With their roll-out of uTorrent 3.0 last week, BitTorrent Inc. introduced a bunch of new features. Users can now stream video files while they’re downloading, and they can also add comments and ratings to torrents.

Interestingly enough, these comments and ratings also work on torrent files that are shared on private trackers. Among some of the more privacy concious BitTorrent users this raised a few questions. Most importantly, where is this data stored and what information is attached to it?

To answer the above we got in touch with the uTorrent engineering team to find out how these comments and ratings are handled by the client.

Right away we were assured that none of the data is stored on a central server, and that the data can never be traced back to its source. Instead, the comments you see appearing in your client are sent as an extra piece of data, similar to how other files are shared with peers.

“µTorrent 3.0 adds an extension message for distributing comments within the swarm. All clients that support this extension message store all comments they have seen, per torrent,” the uTorrent engineering team informed TorrentFreak.

“When peer A joins a swarm, it will send a request for comments to peers that support this message, say peer B. If peer A already has some comments, it passes along a bloom-filter representing the set of all those comments. When peer B responds, it will not send comments that are already present in the bloom filter. This prevents duplicate comments.”

uTorrent comments

So basically, all comments and ratings associated with a particular file are shared among members of that swarm. If another peer has a comment that you don’t have already, it will send it to you, and vice versa. The messages are sent through the tracker and don’t rely on DHT, this means that they work on private torrent files as well.

The requests for comments are sent every 20 minutes by uTorrent, and this is how they are shared among peers. In the beginning when there is a relatively low percentage of users supporting the extension the comments and ratings will propagate slowly, but when uTorrent 3.0 becomes the stable release these issues will be gone.

The uTorrent engineer team further explained that comments are stored in the resume file for a torrent, which helps keeping comments alive across sessions. But other than on the computers of uTorrent users, the comments are never shared outside the swarm on a central server.

Although it’s good to know that uTorrent’s commenting and rating system is fully decentralized, it also introduces a new feature that may be less welcome. When comments and ratings become a new standard to check the quality of files in the future, there is no doubt that these features will be exploited by spammers to make fake torrents appear more legitimate.

Time will tell whether the ‘costs’ will outfit the benefits, and whether the unmoderated system will be able to handle the potential influx of trolls and spammers. In the meantime it’s a simple affair to paste a hash value into Google – or append it to the URL on sites like Torrentz – in order to double check.

Source: Where Are uTorrent’s Comments and Ratings Stored?

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Over the years BitTorrent Inc. has acquired a dominant position with their two BitTorrent applications, uTorrent and the Mainline client. The two clients have over 100 million active users a month and this number continues to increase.

There is no doubt that BitTorrent’s user base is impressive, but there is still a lot of untapped potential. Both uTorrent and BitTorrent’s mainline client have a relatively large bounce rate. That is, a large number of new users try the software a few times, but don’t become regular users.

“During 2010 less than a third of new client downloads resulted in a new monthly active user,” BitTorrent’s Simon Morris told TorrentFreak. “Plenty of people download and install the client, but can’t figure out how to use it, and then uninstall it very quickly,” he added.

To change this, BitTorrent Inc. have been working on a new project with the aim of keeping those users on board. Today marks the release of the first Alpha version of this new client – codenamed project Chrysalis.

“The best products out there don’t have any significant educational hurdles – it is just obvious how they work. This is what we’re ultimately aiming for with this new project, although it will take time to get there. The client we’re releasing today is just a starting point,” Morris told us.

Today’s release is a very early Alpha, but it should give a good indication of where BitTorrent Inc. is going with their new client. By default it is filled with several prominently placed ‘apps’, such as those from TED and VODO, which provide access to downloads. This means that users will see content right away when they start the client

One of the main reasons why some users don’t come back to the client is a perceived lack of content. New users sometimes don’t know where to find content so the current version of Chrysalis should address this issue to some degree. In addition, the simplified user interface should be more welcoming to people who are new to BitTorrent.

Overall the Chrysalis client behaves quite intuitively. Downloads are added by a single click and show only basic information. Once a download is finished media files can be launched in a media player directly from the app. Starting, stopping and removing files can be done with a single click as well.

The client is built on the uTorrent v3.0 codebase but in the future new and unique features will be added as well.

“The first project Chrysalis beta is aiming at cleaning up the overall user experience and transforming a technical and data-rich experience into a cleaner more media-rich experience. This in itself will not be sufficient to solve the attrition problem, but we hope it will establish a new platform on which to build,” Morris said.

Another subtle change compared to the BitTorrent Mainline client is the more prominent placement of the search box. Users can type in search terms here and are, interestingly enough, redirected to a Google search for torrents. A surprising move, since Google just banned the words ‘uTorrent’ and ‘BitTorrent’ from some of its services.

Chrysalis is not intended for the more experienced BitTorrent user, but BitTorrent hopes it will appeal to a wider audience than their other clients do now. If all goes well, the dummy-proof client will completely replace the current Mainline client, which currently is a clone of uTorrent.

Time will tell whether this approach will be effective. Luckily, uTorrent users don’t have to panic as TorrentFreak is assured that their favorite client will always be available and developed separately. The Alpha release of Chrysalis is available for download starting today, currently limited to Windows operating systems.

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Just a few hours ago we brought the news that BitTorrent search engine isoHunt has been sued by 26 record labels in Canada. The labels allege that the BitTorrent site is facilitating massive copyright infringement of their songs, and are demanding millions of dollars in damages.

At the same time the above labels intensify their crusade against BitTorrent, several smaller and independent labels are trying to find ways to benefit from the technology. Adamant Records is a good example of the latter. Instead of fearing technology, they are embracing BitTorrent and even explaining how it works to visitors to their site.

Next to the ‘download on iTunes’ links to their albums, Adamant Records is prominently featuring a BitTorrent tutorial on their homepage. Why you might ask? Well, unlike the major labels Adamant Records seems to believe that they may eventually benefit from giving away music on BitTorrent.

The video is related to an interesting announcement that came in a few minutes ago. One of Adamant Records’ top bands “Sick of Sarah” has partnered with BitTorrent Inc. and is now offering their new album “2205″ through an app in uTorrent and the Mainline client.

“Releasing an album on BitTorrent is an incredible opportunity. We wanted to reach our fans on the Internet, and our fans use BitTorrent,” says Jamie Holm, Sick of Sarah’s bassist in a response to the partnership.

“Imagine exposure to the same number of people as a Super Bowl ad. While album sales will remain a critical element of success, we also believe BitTorrent will help us drive new fans to live concerts and purchase our merchandise.“

Indeed, BitTorrent Inc’s uTorrent and BitTorrent mainline clients have more than 100 million monthly users combined. By releasing the album to such a large audience the band hopes that they will pick up many new fans, who will boost the band’s income in the long run.

“Our industry is changing fast, and it’s time for bands to experiment with new types of Internet distribution and discover the future of fan engagement. We’re excited to work with BitTorrent to learn what works,” Jamie Holm says.

BitTorrent’s CEO Eric Klinker applauds the band for sharing their music with uTorrent and Mainline users, which is expected to benefit all the parties involved.

“Sick of Sarah’s progressive thinking and modern approach to making their music available to online audiences is inspiring. The band’s efforts align with our vision of an open ecosystem. Rather than act as a middleman between creators and consumers, our engineers are building technologies to connect the two communities directly,” Klinker said.

Sick of Sarah’s album Sick 2205 is available in the App studio of uTorrent and BitTorrent mainline and can be downloaded for free. The BitTorrent App Studio was launched by BitTorrent last August and features content from selected content providers including Spotlight Artists such as Sick of Sarah.

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uTorrent for Windows saw its first public release in September 2005 and soon became the most widely used BitTorrent application. The potential of the minimalistic client was soon picked up by BitTorrent Inc. who bought it in December 2006.

In the years that followed the original BitTorrent mainline client was gradually transformed into a rebranded version of uTorrent, and today BitTorrent Inc. announced that both clients combined now have more than 100 million active users a month. Users literally come from all over the world, with 20 million active daily users from over 220 countries.

“This is an exciting day for our team. Our vision is to build a complete technology ecosystem comprised of software, content and devices, designed to connect modern content creators with a massive digital audience,” BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker said. “This milestone highlights the size of our user base and the power of our software.”

BitTorrent Inc.’s acquisition of uTorrent is without doubt the best decision the company has ever made. Where other projects such as the “movie store” and CDN-services failed miserably, uTorrent’s popularity kept on growing.

The irony is that the company which founded one of the most innovative technologies on the web in the last ten years, has not managed to build a new business model around it. Perhaps the BitTorrent powered movie store and CDN were ahead of its time, but the fact is that the company now relies on a toolbar to pay the salaries of its employees.

While there is no shame in relying on toolbars to keep million of BitTorrent users satisfied with an entirely free experience, we can only assume that the company had a greater plan in mind when it was founded back in 2004. That said, toolbars do bring in some serious money.

In addition to the millions of daily active users, the BitTorrent Mainline and uTorrent client are downloaded by 400,000 people a day according to BitTorrent Inc. An unknown percentage of these new downloads also choose to install the toolbar, which is good for millions of dollars in revenue a year.

This stable stream of revenue ensures that BitTorrent Inc. can continue the development of uTorrent in the future, and that’s a welcome message to at least 100 million BitTorrent users. TorrentFreak congratulates BitTorrent for reaching this impressible milestone, and we’re eager to see how far this number can increase in the future.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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In a recent interview BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen looked back at some of the failures his company had in the past, and how this changed their focus from selling goods and services to serving the 80 million monthly users uTorrent and the Mainline client have. Cohen also revealed what is expected to come in the future. His pet project, BitTorrent live streaming, will be released to the public soon.

BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the Mainline client and uTorrent, celebrated the big roll-out of the Apps platform at the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco yesterday. One of the attendees was BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen. Cohen co-founded the BitTorrent company, (which is named after the famous protocol) back in 2004 and is currently still on the payroll as chief scientist.

At the event Cohen sat down for an interview to talk about the new App platform, and how the company came to be where it is now. Some of the failures such as the video store and BitTorrent’s CDN were briefly touched on, and according to Cohen these failures made them realize that the true power of the company lies with the millions of users of their software.

Together, the Mainline client and flagship uTorrent have a massive 80 million monthly active users, and more recently the company shifted most of its resources to the development of the clients instead of selling services and goods to the public.

This also meant that the company’s main source of income is now coming from the Ask toolbar that comes with their BitTorrent client. A rather old-fashioned and not entirely sexy revenue stream, but it pays the bills for the few dozen people at the company.

Finally, Bram Cohen talked about the direction the company is heading in the future, in particular his pet project – BitTorrent live streaming. His implementation, which will be released in a few months, should crush the competing streaming services currently out there in terms of latency and cost efficiency. It will be the ideal platform from which to stream sports events, news events, and webinars according to Cohen, and will allow individuals to stream content to millions of people without having to spend tens of thousands of dollars on bandwidth.

Check out the full interview below.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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Today, BitTorrent Inc. officially debuts the BitTorrent Apps platform in a non-Beta client. The company chose the smaller BitTorrent Mainline client over their leading brand uTorrent for the release, giving 14 million users access to their App platform. The question is, however, how big the demand for Apps among BitTorrent users will be.

After Vuze and uTorrent, the BitTorrent Mainline client is the third most-used BitTorrent client in the western world based on the number of active users. Those who use it will see that it looks much like a rebranded version of uTorrent. Although we can’t look under the hood, it is safe to assume that much of the code is exactly the same.

Due to its similarities with uTorrent, this smaller brother makes an ideal platform for testing new features in the wild – features that will eventually appear in uTorrent as well. Thus far this opportunity hasn’t really been put to use as most of the Mainline features have been lagging behind uTorrent. Today, however, this changes as BitTorrent Inc. has decided to first launch the ‘Apps’ platform in the release candidate of the Mainline 7.1 client.

BitTorrent Apps is a web-based extensions framework to add new functionality without compromising the lightness of the core BitTorrent client. Similar to other apps, addons and extensions in today’s web browsers and phones, the Javascript-based Apps will allow 3rd party developers to create applications that will integrate seamlessly with the client. They can be added to the client with a single click and are displayed using an embedded browser window.

Thus far the Apps have only been available to a relatively small group of uTorrent users, those who downloaded the experimental ‘Griffin‘ client. This means that today’s release will be the first real test for the platform, as it will open up to an audience of more than twelve million users. It is likely that BitTorrent Inc. chose Mainline for the initial release as a final test before the Apps are added to the regular uTorrent client which has over 50 million users.

The Apps ‘store’ launches with 11 Apps that are featured in the client, but developers can make their own apps available on external sites as well. While the platform is open, BitTorrent Inc. is curating the Apps that will be featured in the client. Most likely this means that Apps which promote copyright infringement will be barred from being featured.

The word ‘store’ might not be the best term to describe the Apps section today, but this might change. All the Apps promoted in the client are currently free, but BitTorrent Inc. isn’t ruling out the possibility of paid Apps.

“We can’t rule out someday creating an official commerce platform for developers to use if they choose, however, with many in-app payment systems available to developers today, it’s not the priority. The priority is to create a truly unique and integrated experience so our users can add awesome new functionality,” BitTorrent Inc. told TorrentFreak.

For BitTorrent Inc. the Apps platform opens up some interesting possibilities to generate additional revenue. Commercial affiliate deals and potentially paid Apps could become a significant revenue stream aside from the toolbar installs the company makes most of its income from now.

At this point, however, it is hard to see where the Apps platform will go. With only 11 available Apps there is not much value yet. The success of the platform will therefore depend on what developers come up with, and how useful these Apps will be to BitTorrent users. Time will tell.

Starting today the first release candidate of BitTorrent Mainline 7.1, including the Apps, is available for download on BitTorrent.com. The final version is expected to be released in a week or two.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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A few days ago the uTorrent team updated the 3.0 release with several privacy features. Due to some unfortunate wording, the new feature caused confusion among users. One of the new options, “do not share your IP with peers”, led some to believe that uTorrent had implemented a new feature that makes BitTorrent transfers anonymous.

A day before we published an article on how BitTorrent users can hide their identities from the outside world , the uTorrent development team released build 21340 of the uTorrent 3.0 client.

Aside from the usual changes and fixes, there was also a new feature listed in the changelog that piqued the interest of several uTorrent users who were looking for increased privacy.

In the last days multiple TorrentFreak readers informed us about this new feature that could, according to their understanding, make BitTorrent transfers completely anonymous. If true, this would be a breakthrough for BitTorrent and render our earlier article useless.

In the changelog the new feature is listed as “added privacy options to BitTorrent settings” and the screenshot below shows three options under the new privacy heading. The first one reads “do not share your IP with peers”, which does indeed suggest some form of anonymity.

Unfortunately the reality is not as exciting as the wording of the new option suggests. After conducting some tests it seems that for regular BitTorrent users this option does very little. When downloading a torrent file, other people in the swarm still get to see the IP-address of users who have this option enabled.

From our testing it seemed that the option was only effective for peer-to-peer communications that go beyond the downloading process, such as DHT and PEX. The new privacy features do not eliminate the need for an anonymizing proxy, on the contrary, they are specifically there for people using proxies.

This was confirmed by BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management Simon Morris, who told TorrentFreak. “This is actually related to not ‘over-communicating’ IP-addresses with other peers – for example when connecting to clients using a proxy, peers might have a habit of forwarding on their IPv6 address.

“This option is intended to simplify privacy settings in some edge cases. Actually I’d agree its not ideally worded right now – we’ll probably clarify the label shortly,” Morris added, noting that the new feature is only implemented in the 3.0 ‘alpha’ client, so it doesn’t affect the largest part of uTorrent’s users.

For those who do use the latest 3.0 version of uTorrent and those who plan to use it in the future, please be aware that “don’t share your IP with peers” doesn’t equal anonymity. For those who already use anonymizing software, the new options prevent their real IP-address from leaking, for all others the new options should be left untouched.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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In May this year the BitTorrent Inc. added a section to their site which enabled the community to vote for new features they would like to see included in uTorrent. Voting has been furious and dozens of new tweaks and additions have been made. Here’s the next eight major additions uTorrent users can look forward to.

uTorrent is one of the most widely used pieces of BitTorrent software and is the client of choice for more than 50 million users worldwide.

In May, BitTorrent Inc. introduced its Idea Bank section, which allows uTorrent users to submit and vote for features, tweaks and ideas they would like to see implemented in their favorite client.

Since its introduction hundreds of suggestions have been submitted to the Idea Bank and these have been voted on by thousands of users. Already nearly 60 proposals have been accepted and implemented by the team and many more are pending. Below is an explanation of the Top 8 most voted-for-and-accepted additions coming to a uTorrent client near you soon.

1. uTorrent for Linux

As reported in June, uTorrent for Linux is finally on the way. With more than 5300 votes, this is the most popular suggestion received thus far.

“We’re making good progress on the Linux client,” reports site admin Firon. “Sit tight and we’ll have a client out soon enough.”

2. More detailed priorities for multiple files in torrent downloads

For torrents that contain multiple files, such as one for a music album with 10 tracks, at the moment it’s possible to force uTorrent to prioritize the download of those tracks, albeit primitively. Currently there are just three settings – low, medium and high.

“We’ll either add up to 16 priorities or have a per-torrent option to auto-prioritize the files in order,” explains Firon. “Though not the pieces, so we’ll still do rarest first.”

3. Send an email when a download completes

With increasing bandwidth and users increasing their set up knowledge, BitTorrent downloads are completing faster than ever before. However, with increased speeds comes an increased appetite for higher quality and therefore larger downloads, xvid versus DVD-size videos for example. Inevitably this means that users will be away from their machines when certain downloads complete. With email notifications, completion will be reported immediately.

“The current plan to implement this is to simply have a generalized, global option to auto-run an app after the torrent completes,” says Firon. “We’ll add a few variables to the existing run after function and make it global, so you can script it to your heart’s content.”

4. Only share files while the computer is idle

While some users will be sharing files all the time, many will want to use their full bandwidth for other duties while they’re sat at their desk. Inevitably full-scale BitTorrent up and downloading will affect performance unless the client is carefully configured. This solution will mean that only when a user is finished his work will file-sharing kick in. Firon reports that the feature will likely include a configurable idle period.

5. Scan for viruses when a download completes

Although there is less chance of picking up a virus when using uTorrent combined with a reputable torrent indexing site than other protocols, no method of file-sharing is immune to these threats. An automatic virus check will ensure that nothing slips through the net.

“The current plan to implement this is to simply have a generalized, global option to auto-run an app after the torrent completes,” says Firon. “We’ll add a few variables to the existing run after function and make it global, so you can script it to your heart’s content.”

6. Password lock uTorrent

Anyone with a shared computer or one within reach of an inquisitive child will be familiar with the fear associated with potential download interference. With the use of a password, torrent transfers can continue unabated and in privacy, no matter who is at the machine.

“This will be integrated with the boss key functionality, so you can use the boss key to ‘lock’ µTorrent,” explains Firon. “When you press it again, it will ask you for a password.”

7. Move torrent files and data with one click

Anyone who has needed to move their downloaded .torrent files and the associated data to a new place on their computer will know what a drawn out manual procedure it can become when lots of files are involved.

“Yes, managing files kinda sucks in µTorrent right now,” admits Firon. “We’ll try to get this done for 2.2 as well to make it easier. Set download location will probably be renamed and will move the content for you, all in one step. Oh, and we’ll make ‘Relocate’ on the Files tab work the same way.”

8. UNRAR and move files support

Anyone downloading large files split into multiple .RARs will be familiar with the associated unpacking, deleting and moving procedures. This new feature will allow those who don’t want this manual distraction to streamline the process.

“The current plan to implement this is to simply have a generalized, global option to auto-run an app after the torrent completes,” says Firon. “We’ll add a few variables to the existing run after function and make it global, so you can script it to your heart’s content.”

9. uTorrent will become Open Source!!

BitTorrent Inc. are certainly listening to their users and the Idea Bank is a great idea in itself, but don’t expect every suggestion to be implemented. Especially this one….

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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One of the most significant changes in the new uTorrent is uTP, the ‘micro transfer protocol’. UTP is a new and improved implementation of the BitTorrent protocol which is designed to be more network-friendly than its predecessor.

With uTP, uTorrent has become more network aware as it will throttle itself if congestion is detected in the network. The uTorrent teams hopes this improvement will eliminate the need for ISPs to throttle BitTorrent traffic, while its users should see less interference with other local applications.

The effectiveness of uTP is still being debated, but some people in the BitTorrent community have noticed another issue. According to some owners of private BitTorrent trackers, uTorrent is no longer playing fair. Since uTorrent users are the only ones using the new protocol, uTorrent favors its own kind over other clients.

This means that when connecting to other clients, uTorrent users will give preference to other uTorrent users, behavior that some have characterized as unfair. As a result, several private BitTorrent trackers have refused to put the newer uTorrent releases on their whitelists, effectively banning the client and forcing their users to stick with the older versions.

Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management admits that the tracker owners have a point, but says that it is very hard to innovate without having to face such technical downsides. “This is part of the challenge of innovation… but hopefully a challenge we’ll overcome,” Morris told TorrentFreak.

“We’re well aware of these discussions and have been very receptive to the feedback we have received. uTP is being constantly tuned and like any advanced technology on the internet there are edge cases where there’s room for improvement,” Morris adds.

BitTorrent Inc. has opened up the specifications of the uTP protocol and hosted a conference in their San Fransisco offices a few weeks ago to discuss uTP in detail with developers of some of the most popular Bittorrent clients. According to Morris, other popular client developers have shown interest in implementing uTP into their own applications.

Widespread support for the new protocol would of course be the easiest way to get rid of the unfairness allegations, but uTorrent’s major competitor Vuze has no plans to support uTP in the short term. On the other hand, Vuze doesn’t believe the unfairness will result in a noticeable disadvantage for its users.

“In terms of speed, we do not buy-in to the ‘threat’ cited by some, claiming that uTP can result in slower downloads for non-uTP clients due to uTP clients favoring each other during the torrent cold start phase,” Olivier Chalouhi, CTO told TorrentFreak.

Vuze is keeping a close eye on how uTP evolves and will consider adding it to their own client as the technology matures. For now Vuze will continue to work on their own congestion solutions and speed improvements. They have already added UDP transfer support, but not as the primary protocol.

“Vuze added support for UDP transport a few years ago, as a fallback for when TCP connection attempts fail. To date, Vuze chose not to implement UDP as a first-class protocol, as we consciously wanted to avoid claims of a Vuze-specific protocol bias, which we do not believe serves the BitTorrent community at large,” Chalouhi said.

Whether uTorrent’s choice to push uTP forward results in any significant disadvantages for users of other clients is still open for debate. BitTorrent Inc. is, however, committed to play fair and will make the necessary adjustments where needed.

Thus far, only a few private trackers have decided to ban uTorrent and there are currently no signs that it will spread out to more.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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BitTorrent is by far the leading file-sharing technology, with millions of people using the protocol every day. Every two months we take a look at the market share of various BitTorrent clients to see if there are interesting trends emerging.

Today’s report is based on data from over 17,221 unique users in a few dozen public BitTorrent swarms, collected by the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology.

The results in the table below show the market share for each individual client. In common with our previous reports, only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 14 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up in the unknown ‘category’.

The changes in market share compared to our September report are also included, and these show some interesting trends. First of all, uTorrent extended its user base and now has a massive 60 percent market share. Vuze, BitComet and BitTorrent’s Mainline client all lost market share.

Transmission, on the other hand, keeps on growing. Its market share increased to 23 percent and might take over BitComet’s fourth place soon. More on this in our December report.

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Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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