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

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)."

Comments

Not surprised

[nanoflower]

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.

Re:Not surprised

[I(rispee_I(reme]

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.

What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowadays?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Trepidity]

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

Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[darkHanzz]

Transmission is nice for small servers (it has a web-interface) qBittorrent is good for the laptop/desktops

Surprise

[Mike Mentalist]

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.

Re:Surprise

[wild_quinine]

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.

Re:What's available for Bitttorrent clients nowada

[Shikaku]

Deluge or (Mac/Linux/BSD only) Transmission

It is always the same story

[Golden_Rider]

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.

uTorrent is the new Winamp.

[Emetophobe]

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.