uTorrent Adds "Featured Torrents" Ads — With No Opt Out (Yet)

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uTorrent Adds "Featured Torrents" Ads — With No Opt Out (Yet)

Posted by timothy on Sunday August 12, 2012 @12:25AM from the every-business-syndrome dept.

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)."

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Not surprised by nanoflower · 2012-08-12 00:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

This isn't really surprising. It's one reason I never upgraded to the latest version when they started tossing in the kitchen sink instead of sticking with just being a great bittorrent client.
1. Re:Not surprised by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-12 01:24 · 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.
2. Re:Not surprised by I(rispee_I(reme · 2012-08-12 01:53 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Running 2.2.1 here, also.
  It can be found here, if anyone is seeking it.
  Fair warning: Versions prior to 1.8 don't support magnet links.
3. Re:Not surprised by Samantha+Wright · 2012-08-12 03:11 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  You're misremembering a little—Winamp 3 was the disastrous release that brought in the new skin system, Wasabi. Everyone stuck to 2.95 or so for years and years until Winamp 5 came out, which had support for both skinning systems—but by then the media library was so mediocre, hobbyists had switched to Foobar. AOL mucking things up (WA5 introduced the 'pro' version, I think) didn't help either.
  
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What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowadays? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-12 00:30 · 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?
fairly standard business model nowadays by Trepidity · 2012-08-12 00:30 · Score: 5, Insightful

They're basically copying what YouTube and Twitter are doing, selling a "featured content" slot.

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1. Re:fairly standard business model nowadays by penix1 · 2012-08-12 02:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  They're basically copying what YouTube and Twitter are doing, selling a "featured content" slot.
  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 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.'
  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.
  
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Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-12 00:33 · 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:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada by darkHanzz · 2012-08-12 00:35 · Score: 5, Informative

Transmission is nice for small servers (it has a web-interface) qBittorrent is good for the laptop/desktops
Showing ads to thieves by gatkinso · 2012-08-12 00:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

Interesting business model.

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1. Re:Showing ads to thieves by Nyder · 2012-08-12 02:13 · Score: 4, 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
  
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  Be seeing you...
Surprise by Mike+Mentalist · 2012-08-12 00:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
The admins on the uTorrent forum deleted the thread, and banned my account, saying that they didn't want spamming scum like me.

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1. Re:Surprise by The+Mighty+Buzzard · 2012-08-12 02:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That's pretty much expected given that the uTorrent forums aren't for file sharing but for discussion of the client. By strict definition, you were spamming.
  
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2. Re:Surprise by wild_quinine · 2012-08-12 05:06 · 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 ? by Yvanhoe · 2012-08-12 00:43 · Score: 3, Funny

Why not ? Bittorrent is a great company, I am grateful to them for creating and opening their protocol. Obviously, I won't use their official client as I am allergic to advertisement, but if they manage to find clients for this kind of things and have a cash flow to finance R&D in bittorrent, kudos to them !

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1. Re:Why not ? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-12 01:09 · 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.
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada by Shikaku · 2012-08-12 00:44 · Score: 5, Informative

Deluge or (Mac/Linux/BSD only) Transmission
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada by Lumpy · 2012-08-12 00:46 · Score: 3, 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.

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Another act which shows the difference by Stirling+Newberry · 2012-08-12 00:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

between free as in beer, and free as in speech.
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.

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Fugue for Aaron Swartz
More legitimate use by dirk · 2012-08-12 02:00 · Score: 3, 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.

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"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada by Teun · 2012-08-12 02:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

As far as I know downloading is at least in most of Europe not illegal, it's the sharing or making available that infringes IP rights.
Because the usenet server is usually seen like a proxy they are generally left alone.
(Beware of the words most of, usual and general)

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"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It is always the same story by Golden_Rider · 2012-08-12 02:56 · 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.
1. Re:It is always the same story by Anonymous Coward · 2012-08-12 03:22 · 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 go.
  ps. I left long since, but it doesn't preclude understanding.
Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada by Nimey · 2012-08-12 04:16 · Score: 3, Funny

As an old Usenetter, fuck you.

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uTorrent is the new Winamp. by Emetophobe · 2012-08-12 05:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

I love Slashdot, but all the comments below are pretty standard bashing we've come to expect.
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).

This could actually provide more legitimacy to the protocol.
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.
qBittorrent by Gravis+Zero · 2012-08-12 06:51 · Score: 3, Informative

get it: "The qBittorrent project aims to provide a Free Software alternative to torrent."

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