uTorrent Adds "Featured Torrents" Ads — With No Opt Out (Yet) 399
wrekkuh writes "BitTorrent, Inc, the company who owns the freeware (but closed-source) BitTorrent client uTorrent, has announced that it will be updating its popular client with 'Featured Torrents.' In a post on uTorrent's forum, the company explained, 'This featured torrent space will be used to offer a variety of different types of content. We are working towards bringing you offers that are relevant to you. This means films, games, music, software ... basically anything that you will find interesting.' In the Q&A portion of their announcement, the company adds 'There is no way to turn in-client offers off.* We will pay attention to feedback, and may change this in the future.' (*The Plus version of the BitTorrent client does not include these ads)."
Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
I love Slashdot, but all the comments below are pretty standard bashing we've come to expect. My first thought was actually another direction: This could actually provide more legitimacy to the protocol. Any company showing you can use the medium for legal, profit-generating activities is a Good Thing in my book. Doubly so if if it's the founders.
uTorrent is the new Winamp. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you even used uTorrent recently? 5 years ago you didn't even need to install uTorrent, the executable was the entire program. It was extremely lightweight and fast.
Now they display ads everywhere, you have to uncheck multiple toolbars and crapware in the installer, and its bloated (I don't need a media player built into my torrent client).
How does putting toolbars in the installer and displaying ads all over your product provide legitimacy? It's just developers trying to cash in.
It's Winamp all over again. The developers made a product that people liked, got bought out, and the new overlords monetised it and ruined it.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. The very day they made a bog box appear in the UI advertising their premium 'Plus' version, I guessed the route it was going and ditched it for : Deluge [deluge-torrent.org].
Re: (Score:2)
In my case, it's why I've never upgraded beyond the 1.84.1644 version. Does exactly what I need w/o all the crap being added to all the other clients. So Sorry but I don't need my bt client also working as a media player, irc client, skype client or anything more then a bt client and it's that reason I don't use Opera.
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Running 2.2.1 here, also.
It can be found here [oldversion.com], if anyone is seeking it.
Fair warning: Versions prior to 1.8 don't support magnet links.
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks! Up... er... Downgraded.
Re: (Score:3)
Does 2.2x fix the problem with the little bitty .dat files growing into 50mb monsters while chewing 100% of CPU forever?
I skipped from 1.somethingancient to 3.whatevercurrent and tho some nice features have been added, the stupid .dat bug is insane. Not to mention all the crap I have to turn off again every time I reset the .dat file (using a known-good copy resets the crap, too).
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
That's where I ended up when I got sick of uTorrent turning itself into the next Azureus/Vuze. It really doesn't handle magnet links very well, though. For some reason, you can't change the base download location on a magnet, you have to "add torrent in paused mode," then manually change the location.
Seems very strange to me but it's still better than the mess that uTorrent is.
What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowadays? (Score:5, Interesting)
I dropped Azererus and Ares like a ton of bricks when they pulled this. Sad, because uTorrent was always awesome.
What alternatives do you suggest?
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada (Score:5, Informative)
Use rtorrent in linux. It is a terminal torrent program that has long since been the best torrent client, but it has no pretty GUI for people who think you have to click on things.
Re: (Score:3)
Since rtorrent is a CLI program it can be run unattended in a screen instance instead of cluttering your taskbar/tray/what-have-you.
rtorrent also has Windows binaries available for download and can be installed on OS X via MacPorts.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll recommend ruTorrent [google.com], a web frontend for rTorrent. I've been using it as the main interface for my seedbox. No database, no bullshit, just a nice, clean, user interface with great plugins available.
Re: (Score:2)
There is also http://code.google.com/p/rtgui/ [google.com], which is what I use.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Rtorrent can be controlled by XMLRPC, so people have written web front ends to it. So if you like a clicky GUI, you can use your browser. RUTorrent [google.com] is probably the best one going.
Re: (Score:3)
I find those who sling GUI around like it is an insult to be pathetically entrenched fan-boys who refuse to admit their choice of computing has been vastly outpaced.
Dude, calm down. Listen, and maybe you can learn something. If programs (not applications, solutions and other foggy business terms) are designed to do a single business it has certain value. For example, given the diverse amount of devices floating around, if you would like to get a widely adopted software, you should implement it on the most common interface available. That's the terminal. It is available on virtually every operating system, every device. Fucking old tech, but it works and it is quick and
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada (Score:5, Informative)
Deluge or (Mac/Linux/BSD only) Transmission
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada (Score:4, Funny)
As an old Usenetter, fuck you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the usenet server is usually seen like a proxy they are generally left alone.
(Beware of the words most of, usual and general)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What alternatives do you suggest?
Since the very first time I downloaded a torrent I've always used a command line downloader in a screen session. Now I use bittornado. I tried torrentflux but it seemed clunky compared to my screen solution. GUI seems a weird way to do it... your desktop has to stay logged in and powered up for days, maybe weeks, or you have to VNC to your server?
A quick apt-cache search torrent results in :
bittornado
ctorrent
deluge
ktorrent
rtorrent
torrentflux
unworkable
torrent clients seem to be in the position where mp3 p
Re: (Score:2)
bitflu is nice.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What alternatives do you suggest?
I'm interested in this, too. Sure, I could just continue using uTorrent without updating it, nor would the ads really bother me anyways since I don't keep the window open, but if there's anything leaner than uTorrent then I see no reason to keep using it. My needs are as follow: must run on Windows, must support IP-blocklists, must allow me to force encryption on and reject all unencrypted connections, and must allow me to quickly adjust speed limits.
qBittorrent [sourceforge.net]. I switched to that when uTorrent started getting funky. It's the closest one I could find to what uTorrent used to be. It's cross-platform (Win/Linux/OSX/OS2/BSD), OSS, and meets all your criteria. (Until I started looking, I hadn't realized that it had native support for blocklists, I've been using PeerBlock for that.)
Re: (Score:2)
Azureus still has the "classic interface"
...it's just buried... deeply. Very deeply. As in, I have to google to figure out how to turn it on because it's not immediately obvious how to do it from the GUI. Once you turn off all the "Vuze" cruft, Azureus still makes for a very good client.
I'm using Deluge to great effect, moreso since I finally setup an atom-based file server and you can log in to it remotely from another pc/laptop, either through the binary client, or the web interface. delug [deluge-torrent.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Since I use Windows and Linux, I prefer Deluge [deluge-torrent.org].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I switched to qBittorrent [qbittorrent.org]. It's open source, uses Qt4, and it looks similar to older versions of uTorrent.
TIXATI (Score:2)
The Tixati bittorrent client is excellent. Free, no ads or tool bars. Definitely worth checking out.
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada (Score:4, Interesting)
have they fixed the RSS feed filtering? because uTorrent was the ultimate killer for that one feature for ever.
I can point at an RSS feed and give it a list of filters to match, then it only downloads those in the filter stream PLUS checks to see if it already downloaded that file and skips it if it did.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm also loving Transmission. It functions great on my linux and mac computers. Occasionally a pop up appears asking for a donation but that's about it for annoyances. I don't see a problem with uTorrent running ads or a program occasionally asking for a donation. It's free and if you don't like it you can always use an alternative.
fairly standard business model nowadays (Score:5, Insightful)
They're basically copying what YouTube and Twitter are doing, selling a "featured content" slot.
Re:fairly standard business model nowadays (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is one reason not to use either of those if you don't want to be profiled and have ads targeting you. From TFS...
The only way to do that is to record all of your activity on bittorrent. Once they record that, the next step will be to hand it over to the government / media industry attorneys for later prosecution.
I propose a new name, MAXTorrent. (Score:2)
MAXTorrent - for all your rss and media suggestion needs!
how can you be very tiny and have a banner fetcher/shower(I presume some html component)?
or how about very tiny something that does. sure it's tiny +, but still could just brand it as torrent plus.
"Torrent Plus
Play it Safe. Play it Now. Play it Anywhere.
Protect your computer with integrated antivirus
Get the codecs you need to enjoy HD video
Easily move files to your
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A pirate version of torrent? Is there a torrent for this? :-)
Re: (Score:3)
A pirate version of torrent? Is there a torrent for this? :-)
http://www.unblockedpiratebay.com/index.php?loadurl=/search/utorrent/0/7/0#.UCeqAaOupVM [unblockedpiratebay.com]
yeah.
Showing ads to thieves (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting business model.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Exactly. I was going to post the exact same thing. Too bad I don't have mod points right now.
I find it very ironic that BitTorrent Inc wants to make money using ads off essentially being an illegal distributor of mostly copyrighted content to those mostly illegally downloading copyrighted content, much of which are shows in which ads have been stripped out of them.
Re: (Score:3)
Except they don't distribute anything but their own client. It's the users that do all of the distribution.
That's like saying you find it odd that Google advertises through Chrome because Chrome can be used for illegal purposes.
In theory yes but lets face it, it is likely that most uTorrent users use the program for a slightly illegal purpose.
It's a difference between "can be used for" and "is mostly used for", Chrome is the first and uTorrent the latter.
Re: (Score:2)
In theory yes but lets face it, it is likely that most uTorrent users use the program for a slightly illegal purpose.
Well, that's the users' fault, not theirs.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is why "Showing ads to thieves" still holds.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Showing ads to thieves (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting business model.
Okay, first off, downloading copyrighted material isn't stealing.
Second, while a lot of piracy happens using bittorrent, a LOT of legal businesses use it also. For example, The Internet Archive is now online via Bit Torrent. http://bt1.archive.org/hotlist.php [archive.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Might also want to mention WoW patches, which is probably one of the largest legitimate uses of bit-torrent today. Well, aside perhaps from linux-isos, but the most WELL KNOWN legitimate use.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed there are legit uses for torrents. But if you add it all up, I bet 99.5+% of torrent traffic is the [illegal] exchange of copyrighted, commercial video, music, and software (and in that order, by volume).
Re: (Score:2)
It is obviously speculation and I didn't claim otherwise. But if you think it is wrong, you are welcome to provide a counter speculation or perhaps even a "source".
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, right :)
We only wish that were true!
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't make it OK.
What makes it "OK" is possibly someone's personal opinion.
But is that really what most uTorrent users use it for?
That doesn't matter at all.
Re: (Score:2)
What makes it "OK" is possibly someone's personal opinion.
Well, either that or the law.
That doesn't matter at all.
It does if the argument is about "Showing ads to thieves".
Re: (Score:2)
Well, either that or the law.
The legality of something usually tells you nothing about whether it's moral or not. Well, unless you choose to base your morals entirely on whether something is legal or not, but in that case, I'd say your moral code is pretty fickle (as laws change).
It does if the argument is about "Showing ads to thieves".
They're shown to everyone. I don't even see why it matters, or why anyone would care. They have no way to magically know who they're showing ads to, nor do I believe it should be their responsibility. If someone doesn't like it, they can take it up with the so
Re: (Score:2)
And I don't try to push the copying vs. stealing debate
It's a meaningful distinction, I think. On one hand, you take something away from something else (which inflicts actual harm upon them), and on the other, you're simply getting a copy. And if what he is true, then he already paid for it. What's your problem?
it's generally not acceptable to break the law because you forgot were you put your game.
Again, I don't know where your moral code comes from, but mine certainly doesn't come from the law.
Beside, you shouldn't pirate games anyway, you never know what malware you may get.
I suspect that only happens if you don't know what you're doing (you know, like downloading virtually any software from the internet). In that case, it's p
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Pirates spend more on media than non-pirates.
Re: (Score:2)
Not all uses of it infringe upon copyright, and they can't help that their software is sometimes 'misused.' Honestly, I guess no one can ever have advertisements simply because something that their users do might be illegal.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, the entitled. ...Weak willed individuals unable to deny themselves something and entitlements speak volumes.
"Entitlements" like being paid for the rest of their lives PLUS four more generations, for work completed once.
"Entitlements" like the power to punish suspected infringers without any interference from?
"Entitlements" such as not even being financially responsible for the exercise of the above, instead putting that off on the ISP and their workforces, without compensation?
Talk some more about "entitlements", you shilling ballsack.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering that there is more that uses Bit torrent (WoW, Linux distributions, etc...) that is not infringing (Hint: It is a different crime on the books...it is not theft...) calling this that is a big fat line of BS.
And do you honestly think that WoW and Linux distributions is what most uTorrent users use that program for?
Re: (Score:2)
File sharers tend to spend a lot of money on legal content as well actually. There are other reasons for pirating (eg, LAN play in SC II) and avoiding viruses, rootkits and malware packaged with legal copies of modern games.
So pirated material doesn't include viruses, rootkits or malware?
As to your misuse of the word "theft" to refer to sharing, see this handy guide: http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/2008/8/27/12/27311d2d7c84e8f3e3f5036ed08d198b.jpg [buzzfed.com]
Sure but that doesn't make it OK.
News Flash.... (Score:3)
You know they dont point a gun at you and force you to upgrade to get the ad's. I'm still running the ad-free older version and it works great.
If you dont like ad's dont upgrade.
Re: (Score:3)
New users will end up with the new version. Also they can, via EULA, forbid you to use older versions. Or even make them stop working.
Re: (Score:2)
"forbid you to use older versions."
EULAS have no power at all. Who cares. I'll be giving out the older version to friends and you can find the old versions all over the place. in fact it's easier now because of their tactics.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
When you say "your own books", do you mean books you wrote yourself, that you hold copyright on?
This sounds like a good story worth an article.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. When uTorrent auto-update broke my installation, the most informative posts I could find on the forums were "yeah, there were discussions about the auto-update problem, but they were all deleted by the admins."
I had impression, it is only allowed to discuss PEBKAC or ID10T type of problems. But something what might make uTorrent look bad is highly likely forbidden.
Also, in all my digging I pretty much never seen any response from developers or people in the know. Only the same clueless users lik
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
unwanted advertisement
To the uTorrent forums, that's exactly what it was.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And still, spamming is not allowed. Note the severe lack of viagra ads.
If he'd had a question about something relating to distributing his book with bittorrent, fine. If he was ranting about how tracker.foo.se was giving him grief and asking for suggestions, fine. If he was talking about how it was cool that an author that wasn't him released his shat as a torrent, peachy.
But he wasn't. He was promoting his content. That is advertising. Nobody asked him to, so it was also unsolicited. Unsolicited
Re:Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
I had an odd experience on the uTorrent forums recently.
I uploaded my own books to some torrent sites, and posted links to them. From the people on Demonoid, Pirate Bay, ISOHunt, and 4Chan, I got friendly and encouraging replies.
When I finally got around to uploading my Creative Commons licensed book to usenet, and then noted this on a popular usenet index, it was also deleted as spam.
Apparently, this was because it was a dupe. Sure enough I did a search and there it was. The previous poster beat me to it by several weeks. The best part was that the copy that was already uploaded was better than mine. It included additional information and metadata (including a blurb!) that made it more useful to import into ebook libraries.
Fucking pirates, and their continually superior products.
Why not ? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why not ? (Score:4, Informative)
You're grateful to Bram Cohen. He designed the protocol and created the original client in 2001, and formed BitTorrent, Inc. with two other people in 2004. (They presumably wanted to monetise it.) The protocol has not really changed much since 2003, apart from some extensions such as DHT trackers and peer exchange for more reliable swarming. And neither of them originated from that company.
The company AFAIK hasn't done pretty much anything noteworthy apart from purchasing uTorrent in 2007 and rebranding it.
Another act which shows the difference (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't know what's actually in the free beer, and by the time you get it, you can't take the mouse droppings out.
Re: (Score:3)
If you aren't paying the natural cost of the thing, you aren't the customer, you are the product. This insight occurred to Carlo Lorenzini in 1883.
Wayne? (Score:2)
slow news day?
Re: (Score:2)
More legitimate use (Score:4, Insightful)
I see this as a good thing. First, as long as the ads aren't obnoxious, it will get a little money for the uTorrent team. Second, it will help encourage legitimate use of torrents. One of the knock on torrents and why they are so often throttled and blocked is that they are a tool for piracy. While there are currently legitimate uses, I would suspect that 95% or more of usage is for piracy. If these ads expose more people to legitimate torrent content and help get the legitimate use up, that is a good thing all around.
Re: (Score:2)
I see this as a good thing. First, as long as the ads aren't obnoxious, it will get a little money for the uTorrent team. Second, it will help encourage legitimate use of torrents. One of the knock on torrents and why they are so often throttled and blocked is that they are a tool for piracy. While there are currently legitimate uses, I would suspect that 95% or more of usage is for piracy. If these ads expose more people to legitimate torrent content and help get the legitimate use up, that is a good thing all around.
First off, how do the Ads make them money? click thru or by people viewing them?
And um, I'm 100% sure you are just throwing out 95% like you are an expert. Are you? No?
STFU.
Another step away from the roots as "Torrent" (Score:2)
Torrent it used to be called, lightweight and fast and non-intrusive. That's why I started using it, and probably many others as well. As it got more bloated I could have abandoned it, but then I've got more than a few extra gigabytes of ram these days and my cpu doesn't exactly hiccup at any extra work it does, so... I don't really care it's grown a bit. It's still within my comfort zone just for being simple and doing what I need done.
So they're going to start showing sponsored content now? Fine with me.
Re: (Score:2)
And of course slashdot can't handle the letter "mju", so woooo for slashdot!
It is always the same story (Score:5, Insightful)
Devs create small, easy to use program which does the one job it was designed to do very well.
Lots of people start using the program because it is good and lightweight and not annoying.
Devs think "oh, our program is very good, but we cannot simply leave it as it is, we need to have MORE FEATURES".
More features get put in, making users angry, because they use the program for its ONE job it initially was designed to do, not for anything else, because they already have OTHER programs which do those jobs better anyway.
Devs think "oh, time to make some money".
Ads get put in, plus "oh you can buy the premium version".
Users leave.
First Azureus, which transformed from a simple bittorrent client to a "your personal multimedia database/video streaming/community" monstrosity called "Vuze". Now uTorrent goes down the same road, from a small, lightweight "I can only download and nothing else and that is my whole selling point" bittorrent client to a "you can stream video and organize your multimedia experience for all your mobile gadgets" monster and now they add advertising on top of it, but oh, you can buy the premium version without advertising.
Thanks, but no. I'll just move on to another free and lightweight bittorrent client, because that's why I came from Azureus(Vuze) to uTorrent in the first place. But now you turned into Vuze, too. It's not as if there aren't any other clients around, uTorrent really does not have any distinguishing features, so I just kept using it our of pure laziness to install something else and put up with the added bloat instead. But when devs really think their bittorrent client is awesome enough to make users put up with advertising, it's time to move on.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes the developers want to move out the the parents basement, sometime the parents want them out. They have devoted a considerable amount of time developing a product and so attempt to monetize it. Seems reasonable to me.
The lazy will stay, those willing to pay will stay and although you don't want extra services that have to be paid for the existing services are quite poor and so success in that market is quite possible and those that want that will stay.
I'm thinking they might not miss you when you
Re: (Score:3)
Sometimes the developers want to move out the the parents basement, sometime the parents want them out. They have devoted a considerable amount of time developing a product and so attempt to monetize it. Seems reasonable to me.
I only have problems when devs write a small lightweight program for one specific function (downloading files) and then, when the program does that job perfectly fine and does not really need improvement except for bugfixes, they add on function after function, hire another dev or two to write more bloat and then one day they post on their website "sorry people, writing all that stuff costs money, so we now have to put advertising into our program". The program was fine, there was no need to add more functi
qBittorrent (Score:4, Informative)
get it: "The qBittorrent project aims to provide a Free Software alternative to torrent." [qbittorrent.org]
Results not relevant (Score:2)
Unless they have categories for "warez" and "pr0n", I can guarantee that the feature results are completely irrelevant for what 95% of the world uses bitTorrent for.
Thank you (Score:2)
Disabled automatic updates. Not sure what the point is anyway, the last few updates seem to have added useless bloat, all the important functions have been around a while: scheduling, bandwidth controls, downloading individual files etc.
Re: (Score:3)
[...] actively updated and no bullshit
No B.S - 100% yes.
Actively updated - only on *NIX, because there is a lack of Windows developers. Recently there were even discussions about dropping Windows version because there were nobody who can make a Windows build. They found who can build, but Windows specific issues often remain unresolved due to lack of developers.
Shameless plug from an unaffiliated /. user: Windows developers with Qt experience, please help improve the qBittorent!