A few notes on the upcoming changes to uTorrent

Hello Everyone,

In a few weeks we are going to release a new version of µTorrent.  This update includes improvements and changes that we think you are going to like.  We always appreciate our forum users for their dedication, feedback and candor.  We want to keep investing in to this community by keeping an open and honest channel of communication.

Moving on:

First, we added bug fixes, performance enhancements and user-requested features.  Torrents with many files load faster and magnet links preload content in the add-torrent dialogue.  We also improved the speed of torrents over network shares and added several improvements to streaming playback.  There’s plenty more and you can read the full change-log at the usual spot.

The next major change you will see is a fresh approach to creating a no-nonsense and free torrenting experience.  You are all very familiar with how we have paid the bills so far.  These new changes mark our next step towards finding that difficult balance between keeping our lights on and providing a positive user experience.  This new build will display a featured torrent at the top of your torrent list.  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.  We may not get it right on the first try but we will continue to improve our efforts based on your feedback.

We are also leveraging these offers to directly benefit the artist community including filmmakers, recording artists, game developers and more.  We are going to show the world what all of you here already know: that torrenting can be used for good.

Let us know your comments and thoughts in this thread.  We are listening, and we value your feedback.

The µTorrent Team

PS:  We have included an FAQ below that will hopefully answer a few questions you might have:


µTorrent Offers Q&A


What is changing with µTorrent offers?
-  One additional offer location: A narrow rectangle just below the toolbar within the µTorrent UI will present relevant offers to users.
-  Better-targeted offer types: We will pursue making offers that are targeted and interesting to our users.


What type of offers will you show?

-  The first offer type will inform users of our own new products, features and services.
-  The second offer type will come from our offer partners, whose offerings include things such as games, security products and privacy services.
-  The final offer type will feature independent artists, such as musicians and film makers.


Can I turn in-client offers off?
Currently you’ll be able to skip offers of no interest to you by clicking an x within the ad, which will advance you to the next offer.  There is no way to turn in-client offers off*. We will pay attention to feedback, and may change this in the future.

*Note that users of µTorrent Plus will not be served offers in the client.  We are looking into other offer-free alternatives for users as well.


Why are you making this change?
1.  It starts with our business model which is familiar to everyone: We provide our users with free software from which they get outstanding value, and we keep our lights on through advertising.  
2.  Given this, we want to make sure our offers are more relevant and valuable to you, our users.


How does this change my privacy?
It doesn’t affect your privacy.  Of course, you’ll want to confirm this for yourself.  We encourage you to view all client-to-server communication via a program like wireshark.  Like any software, µTorrent has always communicated to a server to check for software updates; now it will also check for offer updates.  No personally identifiable information is passed during this communication.