A Torrent Client is a program that manages torrent downloads as well as uploads using the BitTorrent protocol.

The first client ever, known as BitTorrent, was invented by Bram Cohen, late 2002. Cohen created the client based on what he refers to as the Golden Rule: the faster a user uploads, the faster he can download with a torrent client.

Many torrent clients have been at least partially based on the original Bit Torrent. Not all torrent clients were originally built for the BitTorrent protocol, having added support for the protocol at a later stage. There have been many attempts to package malware as torrent clients, probably due to the availability of many legitimate torrent clients and the users willingness to try new torrent clients.