Lots of people who like uTorrent simply use older versions, like the last version right before all the contested changes of v3 (v2.2.1 Build 25302 which you can get here[1]), or even some of the older 1.8x versions.
This is the beauty of an open protocol. No matter how much market share one client gets, if it screw up everyone just move to the next.
Imagine if everyone were using gshare and the company decided everyone had to use gshare+ and all the data was dependent on their servers/network. Good luck trying to keep an older version or trying an alternative after one company dominated the majority of the market.
One of the Deluge feature I appreciate is its ability to run a Deluge service on a machine and being able to connect to it from any Deluge client (there is a GUI and a terminal client). In my experience it's less tedious than transmission service to set up.
You can use a remote connection to connect to uTorrent but it goes through uTorrent's server for authentication if my memory serves me well.
I SO second this, and I raise you an excellent web-interface to boot. I have it running on a (headless) server and it's simply wonderful. On the tablet, I installed Torrent Manager which can connect to Deluge (and other daemons like Vuze) and it actually handles magnet links from the browser. I'm very happy about this setup.
uTorrent... I had to stop using uTorrent because it just stopped working. All torrents failed before they really started. I don't remember the error but I installed Tixati, which is also very functional (but now I have no Windows machine that I want to use for any torrent-related things anymore).
uTorrent has a webUI that allows you to log to it remotely; you have to install it on the PC that uTorrent resides on. You set the authentication details on said PC, so I doubt it goes through any sort of server, as it doesn't need to.
I'm not a fan of the Transmission UI, and much prefer Deluge because its UI is much like uTorrent's but without all the bloat of more recent versions. It's become my standard client since I found out about it.
Windows users can turn to Free Download Manager[1]. It's open source (GPL)[2] and just works like uTorrent does. It supports HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, audio/video preview, partial ZIP downloads, rate limiting, download scheduling, download from multiple mirrors and Chrome/IE/Firefox/Clipboard integration. Plus it "looks native."
I have been using it for years and have never gone wrong - it's extremely fast and because it's FOSS it is obviously ad/spyware/searchware free.
Edit: I am not affiliated with these guys in any way - just a happy user.
I'm not sure I would specifically "blame" uTorrent for this, it's the shame shady practice that a lot of software uses now to install other crapware. You need to be very careful when installing anything free so uncheck all those toolbar installers and things.
But, there are a lot of other torrent clients listed here, I will be trying some of these out :)
Since there are a lot of suggestions here, I'd like to add my personal favorite: http://baretorrent.org/
While it does not have all of the features of more heavy torrent clients, it does have a plugin system - although not many plugins exist yet. It's cross-platform, open source, and pretty light. The author has good priorities and is conscious about issues such as privacy, and having good installers that aren't bundled with questionable content.
Thanks for posting this. I'd forgotten about Transmission.
Anecdotally, I had occasion to fire up a torrent client and grabbed uTorrent, what I used some time ago and found to be a good client. I was shocked to see how it had turned into crapware. It felt like sleazy garbage and I actually worried I'd inadvertently installed spyware on my machine.
I was going to say just this, but found this comment. I was an Azureus user, but they jumped the shark. Then I switched to uTorrent, and was delighted that the resource use on my computer went down a ton. Then uTorrent started getting bloatware I didn't want, but by then, Transmission had gotten good.
Azureus/Vuze was never lightweight, and does not appear to have died. And uTorrent didn't begin to bloat out until after it was acquired by BitTorrent, Inc..
Edit: I think by partners with shady company you mean the malware company, not BitTorrent, Inc.. Just like Vuze has 3rd-party malware. Coincidentally (?), some Vuze malware reports mention Yahoo! being surreptitiously enabled just like the article.
It's not just torrent applications - this is the lifecycle for a lot of free apps. Eventually you've got to pay the bills, and if no one is willing to pay for your app then it's either time to insert ads or crapware or both.
Ah, this explains what happened to my girlfriend who was using bittorrent to download bundles of academic papers.
I couldn't figure out why all of her search and homepage settings had changed, and how they were so resilient that they were re-applied.
I did find SearchProtect, and eventually managed to remove it (uninstalls, + registry hacking, + force deleting files, + nuking the browser installs and re-installing).
But I hadn't figured out where it had come from as my girlfriend didn't believe that she'd installed anything and although I saw uTorrent I thought nothing of that since I didn't believe it installed such `add-ons`.
For those who encounter this, SearchProtect is really nasty. Really hard to remove.
Currently have the same problem on one of my machines. Luckily, I knew already about the culprit.
Really nasty stuff -- never using uTorrent again. Was already getting annoyed by latest updates and ads anyway/
To save me (still have to remove SearchProtect) and others here some time... any pointers to website or other reference on how to really remove this thing?
I'm afraid I can't help a great deal as it was a one-off brute force effort.
Most Googling finds pages telling you to download this or that scan and remove tools. But I'm wary of doing that.
What I manually did was roughly:
1) Use SysInternals Process Explorer to check for and kill any monitoring process
2) Use SysInternals Autoruns to find and remove all autorun info that I didn't recognise and to identify which executables may be doing it
3) Uninstall component through control panel
4) Restart
5) Change home page settings in browsers (restart, and observed that it only worked until the browser restarted)
6) Removed all browser plugins and extensions on all browsers, where I didn't recognise the extension
7) Repeat #5
8) Viewed source of Firefox browser config and still couldn't find it, but found Chrome had some crappy values referring to this stuff
9) Downloaded Chrome and Firefox, then uninstalled Chrome and Firefox. Deleted all local profile folders from %APP_DATA% and other hidden locations.
10) Manually entered the registry and deleted anything I identified as Search Protect, conduit, Firefox, and Chrome.
11) Manually delete any files identified by anything in the registry or earlier steps
12) Reboot
14) Install Chrome and Firefox
Thankfully my girlfriend doesn't use IE, so aside from purging all extensions and resetting all defaults, I didn't have to concentrate on that.
Interestingly, Chrome proved more susceptible to this than Firefox. Firefox scrubbed clean fairly quickly, but it was Chrome that really seemed determined to change search provider and home page. We chose to nuke her sync'd profile and the local copy entirely, and then install everything from fresh.
This was a huge time-suck, and it's been years since I wandered through the registry... not fun.
PS: And yes, I've told my girlfriend to organise her backups, ensure she's got everything and in a week or two we'll do the full reinstall thing. Sucks that she has to use Windows, but that's academia in the UK for you.
> Once "they've" run malware on your machine it's no longer your machine and nothing can be trusted. Wipe and re-install, then very carefully restore backups of data.
That is a general rule for malware that you do not know anything about.
However, the SearchProtect install bundled with µTorrent is only malware to the extent that it prevents you from changing your browser defaults. It is not believed to exhibit the other characteristics of malware. It is annoying, scammy, scummy, evil, etc. -- but it does not appear to compromise your system badly enough to require a reformat and clean install.
It's just one step beyond accidentally installing the Ask Toolbar with a new Java install. Yes, it is theoretically possible that it could've taken over your machine. But most likely not.
P.S. Take a look at the Wikipedia page for SearchProtect. Specifically, History and Talk. There's one high-up editor who's been stonewalling any attempt to add a Criticism section, on the basis that Wikipedia cannot link to user posts.
When it comes to what you should use as a replacement, I highly recommend Deluge as a replacement. It's totally open source, really well architected, has tons of adding for power users, and has a slick interface.
It's super robust. I have a server that's currently seeding 200+ torrents (all Linux distros and other freely available material) at a constant 80mbps+ and it is still very snappy, even on the very under powered machine that it's running on.
Wasn't uTorrent The Best Thing Ever when it first hit the scene? I seem to recall it was this application. It was about a 93k executable that didn't need to be installed. Just download and run. It was my go to torrent client of choice during my Windows days. Sad to see it become this.
As annoyed as I am by the reactions here (uTorrent didn't maliciously install adware behind anyone's back), I moved to Mac in 2009 and stayed there until I decided to build an HTPC for my living room. First thing I did was install uTorrent, and I was confronted with so much bloat. There are ads INSIDE the torrent list, and there are options to stream video/music. Completely unexpected.
From what I understand, there hasn't been a client that's truly taken its place.
> From what I understand, there hasn't been a client that's truly taken its place.
For myself and my brother, Transmission has handily replaced uTorrent. Simple, downloads torrents, lets me make new ones to send files between friends, and that's it. Perfect!
Indeed. I started using uTorrent back in 2006. It was VERY lightweight, and had a good and detailed documentation. And then things started to change: custom UI, styles, Ads, Video Player, Market (or something like an App Store)...
I met the creator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Strigeus) the other day, and he LOVES to micro-optimize. He's a genius, and made a vere light uTorrent (it was supposed to be a really light bittorrent client) and then he sold it to bittorrent and stopped developing it (and that's why it stopped being lightweight).
Switch to Deluge[1]! It's Free Software, and is so similar to uTorrent you won't notice the difference.
The day uTorrent pushed the update that tried to install a browser extension I was absolutely done with them. I do not support malware in any shape or form.
Surprising that no-one is talking about Yahoo and their tactics to get more users. I am sure SearchProtect and Yahoo! here have a deal to push as many default searches as possible to drive revenue.
The comment thread attacks Yahoo! for it's dirty tactics, but the difference is that we kind of expect this crap from Yahoo!. People are miffed at uTorrent because it was an application they trusted. It's more of a betrayal.
If a thief breaks into your home and steals your TV, you're pissed that your TV was stolen but that's what you expect of thieves. If your best friend does it, it adds that extra layer of betrayal and it adds the feeling of shame and stupidity for ever having trusted them.
Yahoo has been doing these "Search Distribution Deals" for many years, as long as I can remember in fact. Bing was at one point paying $20+ per toolbar install when they were trying to gain market share. Google has done paid toolbar distribution as well.
The reason it is still around is because it is so damn effective.
Wow, this is an unusual step for Yahoo. Who would think that a hijack process that tempers with user's browser settings is a good idea? Hello, Marissa Mayer?
As for uTorrent, it's been going down this path for a while, gradually introducing crap into the app. And this one is the last for me, as well.
Btw, apparently, they turned off registration on the forum to ward off the mounting complains. When I go to https://forum.utorrent.com/register.php, I'm greeted with Get lost spammer, we don't need your kind here. And of course the topic is closed. Well done.
This is why I love Linux. Every generic piece of software comes with no BS attached.
For example, on Windows, if you want to mount an ISO you have to download some shady piece of software, the installer of which comes bundled with n toolbars. In Linux it's a matter of a simple one-line command...
Adware goes to where there are a lot of non tech savvy users. If desktop Linux gets more traction, you'll see such search hijacking on there too. Note that this story is about search hijacking on OS X, not Windows.
How? Every package manager that I've seen so far allows installations of locally downloaded packages. Some will even helpfully download all dependencies. That's a good thing in general, however, the package could just as well contain adware/spyware. And every package format that I know of supports post-install scripts, those could easily change configuration settings. Since package install runs as root that added layer of security doesn't help here.
You are marked as dead in some posts above, so only people with the right options set in their settings can see your posts. If it happened recently, it was probably for that ethnic slur starting with k I see above.
If memory serves, uTorrent lost trust-ability when it got sold. IIRC, that means post version 1.6.1 it became a concern and began to needlessly bloat. Prior to that is was a brilliant bit of software.
1.6.1 is light weight, unmolested, and still worth using.
So glad someone posted on this bullshit. Not only has uTorrent started doing this, but BBEdit 10 and some other previously not super shady software has too.
This reminds me of an argument given by my friend proposing that a person has a higher tendency to do bad to the people who we know are bad. Even your good-guy-Greg has an inclination (of sorts) to bring down/harass/make money off your scumbag-Steve, even when Steve's actions were inconsequential to Greg; which I thought was an apt observation from someone who thinks a lot in absolutes.
Maybe its the 'easy to get away with factor' or maybe its the karma kicking in.
My point is, torrent usage is synonymous to piracy, infringement and other illegal activities. So, perhaps it is this tendency that makes people at uTorrent think that it is not totally wrong to rip off people who are ripping off content & software makers. In my experience, I never fully trusted uTorrent. It is simply difficult to trust something that allows advertisement of malware, porn, fraudulent sites. It started off quite well, but then it has been on my watch list since quite some time now.
For people having issues finding the files that need to be removed, look for anything related to Conduit; and remove that. SearchProtect and a few of the other names are not what the software is called in all cases it seems. I had to remove this from my wifes machine yesterday, and everything was related to a Conduit installer. No mention of SearchProtect.
uTorrent is gone in our case, I've moved her over to using Qget with our Qnap NAS and while it's not as feature rich as uTorrent it's a much better option. And it's one I can watch and control a little better as well!
Is there any response from uTorrent about this? Didn't see any posts by any admins or moderators in that thread; I was wondering if they said anything besides just closing the topic?
Use qBittorrent instead if you like the feature-set of uTorrent. In particular, qBittorrent's UI is modeled after uTorrent. It is open source and works on Linux, OS X, Windows, FreeBSD and OS/2(!), supports sequential downloading (aka download in order or streaming) and has an optional web UI. http://www.qbittorrent.org/
Oh, man, this one ultimately was the last straw that broke my old XP box's back. I accidentally clicked through the set-up, and I didn't really have the sysadmin chops to fix it at that point. Whatever hitched a ride on search protect slowed that machine to a crawl. I ultimately ended up installing linux on it, but it's just not the same anymore.
Don't use 'official' installers manually ever, for this same reason that they try to cheat you into 'agreeing' to something - use something like http://ninite.com/ that run the installers with the correct no-to-optional-malware options.
I would love to hear from Yahoo (hopefully from Marissa Mayer, or whoever authorised it at Yahoo), and from uTorrent. I was personally chearing for Yahoo's new breath of hope, under Mayer's leadership. This is a pretty crappy move. An apology would be enough.
Actually qBittorrent seems to be a good alternative. Let's see how good it is compared to uTorrent.
I was looking for a simple replacement for uTorrent for a while now. I have been using linux for years now and was surprised how awful it became while I was off windows.
I switched to rTorrent with ruTorrent a few years ago. I haven't used uTorrent since. It's perfect if you have an old machine laying around somewhere. Just whip out your favourite flavor of Linux and you're golden.
Just an off topic question as it was a while ago since I left the world of torrenting. Back in the day, it was mainly music and movies that most folks were trying to get. What else are being torrented these days?
The only positive aspect of this, and make no mistake - this does not excuse their fishy behaviour - is that Yahoo has lead the way in defending its user's privacy against the NSA.
This is exactly why I have such a love/hate relationship with BitTorrent Sync. I use it a lot, and it works so great, but I so wish it were open source.
uTorrent is a horrendous bloat, anyway. Personally I used rTorrent for a while (minimal ncurses interface, very appealing to me) but later switched to Transmission.
I've also used Deluge, but there's nothing too special about it in my eyes.
Well, you may not remember Kazaa Lite. But, basically, all you would need to do is unpack the installer with a tool that creates installer programs. You would basically need to decompress it, strip out all the adware or anything else you didn't want, create a new installer and you're done!
Kazaa lite had a lot of other tweaks and hacks to the exe, which I assumed used some sort of decompiler to essentially "crack" it and modify it in certain ways. Then, along with registry patches and changes to other libraries it used made some fundamental changes to how it worked and connected to the network.
Someone wouldn't need to do this for uTorrent if they just wanted vanilla uTorrent and nothing else, but the possibilities exist.
"You secretly installed crap I didn't want on my computer!"
"No, I didn't. I threw up a button that you'd never click on purpose hoping you'd accidentally click it and give me 'permission' to install crap you didn't want on your computer."
"Oh, good. For a minute there I thought you were some kind of scumbag."
(ethics of bundling undesired programs in installers notwithstanding, users are asserting that the thing didn't just change their defaults but also kept resetting their defaults even after the user changed it back. Not cool even if the user installed it entirely on purpose)
I made the same mistake a few weeks ago because it's especially deceitful. uTorrent disguises this SearchProtect program with what appears to be a ToS agreement page after you've already rejected another piece of crapware, making you assume you're already in the clear.
What's despicable about Bittorrent, Inc.? They seem like a very pleasant company to me. I won't be using any of their products because I generally don't use closed source stuff, but I'm grateful for their protocol.
I got bitten by this yesterday when I updated. I didn't expect it at all and only realized I had installed something a fraction of a second after I clicked what looked like a Next button... Went to Control Panel and uninstalled as soon as I noticed an icon in the taskbar notification area.
I do disagree with the strategy of bundling typically unwanted software in with installers.
But as someone who's installed Java numerous times and never ended up with the Ask Toolbar I don't have much sympathy for people who can't pay attention to what's presented on the screen.
http://www.transmissionbt.com