Support torrents for apps in Appcenter

Registered by Arjun

Just throwing an idea out there...

If a torrent is provided by developer, users should be able to toggle between torrent and direct download when installing apps from the appcenter. It can be as simple as http://imgur.com/IVz2ePY

Why do this:
1. In today's age where torrents are so prevalent, I find it silly that one needs a separate program to use them. After all, its just 'another way' to send a file from one location to another. Torrent download should be natively supported by operating systems, just as they ship with direct-download software out of the box.
2. Torrent support in appcenter will allow users to download large application files more easily and it could reduce strain on elementary servers.

Implementation:
Torrent download would have to be supported in elementary by default in order to achieve this. This could be achieved in the following ways:
1. Building a stripped-down torrent client directly into the appcenter's download manager. Torrent downloads and direct downloads would then seamlessly just work out-of-the-box in one unified UI. Torrents will be marked with a <torrent> tag in the download manager and it will have other basic lablels such as seeds, leeches, trackers, etc upon clicking for 'more info'.
2. Separating out the download manager from appcenter and distributing it as a standalone app that universally handles all downloads (torrents + direct) in elementary. When a user clicks on the download button in appcenter, it will then launch the download-manger in the background and load up the respective download. Once done, it will send a quick notification and close itself automatically.

Blueprint information

Status:
Complete
Approver:
None
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
None
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
Obsolete
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None
Completed by
Danielle Foré

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We could use http://aria2.sourceforge.net/ as the backend.
-- Arjun

(?)

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