This week uTorrent 3.2.2 was released to the public and one of the release highlights are the new advertisements present in the client. BitTorrent Inc. hopes that these ads will bring in extra revenue so the company can continue to invest in the future of distributed technology. When the advertising initiative was first announced no opt-out was offered, but thanks to user feedback there now is an advanced feature to disable the ads.
A backlash among Reddit users has seen BitTorrent Inc. criticized over the way revenue-generating addons were presented in parallel with uTorrent client downloads. The company informs TorrentFreak that it always considers feedback, aims to provide a good customer experience, and will introduce changes soon. But whatever they are, is it really possible to please all of the people all of the time, especially ones whose requirements are “no-strings free” at all times?
Downloading files via BitTorrent is about as public as file-sharing gets, and it’s safe to say that most popular BitTorrent swarms are being monitored one way or the other. To protect the privacy of its users BitTorrent Inc. therefore decided to randomize the peer-id uTorrent users display to other peers and the tracker. While the new feature makes it more difficult to track the download habits of individual users, IP-addresses still remain public and trackable.
For a minute we got excited. Apple approved two BitTorrent Apps in recent weeks, suggesting that the company had lifted its ban on file-sharing applications. But today came the inevitable disappointment. Apple just informed one of the developers that it made a mistake during the approval process, and the company is about to pull his BitTorrent app from the App Store.
Ever since the inception of the App Store, Apple has notoriously banned all apps related to BitTorrent. However, those who conduct a search for BitTorrent in the App Store today will be surprised to see that Apple returns two search results. One app allows users to control the mufti-platform BitTorrent client Transmission and the other one does the same for uTorrent. This begs the question, did Apple lift its BitTorrent ban?
BitTorrent Inc. released a native uTorrent client for Android smartphones and tablet computers today. This is the first official BitTorrent client released by the uTorrent team that works on mobile devices, a relatively underserved market of BitTorrent users. The new release allows users to search for torrents online, download files directly to any Android device, and supports RSS feeds.
Maxxo is a relatively young cloud hosting and synchronization service and one that’s not afraid to launch a disruptive feature. Starting this week the company officially adds support for BitTorrent downloads, allowing users to download torrent files quickly and anonymously. When BitTorrent downloads are completed the files automatically sync to all connected devices.
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Left Quote“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.
Peter Sunde Left Quote
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