

[0-_-0]

>BitTorrent, namely, has fixed chunks and data overlaps in them from adjacent files

BitTorrent 2 fixes that: https://blog.libtorrent.org/2020/09/bittorrent-v2/ (hash trees section)

[dudehere]

Thanks, I actually did suspect they do. They still aren't Web friendly and require dedicated software unlike IPFS via gateways being more Web-ready.

Who knows, BitTorrent might have never fixed this without seeing how IPFS works.

[easrng]

Though it isn't an ideal solution (it's rather large and doesn't have DHT support), https://webtorrent.io supports torrents in browsers.

[dudehere]

Evolution makes different systems adopt each other's features and eventually they may equate as operating systems did. IPFS has key necessary features more on the surface and is a lot more adaptive to modern operating systems compared to torrents, with much less internal games nearly absent in a nodal IPFS software design.

Multiple things make IPFS a more architecture-oriented solution than application-oriented BitTorrent.

There are various application features yet holding back BitTorrent and LG will utilize them in future.