uTorrent Becomes Ad-Supported to Rake in Millions

[kitamesume]

trollish page imho, the thing that should be put on the #1 as a utorrent replacement is deluge, actually deluge is better than utorrent on certain features.

[avatarl]

trollish page imho, the thing that should be put on the #1 as a utorrent replacement is deluge, actually deluge is better than utorrent on certain features.

My personal favorite is Tixati, but if I had to recommend something to the average person using utorrent, it'd be qBittorrent.  I found Deluge to be buggy and there are nice options that the average user wouldn't use anyway.  qBittorrent though looks a bit like utorrent, so the learning curve wouldn't be steep and it's easy enough to use.

[Bob2004]

@limefc: Yeah, BitComet used to be reasonably good. Then there was that minor bug involving the private flag being ignored if the tracker was offline, followed by a bunch of other rumours which ended up getting it banned from a lot of private trackers, so it became too impractical for me (not gonna risk getting banned for spoofing my client).

That Torrentfreak list seems fairly reasonable to me. I can't even think of any other Windows bittorrent clients - at least none which are in relatively common use, and haven't been abandoned for years, so it's quite possible that clients like BitLord actually are in the top 10 best Windows clients, crap though it is.

It's not like they're saying BitLord or MediaGet are actually good alternatives to Utorrent, either - they quite clearly say BitLord is crap, and they don't recommend it.

Personally, if I had to switch clients - which I have no intention of doing for the foreseeable future - it'd most likely be to Tixati or QBittorrent. Both look like reasonably full-featured clients, but aren't too overweight.

Oh, and kitamesume: Alphabetical Order.

[kitamesume]

o.o i didnt say put it on top of the list, i said put it as #1 replacement =P

[Garlantec]

People can cry about Ads all they want, in my opinion it's unreasonable.
It's freeware and the ad's aren't really hurting anyone yet.
No one's charged for anything either and in all the years in which I've been using utorrent, I haven't seen any hardcore ads, which completely destroy the program beyond cure.

So far I've only seen the utorrent plus ad in the bottom right corner, which you can even blend-out by simply making 2 clicks.
Don't know what's wrong with that.
Besides, why do you care if they try to earn some money? EVERYONE needs money and obviously will try to look for a way to make some. It's totally fine. As I said before, I've been using uTorrent for ages now and never had any major troubles with it.
And I doubt you whiners had any big issues either, aside from your own incompetence maybe.

Soo.. pull that stick out of your ass and chill.

[avatarl]

People can cry about Ads all they want, in my opinion it's unreasonable.
It's freeware and the ad's aren't really hurting anyone yet.
No one's charged for anything either and in all the years in which I've been using utorrent, I haven't seen any hardcore ads, which completely destroy the program beyond cure.

So far I've only seen the utorrent plus ad in the bottom right corner, which you can even blend-out by simply making 2 clicks.
Don't know what's wrong with that.
Besides, why do you care if they try to earn some money? EVERYONE needs money and obviously will try to look for a way to make some. It's totally fine. As I said before, I've been using uTorrent for ages now and never had any major troubles with it.
And I doubt you whiners had any big issues either, aside from your own incompetence maybe.

Soo.. pull that stick out of your ass and chill.

There is a problem with your logic though.  When you create something and give it out for free without ads, a good number of the people that end up using the software, use it BECAUSE it has no ads.  That means that if you add ads or some other form of crapware, you will lose that userbase.  The real problem is that you CAN find alternatives that have no ads or crapware.

People need to make money but the fact is competition is relentless and since there are far too many freeware or GPL projects that have no crap like that, putting ads in an application is a pretty sure way to lose people.  If your software HAD ads since day 1, it's another story.  Generally though, people prefer non-flash ads on the site itself than having whatever crap bundled with their software.

Of course, you can just keep being GENIUS, to put it mildly, like corporations want you and keep installing crap on your system, the rest of us tend to have more brains and aren't going to put up with crap.

[Lord of Fire]

People can cry about Ads all they want, in my opinion it's unreasonable.
It's freeware and the ad's aren't really hurting anyone yet.
No one's charged for anything either and in all the years in which I've been using utorrent, I haven't seen any hardcore ads, which completely destroy the program beyond cure.

So far I've only seen the utorrent plus ad in the bottom right corner, which you can even blend-out by simply making 2 clicks.
Don't know what's wrong with that.
Besides, why do you care if they try to earn some money? EVERYONE needs money and obviously will try to look for a way to make some. It's totally fine. As I said before, I've been using uTorrent for ages now and never had any major troubles with it.
And I doubt you whiners had any big issues either, aside from your own incompetence maybe.

Soo.. pull that stick out of your ass and chill.

According to the article on page 1, they don't need to do this at all. They earn enough money with µTorrent Plus, which I do believe is far more effective than ad revenue anyway, especially if no one actually bothers clicking said ads, or block them altogether.

[datora]

.
Nice strawman, there.

People can cry about Ads all they want, in my opinion it's unreasonable.
It's freeware and the ad's aren't really hurting anyone yet.
 [ ... ]
Soo.. pull that stick out of your ass and chill.

Had you actually read for comprehension, you would have noticed that virtually nobody has very serious issues with the ads themselves, especially since they're fairly unobtrusive and can be disabled.

The issue at hand is turning a lightweight, highly efficient, functional utility into bloated crapware, something that's been going on long before some shithead went full retard and decided to turn it into SPAMware on top of all that.

Speaking of crap-covered sticks ... 

As was pointed out by avatarl, the reason the software has such a large user base is because it attracted a technically literate community that had need of an alternate to Vuze and other similar bloatware approaches.  No torrenting client should be using more than about half of one percent of a modern system's resources.  I have 2.0.4 running on a 1.8 GHz P4, and it uses about 3% of the CPU and about 50 MB (max) of memory ... often it is using 25-30 MB; I was using a 1.4 GHz box before that at pretty much the identical resource use stats.  AND the interface is elegant and powerful for managing a thousand or more torrents at a time.

All the other shit they've stapled onto it is completely useless, just eye-candy for lazy morons.  I have other very lightweight utilities that handle all those tasks that I even care about using.  The ads are mostly irrelevant, until they interfere with the function of the app ... such as using bandwidth I need for torrenting, or autoplaying video and Flash, or harvesting any information from my system or IP traffic.

Anyway, as they've discovered, millions of formerly loyal users just simply abandon their product as soon as they fuck it up.  A huge percentage have already found other modern, elegant solutions over the past year or two and will never come back.  Congratulations utorrent: you have driven away most of the intelligent segment of your base while retaining the stupid and the helpless.  You poisoned the vitality of your community feedback and it will now take you years to recover your reputation.  If ever.  Just look to Vuze.

If I owned utorrent, I would be looking to ass-rape the marketing and development "geniuses" who destroyed not only my product, but the reputation of the company.

[megido-rev.M]

People can cry about Ads all they want, in my opinion it's unreasonable.
It's freeware and the ad's aren't really hurting anyone yet.
No one's charged for anything either and in all the years in which I've been using utorrent, I haven't seen any hardcore ads, which completely destroy the program beyond cure.

So far I've only seen the utorrent plus ad in the bottom right corner, which you can even blend-out by simply making 2 clicks.
Don't know what's wrong with that.
Besides, why do you care if they try to earn some money? EVERYONE needs money and obviously will try to look for a way to make some. It's totally fine. As I said before, I've been using uTorrent for ages now and never had any major troubles with it.
And I doubt you whiners had any big issues either, aside from your own incompetence maybe.

Soo.. pull that stick out of your ass and chill.

You don't mind that what was a lightweight and efficient program has now become bloated adware? Pitiful.

[Pentium100]

No torrenting client should be using more than about half of one percent of a modern system's resources.  I have 2.0.4 running on a 1.8 GHz P4, and it uses about 3% of the CPU and about 50 MB (max) of memory ... often it is using 25-30 MB; I was using a 1.4 GHz box before that at pretty much the identical resource use stats.  AND the interface is elegant and powerful for managing a thousand or more torrents at a time.

uTorrent 2.2.1 on my server uses ~1.3GB of RAM. Of course, 1.2GB of that is cache.
Using resources to speed seeding up or reduce the load on the hard drive is OK, assuming the resources are available. What I dislike is wasting of resources - animations on the UI, ads and so on.

uTorrent (at least the older versions) is very good in that regard. A 3x700MHz server could seed at around 10MB/s.

[Bob2004]

Looking at task manager now, Utorrent 3.1.3 is currently using 23.5MB of memory, and CPU usage varies from between 1-3% (on a 3Ghz system, admittedly). This is with 41 torrents seeding, and one downloading. So you can't really complain that it's got worse performance wise, when actually in terms of resource usage it is exactly the same.

And actually, since the ads are now going to be opt-in only, I have absolutely no problem with them. It was only when they were planning to force users to have to suffer through having 'sponsored torrents' show up in their torrent list, getting in the way, that I had a problem with it. When it's completely optional, and you have to specifically opt-in to see them, there's no issue at all really.

They can earn a bit more revenue from those users who want to help provide it, while the rest of us don't see any difference at all. The best of both worlds, really (though it'd be nice if they'd spent the development time on something more useful).

[Pentium100]

I didn't like the 3.x version, so I am keeping 2.2.1, even though it is a bit buggy (it sometimes does not find a file when it is finished, after starting the torrent again, it usually works OK).

[megido-rev.M]

I just kept 2.0.4. The 2.2.x versions started having atrocious UI.

[zherok]

Using resources to speed seeding up or reduce the load on the hard drive is OK, assuming the resources are available. What I dislike is wasting of resources - animations on the UI, ads and so on.

uTorrent (at least the older versions) is very good in that regard. A 3x700MHz server could seed at around 10MB/s.

Barring the singular plus ad and the apps function (both easily disabled) the only significant ui difference in 3.1.3 since probably about 1.8.4 is the icons. The UI isn't spectacularly flashy and the one ad is a static button. It even stays off through upgrades so long as you've set it off in a previous one.

Considering the bother it takes to track down an older version (minor though it may be) is still more than it takes to turn off both the ad and the apps feature, I'm not really sure if people have actually used the new versions or they simply hear what other people have to say about them third hand.

[megido-rev.M]

I've been waiting for several years expecting the developers to make the UI less of an eye sore, but no-- they had to pull up this crap.

Considering the bother it takes to track down an older version (minor though it may be) is still more than it takes to turn off both the ad and the apps feature, I'm not really sure if people have actually used the new versions or they simply hear what other people have to say about them third hand.

Filehippo.

[zherok]

Filehippo.

The point wasn't that finding it was hard, it was that disabling the features that bother people so much take even less time than finding an old copy.

[Pentium100]

Considering the bother it takes to track down an older version (minor though it may be) is still more than it takes to turn off both the ad and the apps feature, I'm not really sure if people have actually used the new versions or they simply hear what other people have to say about them third hand.

I did not have to track down 2.2.1 or 1.8.5 - I downloaded them when they were new and still have the files (and even 1.6.x somewhere). I am simply not upgrading, because there aren't a lot of reasons to upgrade.

[limefc]

uTorrent 2.2.1 on my server uses ~1.3GB of RAM.

Heh, I have my 3.1.3 hovering at about 500MB. On a gaming system though, so I ain't got the same kind of RAM to spare. Mostly write cache too, rather than read cache.

[megido-rev.M]

The point wasn't that finding it was hard, it was that disabling the features that bother people so much take even less time than finding an old copy.

My point was that I would find and old version blindly in mere seconds.
Installing over is also less effort, naturally.

[zherok]

My point was that I would find and old version blindly in mere seconds.
Installing over is also less effort, naturally.

I don't really know what you're arguing about here. It takes mere seconds to disable both the plus ad and the apps feature. That's why I compared them. I wasn't trying to make it sound like some arduous chore to find a copy (I said it was a minor effort two posts ago), but that for whatever effort it took, you could easily have had the current version looking almost identical to the whatever older version you're using.

The plus ad is disabled by a toggle in the advanced features. The apps feature, which doesn't load anything if you don't add any apps, can be right clicked and disabled from there. So far as I've observed, these choices carry over from upgrades deployed from within uTorrent.

And you're free to check, screenshots from around 1.8.5 and the current 3.1.3 differ very little once those two things are turned off. It's pretty much down to icons.