
uTorrent Becomes Ad-Supported to Rake in Millions - tomse
http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-becomes-ad-supported-to-rake-in-millions-120810/
======
huhtenberg
No surprise here, really.

uTorrent went downhill steadily after it got bought by BitTorrent. The
original uT was beautiful in its well-thought minimalist design and lean code.
The first thing BitTorrent did was they messed with the UI. Then started
bundling some BS features like streaming, ratings and so on. And an elegant,
simple, yet intricate piece of software started crumbling. I used to give uT
as an example of really good software design and execution, but sadly it's no
more... time for a rewrite it seems :)

~~~
xentronium
Transmission is my go-to client on linux and os x. Very smallish and simple
UI. I wonder if their port to windows [1] is usable.

[1] <http://sourceforge.net/projects/trqtw/>

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Transmission's great. Came with Ubuntu, lets me download Torrents from magnet
URIs, out of the way with no hassle.

Or what mTorrent used to be (the greek m looks like a u, but isn't, and is
pronounced "micro" for the SI prefix)

~~~
gcr
Are you talking about µTorrent? If so, µ is pronounced "mu" or "mew"; see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9C>

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Ah, my bad. Its Wikipedia page is MTorrent though (uppercase)

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baddox
I've never understood why anyone who is tech savvy would use a closed-source
BitTorrent client, _especially_ if they plan on using it to commit copyright
infringement. There are open source alternatives, like deluge (which is cross
platform and has a remote client feature that's splendid) or rtorrent (a great
little ncurses client for *nix).

~~~
lelandbatey
The best client that I have used so far is by _far_ Transmission for *nix
systems. I learned about it when I got my first mac, and now it makes for a
lovely headless seedbox.

~~~
antihero
The web UI is also really nice and simple.

I think the reason I use Transmission over rtorrent is that it seems to allow
you to "eat" stuff that you put in a blackhole, which is rather nice.

~~~
someperson
Wait what?

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beloch
They've hit a sticky spot.

I'd much rather pay a couple dollars for ad-free software than use something
with annoying ads in it. However, like most people I'd probably be illogically
unwilling to suddenly pay for the same software I've been using for free.

In the short-term I'll probably just avoid updating, but in the long-term I'll
migrate to another torrent client! This is probably the beginning of the end
for uTorrent.

~~~
jmillikin

      > I'd much rather pay a couple dollars for ad-free
      > software than use something with annoying ads in it.
    

It's a torrent client. If you're willing to pay money for a nicer experience,
then you're not in the target audience.

~~~
eps
I'm willing to pay money for a nicer experience with movies, but I can't.
Presently, that experience - no ads, no DRM and instant access - is only
available for free.

~~~
Rastafarian
Completely agree + IMHO it's insane to give money to the entertainment
industry, provided it will use part of them to bribe politicians, destroy
freedom, establish totalitarian control over Internet and PC platform.

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vasco
In a perfect world the ads would be a small link right after the torrent
title/name. The link would read "buy original" and would send you to a webpage
with links to Amazon/Steam/other store where you would get to buy the original
if you liked what you read/seen/heard/played. They could make some affiliate
profit out of it too.

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jdangu
Massive alienation of users through invasive ads is the beginning of the end.

~~~
octopine
Starting with uTorrent "enhancing" their users' experiences with bundled
adware:

[http://www.ghacks.net/2012/05/04/utorrent-update-comes-
bundl...](http://www.ghacks.net/2012/05/04/utorrent-update-comes-bundled-with-
adware/)

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micheljansen
I've actually never used uTorrent myself, but I found myself quite appalled by
the title and then slowly warming up to the ideas as I read the article.

As I understand, the company behind uTorrent currently makes their money from
people who install a browser toolbar bundled with the uTorrent installer. This
is one of the sleaziest sources of revenue. Putting some ads in the app itself
is at least honest.

Even better, rather than having your average "Clean your computer now!" ads,
they apparently plan to advertise using "sponsored torrents", from within a
BitTorrent client. That's actually pretty clever! If they push this a bit
more, they can use uTorrent as a trojan horse for a legitimate BitTorrent
platform the way iTunes went from being an app to put music on your iPod to a
full-blown music store.

I'll defer my judgement until I see how this turns out, but it can hardly be
worse than a browser toolbar.

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sp332
This seems like the perfect application for oldversion.com
<http://www.oldversion.com/uTorrent.html>

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ianstormtaylor
Wow. TorrentFreak has 48! bugs found with Ghostery. I think that is the
highest I've ever seen. Speaking of a service that's supported by ads (and
worse than ads).

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uvTwitch
Thanks for notifying me to not upgrade uTorrent.

~~~
tuananh
i haven't upgraded since 2.0.4

~~~
ditoa
Yeah I am still on 2.2.1 as I did not like the changes they were making to the
UI (thankfully just a few clicks changes it back to the old look). Never even
installed 3.x

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CrazedGeek
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_client...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients)

If you feel the urge to switch. (I like Transmission -- clean, efficient,
great as a daemon + web interface).

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DigitalSea
Looks like it's time to give Deluge another try. uTorrent started out great
then they started bundling in malware and now they're adding in advertisements
- as if they need the extra cash in the first place.

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ojiikun
I can't claim that I was the first to have this thought, but I will post it to
provide a possible positive counterpoint:

If these adverts are for legitimate, legal torrents, their addition to the
client could greatly increase the fraction of torrent traffic that is, well,
legal. This would help put an end to the "all torrent traffic is illegal"
argument for throttling and blocking used by ISPs and governments.

So perhaps this is a ploy to make some advertising money, but with a subplot
of ensuring torrents keep working the way they do.

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smegel
uT went crap after 3.1. I use an old 64 bit version of 3.0 - no ads and no
plan to upgrade.

~~~
alan_cx
Er, I thought it went crap after 1.6.1 !!!!!!!

IIRC, and please forgive my terrible memory, something happened with ownership
or the main programmer "selling out", which caused a lot of worry about
privacy, etc. I believe that 1.6.1 was the last "safe" version in relation to
that.

And for years I stuck with 1.6.1

Whether or not is was utterly wasting my time, I really dont know!!!

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RexRollman
With that kind of money, I wonder how long it will take someone to sue them
for "profiting from promoting piracy", even though they don't.

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thirsteh
Millions? Doubt many of the users of the application care about ads, so unless
they charge for impressions...

~~~
dguido
They didn't say the currency they're using. It's millions because it's all in
Facebook dollars (effectively ~$5 USD total).

~~~
autodidakto
Must be FB dollars if they can't manage to keep the lights on with 15-20 mil

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SeppoErviala
Why use proprietary adware when there are FOSS alternatives available?

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jamesjguthrie
Time to choose a new BitTorrent client.

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PaulHoule
if they get rid of that conduit.com BS I'll be happy

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minm
Here is one alternative: <http://www.tonido.com/app_torrent_home.html>. Manage
your torrents from anywhere.

