uTorrent (also known as μTorrent) is the world's most popular BitTorrent client, with over 150 million monthly active users around the world. It's now preparing for one of the biggest changes in its history.
Currently, uTorrent is available as a standalone 'lightweight' client that is offered in Free, Ad-Free, and Pro flavors. In its earliest iterations, the company made much of the revenue through toolbar installations, but changes in modern web browsers made that a less attractive proposition. It has since shifted to in-app advertising, which currently generates most of its revenue.
- It’s not a regular torrent client, but it’s a browser-based torrent client that can be used to stream content directly. Since it’s a web torrent client, you can stream videos without downloading the entire file. WebTorrent uses WebRTC for peer-to-peer transport whenever possible.
- Bitport.io is a simple to use a cloud-based torrent downloader that has excellent support for.
That reliance on advertising isn't going to change, but the company is making a major shift in how it delivers its product. Speaking with TorrentFreak's 'Steal This Show' podcast, Bram Cohen - creator of BitTorrent, and founder of BitTorrent Inc, which owns uTorrent - revealed that the next major version of the torrent client will run directly in the browser.
Advertising will remain uTorrent's primary source of revenue, but Cohen says the move will enable the company to streamline its development process and provide a leaner experience with improved features, leveraging the latest browser technologies to deliver those features more quickly and efficiently.
'We’re also taking the opportunity here to actually clean up our client experience,' he said. 'So, from a product standpoint, the new revision of uTorrent is going to run in the user’s default browser. That’s just a nicer experience'. This will also enable simpler implementation of features that users now expect as standard, including streaming.
'The features behind it that people really want, being able to see torrents in the browser, we’re basically going to be shipping with the new uTorrent. It’s going to be your browser instead of a separate browser', Cohen added.
Bitport.io – Editors Choice. When it comes to downloading torrents, you are basically exposing. UTorrent is currently distributed as a standalone client - but the next major version will run in users' default web browser, promising an improved user experience, and a broader range of features.
But Cohen is also well aware that a big change like this one may risk alienating uTorrent's existing user base. He promised to gather extensive feedback from users 'before we roll it out to everybody'. He added: 'We’re very, very sensitive. We know people have been using uTorrent for a very long time and love it. So we’re very, very sensitive to that and gonna be sure to make sure that people feel that it’s an upgrade that’s happening. Not that we’ve just destroyed the experience'.
Source: TorrentFreak
BitTorrent today launched a new BitTorrent client: uTorrent Web. Not to be confused with uTorrent (stylized as µTorrent), and despite what its name might suggest, you still have to download and install uTorrent Web.
BitTorrent commonly refers to the infamous peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol associated with piracy. But there is also a company by the name of BitTorrent, which owns the two most popular clients for the protocol: BitTorrent and uTorrent.
uTorrent Web has been available in beta for years, but today the web-based torrent client is finally available as a stable version. The main difference between uTorrent Web and its counterparts is that all the downloading happens in your browser. Just like uTorrent, uTorrent Web can play audio and video files before they’ve finished downloading, but unlike uTorrent, the playback also happens inside the browser. Other file types can be downloaded as well — it’s really just like a normal BitTorrent client.
After installation, uTorrent Web will try to open torrent and magnet links automatically in a browser window. You can search for content on your regular torrent sites or use uTorrent Web’s search box, which redirects you to Google. Downloading is just as fast as you would expect, and playback is seamless — even subtitles are pulled in automatically, assuming they’re included in the torrent file.
The app’s settings are far from rudimentary. You can pick your language, your default download folder, and even whether to open each torrent in a new tab. It’s also possible to set uTorrent Web to start up when your computer boots or clear your search history, and of course you can choose uTorrent Web as your default torrent client.
The idea is that making all this possible inside the browser will make downloading torrent files easier for average internet users. At least, that’s how BitTorrent explains it:
Web-based Torrent Client
When we first started the project, our vision was to build a torrent client with simplicity and quick playability. With a simple download to play experience as the focal point of µTorrent Web, we see more users successfully downloading and playing torrents than with any other product in BitTorrent’s history.
Web Based Torrent Client Linux
Despite today’s release, BitTorrent promises that the desktop version of uTorrent, which will now be referred to as uTorrent Classic, will live on: “Our long-term plan is to continue development across both products and make them available on utorrent.com.”
uTorrent Web is only available for Windows, but it will likely be ported to other operating systems if this launch is successful. In our testing, however, the experience wasn’t ideal — uTorrent Classic is still significantly simpler to install and use. But the fact that BitTorrent has managed to bring all the basic functionality into the browser is certainly a success.
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