uTorrent Quietly Installs Cryptocurrency Miner

New submitter Eloking sends news that uTorrent, a popular BitTorrent client, is silently installing cryptocurrency mining software for many users. [uTorrent] brings in revenue through in-app advertising and also presents users with “offers” to try out third-party software when installed or updated. These offers are usually not placed on users’ machines without consent, but this week many users began complaining about a “rogue” offer being silently installed. The complaints mention the Epic Scale tool, a piece of software that generates revenue through cryptocurrency mining. To do so, it uses the host computer’s CPU cycles. ... The sudden increase in complaints over the past two days suggests that something went wrong with the install and update process. Several users specifically say that they were vigilant, but instead of a popup asking for permission the Epic Scale offer was added silently.

Comments

Go back to utorrent 2.2.1

[Eloking]

I'll not post any link here (it's quite easy to Google it anyway), but I suggest going back to utorrent 2.2.1. It's the last stable build without any malware/ads/crap. There's already many torrent site that doesn't allow utorrent version higher than 2.2.1.

Re:Another piece of software to uninstall

[jandrese]

This means I have to abandon Java and Flash.

...

I can live with that.

Re:Why uTorrent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I was a little skeptical, but my download speed nearly doubled after downgrading to 2.2.
http://www.oldversion.com/windows/download/utorrent-2-2-23071