Utorrent

µTorrent (or uTorrent, commonly abbreviated as "µT" or "uT") is a free-of-charge, ad-supported, closed source BitTorrent client owned by BitTorrent, Inc. It is the most widely used BitTorrent client outside China (where Xunlei is more popular.[15]) The "µ"(Greek letter "mu") in its name comes from the SI prefix "micro-", referring to the program's small memory footprint: the program was designed to use minimal computer resources while offering functionality comparable to larger BitTorrent clients such as Vuze or BitComet. The program has received consistently good reviews for its feature set, performance, stability, and support for older hardware and versions of Windows.

The program has been in active development since its first release in 2005. Although originally developed by Ludvig Strigeus, since December 7, 2006, the code is owned and maintained by BitTorrent, Inc.[16] The code has also been employed by BitTorrent, Inc. as the basis for version 6.0 and above of the BitTorrent client, a re-branded version of µTorrent.

Features present in µTorrent include:

Streaming of video torrents

Teredo tunneling / IPv6 support

Micro Transport Protocol (µTP) preliminary support as of 1.8.2 with full-support added in 2.0

UPnP support for all versions of Windows, without needing Windows XP's UPnP framework

Protocol encryption (PE)

Peer exchange (PEX) with other BitTorrent clients:

libtorrent and clients based on it like Deluge or qBittorrent have full µTorrent PEX support

Transmission and clients based on libTransmission have full µTorrent PEX support

KTorrent has full µTorrent PEX support as of 2.1 RC1

Vuze, formerly Azureus, has full support as of version 3.0.4.3

RSS ("broadcatching")

"Trackerless" BitTorrent support using DHT, compatible with the original BitTorrent client and BitComet

User configurable intelligent disk caching system

Full proxy server support

HTTPS tracker support

Configurable bandwidth scheduler

Localized for 66 languages.[23]

Initial seeding of torrents

Customizable search bar & user interface design.[24]

Configuration settings and temporary files are stored in a single directory, allowing portable use

WebUI: A plugin currently in beta testing that allows µTorrent running on one computer to be controlled from another computer, either across the internet or on a LAN, using a Web browser

A new web user interface, codenamed Falcon, is in development. It supports encrypted sessions and the ability of going through firewalls without port forwarding, while being more complete and easier to start using than its predecessor.[25]

Embedded Tracker: a simple tracker designed for seeding torrents, lacking a web interface or list of hosted torrents. It is not designed for secure or large-scale application.[26]

Quick-resumes interrupted transfers

Versions of µTorrent up to 1.8.5 build 17091[27] can use as little as 14 MB of RAM running on a 486 processor on Windows 95.[28] Unicode support for Windows 95/98/ME, avoiding use of the Microsoft Layer for Unicode which is several times larger than µTorrent. As of March, 2011, newer versions required at least Windows XP or newer.[29] Currently µTorrent requires at least Windows XP.[30]

Two "easter egg" hidden features in the About subsection of Help: clicking the µTorrent logo plays a Deep Note-like sound effect,[31] and typing the letter "t" starts a Tetris-like game called μTris,[31][32][33] which in 2008 was selected as #1 of the "Top 10 Software Easter Eggs" by LifeHacker.[34]

Size

µTorrent is shipped as a single stand-alone compressed executable file, installed at first run. Recent versions have included the ability to install themselves on first run. Small executable size is achieved by avoiding the use of many libraries, notably the C++ standard library and stream facilities, and creating substitutes written specifically for the program. The executable is then compressed to roughly half of its compiled and linked size using UPX.

Operating system support

µTorrent is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.[17]

The first test version for Mac OS X, running on Mac OS X 10.5, was released on 27 November 2008.[35]

On September 2, 2010, the native Linux version of µTorrent Server was released. Firon, an administrator of the µTorrent community forum, said that they had been working on this project for a few months prior to the release as it was the most requested feature for some time. This release is intended for users who are seeking a fast command-line interface based BitTorrent client with a remote web-based management. They also mentioned that a full featured client with a GUI is a work in progress.[36] He also said: "This is a native Linux port and is known to work on Ubuntu 9.10+, Debian 5+ and Fedora 12+. Others may work, but they are not officially supported. Kernel 2.6.13 or newer required. 64-bit host systems currently have some problems, so 32-bit only for now. For trackers who whitelist, the user agent is "uTorrent/300B(build#)(server)". The peerid is identical to the Windows 3.0 client. They share version numbers because of a common codebase."[36]

Currently μTorrent supports Windows XP or newer and Mac OS X 10.5 or newer

Revenue

In early versions, Strigeus had built in a web redirection via nanotorrent for search queries entered through the search bar that displayed advertisements in a frame on the web browser. Some users thought this suspicious because tracking could be implemented by recording the IP addresses of those downloading/receiving the advertisements, and the search functionality could easily be used to track user queries through whichever web-interface the client is going through to execute the search. After a short trial period, the advertising was disabled, mitigating possible concerns.[37]

A later version of the software has, instead of ads, a "search all sites" feature, which is a keyword-based search bar that delivers listings of torrent files at different trackers. A frame at the top displays advertisements (server-side) in the browser when the search function is used. In version 1.5, no ads are present in the program itself.

As of build 463, a redirect bypass feature became available in the Advanced options.

As of version 1.8.2, the µTorrent installer gives the user the option to download and install the Ask.com toolbar. This is done on the first run of the program and the user may explicitly opt out of this feature by deselecting it.[38][39] The developers stated the addition was needed for funds to continue development. In late 2010, this was replaced with the Conduit Engine.

Toolbars

In late 2010, some controversy arose with a release of µTorrent which included adware in the form of the Conduit Engine, which installed a toolbar, and made homepage and default search engine changes to a user's web browser. A number of users reported that the installation was made without the user's consent.[40] There were some complaints that the adware software was difficult to remove.[41] In 2011, µTorrent bundled the Microsoft Bing toolbar.[42]

Paid version

On July 15, 2011, BitTorrent announced that they would offer a paid version of µTorrent called "µTorrent Plus". This new version would offer extra features, such as integrated file conversion, anti-virus and a built in media player.[43] On 6 October 2011, the Pre-alpha of µTorrent Plus was released to an invite only community.[44] As of December 2011, µTorrentPlus 3.1 Stable is now available for purchase and download.

Ads

In August 2012, BitTorrent announced the addition of advertising in the free version of µTorrent which could be individually dismissed by users.[45] Due to response from users, a few days later, the company stated that ads could be optionally turned off.[46] Starting from version 3.2.1 ads can actually be disabled manually from tools menu.[47]

Starting with µTorrent version 3.2.2, the software also contains in-content advertisements described as "Featured Torrent".[48] It is possible to disable the "Featured Torrent" by selecting Options>Advanced, searching for the parameter offers.sponsored_torrent_offer_enabled and switching the value to "False". The program must be restarted in order to remove the advertisement.[48]

Pronunciation

The author of µTorrent wrote in 2005, "I usually say 'you torrent' because it looks like a u", and offered "microtorrent", "mytorrent" (as "my" [myː] is the Swedish pronunciation of the Greek letter µ) and later "mutorrent" as alternate pronunciations.[49]

The symbol μ is the lowercase Greek letter mu, which stands for the SI prefix "micro-" meaning "one millionth". It refers to the program's small footprint.

Contributors

Original development was performed by Ludvig Strigeus ("ludde", from Sweden), the creator of µTorrent. Serge Paquet ("vurlix", from Canada) acted as release coordinator, and had intended to work on Linux and Mac OS X ports. He maintained the µTorrent website and forum up until the end of 2005, but is no longer affiliated with µTorrent.

Development after the purchase by BitTorrent is performed by developers Adam Kelly[50] ("AdamK"), Arvid Norberg ("arvid", author of libtorrent), Greg Hazel ("alus"), Jan Brittenson ("CodeRed"), Richard Choi ("rchoi"), Ryan Norton ("RyanNorton") and Venkat Naidu ("naiduv") among others at BitTorrent Inc. Strigeus remains as a technical consultant.

Other tasks continue to be performed by ongoing contributors. Giancarlo Martínez ("Firon", from Puerto Rico) maintains the µTorrent forums and FAQ. Carsten Niebuhr ("Directrix", from Germany) developed the original µTorrent Web User Interface which is now maintained by "Ultima".

Reception

μTorrent was once praised for its small size and minimal computer resources used, which set it apart from other clients. PC Magazine stated that it "packs an outstanding array of features" in 2006[51] and listed it in their 2008 "Best free 157 software tools".[52] It was also in PC World's "101 Fantastic freebies".[53] The website TorrentFreak.com said it was the most feature rich BitTorrent client available,[54] later summarizing a 2009 University of California, Riverside study[55] which concluded that "µTorrent Download Speeds Beat Vuze By 16%" on average and "on 10% of [the 30 most used] ISPs, µTorrent users were downloading 30% faster than Vuze users".[56] About.com said it was the best BitTorrent client available, citing its small size and "minimal impact to the rest of your computer's speed."[57] Wired.com said its "memory footprint is also ridiculously small".[58] PC & Tech Authority magazine (Australia) gave it 6 stars (out of 6).[59] Lifehacker.com rated it the best BitTorrent client available (Windows) in 2008[60] and 2011 (Windows[61] and Mac[62]). CNET.com gave it 5 stars (of 5) saying it features "light and quick downloading".[63]

In November 2009 52 million users were reported to be using the application,[64] and in late 2011, 132 million.[65]

According to a study by Arbor Networks, the 2008 adoption of IPv6 by µTorrent caused a 15-fold increase in IPv6 traffic across the Internet over a ten-month period.[66]

Languages

The software is available in over 65 languages.

This is the software which is used to download  larege size things like Games Software and Movies