How to open Magnet Links with Google Chrome and Transmission on Ubuntu

Magnet links represent a way to reference resources available for download via peer-to-peer. This is a relatively new way of access to peer to peer resources that will probably substitute in time the BitTorrent files. The differences with the afore mentioned files are that magnet links identify the files by the content’s hash value and not by name or location. This is an improvement in the effort of a more unique identification and fake content’s isolation. Another huge improvement is the fact that peer-to-peer content providers won’t have to store physical files anymore. Magnet links are just plain text and can therefore be stored effortlessly on any web page and even copied into emails, etc…

 

Magnets can nowadays be found on many peer-to-peer content providers like The Pirate Bay. There are however two main problems with them: they aren’t supported by all BitTorrent clients and, even when they are, by clicking on a magnet link the browser doesn’t usually open the desired application to resolve the request.

For the first problem the solution is quite simple. Clients are getting updates to include the magnet links features. Vuze, µtorrent, and the last version of Transmission are just three of the BitTorrent clients that support magnet links.

For the second problem I found a solution to open a magnet link with Transmission via Google Chrome.

This works for sure with Ubuntu 9.10 and Ubuntu 10.04.

Open the terminal and type

$ gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/command "transmission %s"

Enter

$ gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/needs_terminal false -t bool
Enter

$ gconftool-2 -t bool -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/enabled true

Enter

In this way you should be set up to use magnet links with your Ubuntu distribution and the default BitTorrent client Transmission.

Have fun.