
Newest version of uTorrent has Bitcoin mining offer during install - benbristow
http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/95041-warning-epicscale-riskware-silently-installed-with-latest-utorrent/
======
mappu
A plug for GPL/MIT Transmission (windows version
[http://trqtw.sf.net/](http://trqtw.sf.net/) )

If you want to avoid ads and bundled spyware, better to use up-to-date FOSS
instead of years-old unsupported versions of uTorrent.

~~~
Goronmon
_If you want to avoid ads and bundled spyware, better to use up-to-date FOSS
instead of years-old unsupported versions of uTorrent._

Why is it better to use up-to-date FOSS if the older version of uTorrent works
fine (better even, in my experience)?

~~~
balladeer
Because one day it might stop to; actually it "will".

~~~
ArchReaper
What makes you think that? The torrent protocol would need to fundamentally
change to completely stop the older versions from working. I don't see that
happening.

~~~
inyourtenement
The environment it runs in (your PC, operating system) changes over time. Yes,
backwards compatibility is a big priority, but eventually something is going
to fall out of compatibility. It's also known as bit rot.

------
wodenokoto
Why does the headline say "Bitcoin mining offer during install" when the posts
in the forum talks about silent install of crapware?

~~~
blueskin_
The crapware in question is a bitcoin miner.

~~~
comboy
I doubt it's a bitcoin miner. Probably some altcoin. Bitcoin mining is not
profitable on CPU anymore, no matter how many general purpose CPUs you have at
your disposal (fair approximation).

~~~
leni536
It's profitable if you use other people's computers and don't pay for the
wasted electricity. It's straight stealing though.

~~~
shawabawa3
Depends on what you mean by profitable

For a modern top of the range CPU you can expect maybe ~5MH/s (likely even
less)

If 1 million people install utorrent and have their processors mining
constantly, you can expect a daily profit of about $14

~~~
jonknee
As far as I know uTorrent has hundreds of millions of users, it's not going to
be amazingly profitable, but still significant revenue. (I don't see any
recent figures, but they were at 150m monthly users over three years ago.)

------
orf
Notice how the EpicScale website[1] says nothing about what percentage of
bitcoin profits goes charities. The uTorrent installer is by far the worst I
have encountered - there must be 4 or 5 offers you have to click through and
each one has a different way of tricking you like a tiny checkbox in the text
which must be checked before pressing forward, or having to press a button
that looks like one that takes you back a stage to progress without
installing.

1\. [http://www.epicscale.com/](http://www.epicscale.com/)

~~~
krelian
That company deserves a place among in the top scumbags list. The one and only
purpose of this malware masquerading as charity is listed on the site as if it
was an afterthought "(including cryptocurrency mining)" .

------
Touche
What is wrong with the state of software on Windows? Whether it is download
pages containing 4 or 5 Download links that are really just ads or "partner
downloads" for crapware, it's just really difficult to get software on
Windows.

~~~
cabirum
Chocolatey, [https://chocolatey.org/](https://chocolatey.org/), "Package
Manager, somewhat like apt-get, but built with Windows in mind". This will be
the package manager bundled with Powershell in Windows 10, I think.

Still, I prefer standalone installers. Neither Ninite nor Chocolatey offer
choice of a location for installing a package, and I prefer to keep large/IO
intensive apps installed on my HDD, not on a tiny SSD.

~~~
Potando
Curious what advantage that gives. Isn't quickly loading big programs what
SSDs are for? That's why I got one. A program shouldn't be writing to its
program files folder if you're worried about large amounts of data building up
there.

~~~
freehunter
I keep all my games on a huge, slow 2TB drive rather than an SSD because SSDs
are expensive compared to HDDs, and they're also smaller. And modern games are
_big_. I keep Windows on the SSD and the big files on the HDD.

------
stygiansonic
I stopped using uTorrent a while ago because of all the bundled crapware like
this.

I switched to qBittorrent[0] and haven't looked back. It has a similar UI.

0\. [http://www.qbittorrent.org/](http://www.qbittorrent.org/)

~~~
mg1982
Me too! Abandoned utorrent when it started with ads; every release since seems
to be a new low. Hopefully this'll penetrate their user base enough to make
them take stock because it seems like they've basically got away with
crapifying a once-great client.

How low can they go? Find out when you download v3.4.3 - utorrent with "visual
ad enhancement"* brought to you by Superfish!

------
shaunol
uTorrent has been crapware for a long time now and I'm not sure why people
support it. Since people are plugging their favourite alternatives, my current
favourite by a long shot is qBittorent[1] which is open source and natively
supported on Windows/MacOS/Linux/FreeBSD.

[1]
[http://www.qbittorrent.org/index.php](http://www.qbittorrent.org/index.php)

------
ilitirit
I reverted to version 2.X (don't remember which one exactly). Anything beyond
that is crap.

My brother swears by Tixati:

[http://www.tixati.com/](http://www.tixati.com/)

~~~
u1F3B2
I've been using uTorrent 2.2.1 Build 25302 [0] for a couple years now on
Windows and it works great. The installer still has a few crapware offers that
you have to click off, but if you turn off update checking the client will
never bug you again. To install it on Windows 8, I had to disconnect from wifi
and set Win7 compatibility mode on the installer.

[0]
[http://www.oldversion.com/windows/utorrent-2-2-1-build-25302](http://www.oldversion.com/windows/utorrent-2-2-1-build-25302)

------
wslh
It seems like BitTorrent doesn't know how to make money: $40.8 Million in 3
Rounds from 3 Investors [1] and 178 people [2] working there are not enough.

It's a tragedy that this company can't leave the startup hangar yet, mainly
based on Bram Cohen's great contribution to Internet protocols.

And we can't forget the uTorrent free version embedded flash control that
consumes more than 10% of the CPU in Windows.

[1] Crunchbase [2] LinkedIn

~~~
pjc50
It's a product whose primary market is people who prefer not to pay for
things.

~~~
1ris
It's a shame. It's great for all kind of stuff. Doesn't WoW distribute their
game via torrent?

~~~
pjc50
Not via utorrent, it's baked into their launcher.

------
keslag
I've always wondered if there was a way to monetize uTorrent. The userbase is
predominantly people who don't want to pay for digital goods. So they're not
going to pay for your software, and it's a pretty hard space to sell to
advertisers. You're essentially left with companies whose reputation is so
bad, that being associated with illegal downloads doesn't negatively affect
their brand.

~~~
jasonkester
Somebody needs to start a service that lets you pay for the movies you
download via BitTorrent.

Torrented movies are better in pretty much every regard as compared to
DVD/BluRay. No ads, no unskippable videos telling you not to pirate the disc
you just bought, no 2 minute unskippable disc title intro, etc. Double click
the file and it plays the movie.

That's worth paying for. I'd pay for that over Disks in the mail from Amazon
if it were possible to do so. If there was a service that let me paste in a
.torrent, pay $10, and have them forward it to the studio, life would be good.

Instead, we get iTunes, which somehow manages to make the movie watching
process _more_ painful than DVDs.

~~~
ollysb
Being able to get subtitles for anh film is another benefit vs iTunes etc.

------
IkmoIkmo
That's really dumb, bad for users, bad for the environment and without clear
benefits to uTorrent.

Why? Because ASICS that's why.

To illustrate. A Macbook Pro bought a few years ago costs $1200 today. Its CPU
will get you 1.8 megahash per second. It uses about 250 watt at max CPU.

Meanwhile, an ASIC today costing about $350 will get you over 1 million MH/S
and its max watt usage is about 590.

Considering uTorrent isn't specialized mining software, and considering you'll
only use about 25% of CPU or so (and that is way too much itself), you're
looking at being able to run about 10 million megahash per second on an ASIC
for the same cost of running 2 MH/S on a MBP.

Now consider that this ASIC is available to you and me, and that even better
ASICS are used by mining farms in China with access to electricity that's 2x -
4x cheaper than what you're paying at home, purchased at factory prices even
lower than the $350 I mentioned above.

What does it all mean? It means that if you run a Macbook Pro at today's
hashrate for 30 years, 24/7 at 100% of CPU, you will earn $0.07.

So just think about what uTorrent is doing to you. If they took 50% of your
CPU for the 8 hours you use your device each day the next year, they'd make
1/25th of a single penny, and that 50% extra CPU would cost you about $20 in
electricity, and reduce the lifetime of your computer.

This idea would have been brilliant years ago, before ASICs. Today it's one of
the dumbest ideas in the world. It can cost your users tens of dollars, slow
down their computers, reduce the lifetime of their hardware and generates
virtually no money for you in the process.

Even with 1 million Macbook Pros running this year round, they'd make $700
while generating tens of millions in extra electricity costs.

If they think that 1 million users opening their app every single day and
running it for 8 hours to generate $700 is a lasting business model, then I
think that's very telling of where uTorrent is headed. I say that even if it
didn't cost users 50% of their CPU and a few dollars a month in the process.

\-- quick edit: Bitcoin would actually be a very interesting usecase for
torrent technology. You could for example attach a bitcoin address to each
torrent packet. Then a torrent client could verify if the packet contains
valid data (like normal), and automatically send a microreward (e.g.
1/millionth of a penny) back to whoever supplied you that packet. Each user
could connect a bitcoin wallet and set a reward for various things he's
downloading (e.g. $1 for a 1960s vintage album that can't be found anywhere,
or 1 cent for the guy sending him House of Cards).

You could completely monetize seeders on a voluntary pay-what-you-want basis.
And uTorrent could offer an option to send 1% of these 'donations' to uTorrent
itself automatically. It'd generate a lot more revenue than mining, while
costing the user a fraction, and incentivize seeding of a whole range of new
content and make torrenting more popular than ever, without having to rely on
centralized payment systems that would shut it down immediately.

It's just one of many ideas. I'm all for cryptocurrency and torrents, but this
particular product just makes no sense.

~~~
andrepd
Not that I disagree with you, but illustrating your point by comparing a madly
cost-effective ASIC today to a madly overpriced PC several years old is a bit
misleading.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
That's the entire point. The point is that bitcoin mining is a lottery, and
you get more tickets the more hashpower you have.

In other words, it's a competition. The average person running a MBP that's a
few years old gets 2 MH/S (call em lottery tickets). But the majority of
people mining are doing so with ASICs that get 1 or 2 million MH/S at a
quarter of the cost of the __second hand __price of a MBP. That 's the reality
today.

The comparison between the two isn't my point. It's merely to illustrate WHY
running a MBP for 1 year, 24/7 at 100% of CPU nets you a fraction of a single
penny. It's because many others mine with specialized equipment.

The basic point is that if you get 2 lottery tickets and there are 100 tickets
in total, that's great. If you get 2 lottery tickets and there are litterally
trillions of tickets, you won't win, and over the course of a century you will
earn less than 1 dollar.

That's not misleading it's literally what is happening. uTorrent's average
user will generate a fraction of a penny in bitcoin revenue, while generating
10-20 dollars of extra electricity costs, while using up 50% of its CPU. These
facts come from data of today's hashrate, not from analogy. I just wrote down
the comparison to explain why the hashrate is so gigantic and why running
millions of Macbook Pros through uTorrent can't compete with it and won't
generate any real money, despite spending loads of money on electricity costs.

~~~
bhouston
So basically uTorrent is abusing its users in the extreme to try and make
money. It is making its users spend money on electricity (because users can
not stop them) in order to make much less money through bitcoin.

I wonder if that is a new permission Apps should request -- the ability to run
high intensity CPU jobs.

Anyhow, this part of uTorrent needs to be removed by the next update of
Windows's built-in malware removal tool.

------
jonnynezbo
The link doesn't work: "Account Suspended"

~~~
xrjn
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150306113124/http://forum.utor...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150306113124/http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/95041-warning-
epicscale-riskware-silently-installed-with-latest-utorrent/)

------
deanclatworthy
I have rarely used torrents over the years, but my understanding is that
uTorrent has been bundled with crap for ages now. I still have a really old
version installed.

~~~
franciscogarcia
IIRC uTorrent 2.2 is the last usable version. I specifically search for it
whenever I format my PC.

------
caractacus
(200m unique monthly users) * (even only a teeny percent of users accepting
these offers) = considerable money for BitTorrent Inc.

------
qnr
I highly doubt it really mines bitcoin because with the current difficulty a
typical modern graphics card can expect to mine less than $0.01 worth of
bitcoin a week if left running 24/7 on full load.

Edit: what I meant is that EpicScale in all likelihood mines another
cryptocurrency, not bitcoin. Especially that it seems to use CPU which is
utterly useless for bitcoin mining (you won't even get $0.01 in a year with
the latest i7!)

~~~
wldlyinaccurate
From the Epic Scale website
([http://www.epicscale.com/](http://www.epicscale.com/)):

 _How is money earned?

Solving math problems for weather prediction, physics simulations,
cryptography (including cryptocurrency mining) and more has real world value.
We solve these problems on behalf of our trusted partners, and donate proceeds
to your favorite charities._

The key words there being _including cryptocurrency mining_.

------
VeejayRampay
uTorrent is a great client, really is, but it's been plagued with ads, bundled
crapware and other "goodies" for years now. I understand software doesn't come
free and the developers have to be paid, but this is tarnishing the brand now.

Good thing for them that the state of Bittorent clients is rather stale and
mediocre, there's no way they would survive more competition with that
behaviour.

~~~
tyrfing
It's a terrible client. The only reason it's survived so long despite the
owner shamelessly milking it of every penny they can is name recognition. The
brand isn't being tarnished - it's being sacrificed wholesale for dollars,
with the singular goal of extracting as many dollars as possible before it
dies.

I suggest Deluge, or maybe Transmission.

[http://deluge-torrent.org/](http://deluge-torrent.org/)

edit: retracting Transmission recommendation because I'm unfamiliar with it's
state on Windows. Looks like there are builds, but I've never used them.

~~~
cabirum
It's not terrible.

It does it's job well enough, ads can be easily disabled via advanced
settings, it works in portable mode without even having a chance to install
bundled crapware, the UI does not make my eyes bleed.

~~~
tyrfing
A philosophical difference - I believe that being forced to jump through hoops
like that just to make it usable are sufficient to make it terrible. These
sorts of things are designed to make it just OK enough to use for technically
inclined users, while profiting off of those who don't know better - what
percent of users do you think go through the steps you list?

You can also add hosts file entries to block application ads after dumping
network traffic to find the servers, you can edit binaries with a hex editor
and debugger to patch out code paths. But should you need to, just to make it
usable? What amount of work is needed to make it not-terrible before it can be
declared terrible?

------
Jack000
torrent clients haven't changed much over the years, the old version still
works just as well for me. Private torrent sites require specific clients, and
the old version of utorrent is usually on the list.

------
rawe
[http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/forum.utorrent.com](http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/forum.utorrent.com)
slashdotted.

[http://forum.utorrent.com/index.php?app=members&module=onlin...](http://forum.utorrent.com/index.php?app=members&module=online&sort_order=desc)

------
rdudek
I've been using a server as a seedbox to avoid this hassle of having clients
installed on my computer. I'm trying to keep my system to a bare minimum of
installed junk.

------
cpeterso
Some MIT students founded a company called TidBit that let web publishers mine
bitcoins (using asm.js) in their readers' browsers as an opt-in alternative to
banner ads. They current face a subpoena from the New Jersey division of
consumer affairs.

[http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/12/new-jersey-slaps-mit-
bitco...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/12/new-jersey-slaps-mit-bitcoin-
hackers-with-subpoena-and-theyre-fighting-back/view-all/)

------
squeaky-clean
I doubt it's mining Bitcoins specifically, people in the thread only mention
CPU usage so far. I found this[0] on the epicscale site, which let's you query
for things like the hashrate of a Node, but it doesn't seem to work. So while
not bitcoins, I would guess they are mining some altcoin rather than being a
botnet or something else.

[0] [http://report.epicscale.com/](http://report.epicscale.com/)

------
justizin
"This is abhorrent!"

"What kind of monster would suck up my CPU cycles, increasing my power bill,
and shortening the life of my hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of
computing equipment, to make a few cents?!"

This is basically just flash ads without annoying audio coming from a mystery
tab. I laud it as innovation. ;)

Also: transmission, yo.

------
acd
I suggest you use qbitorrent instead which is a fork of uTorrent the site
ninite has an installer for it.

------
jimkri
Did anyone else catch what one of the Admins on the site said? >Looks like the
Epic Scale software is not uninstalling as it was intended to by design.

I literally cannot stand companies that write software like this.

------
GigabyteCoin
As a old bitcoin miner, this is a phenomenally terrible idea.

CPU and GPU mining will literally cost their users millions of dollars in
electricity for the few thousand dollars they would stand to make in bitcoin
mining.

------
ghantila
Did anyone notice? uTorrent main setup file is packed by UPX and is made
unpack-able by UPX itself by modifying some bytes in the packed UPX. Why would
a developer do that? Point.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I remember when uTorrent was the shiny, slim, new BT client to supersede the
bloated and ad-riddled Bitlord and BitComet clients.

The more things change...

------
techaddict009
Any better alternative to uTorrent? I am using it since years. Bittorrent
seems just clone of it with different color scheme.

------
charonn0
I was able to load up the page a few minutes ago, but now it says the hosting
account is suspended.

------
helical
Is there a relatively easy way to import all torrents from uTorrent to some
other torrent client?

------
wnevets
I havent updated utorrent since it was bought by bittorrent. What a waste of a
great product.

------
garou
the bittorrent suffers from the same problem? I can not tell if they are
different programs, after all they are the same company and are visually
identical.

~~~
blueskin_
BitTorrent (the client) is based on uTorrent's codebase as they are owned by
the same company. Both can install malware if you're not careful.

------
rythmshifter
and BitTorrent has questionable ties to the mpaa

~~~
caractacus
Hahahaha. No. No, it doesn't. It once agreed to remove content when told (ie,
adhere to the DMCA) many many many years ago (ten? more?) when it had a search
portal on its own web site but if you really believe that bittorrent has some
kind of direct line to the MPAA to report users, you are very deluded.

Edit: 2005. [https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-and-mpaa-join-
forces/](https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-and-mpaa-join-forces/)

------
jugbee
seriously? no Vuze/Azureus fans?

~~~
alvarosm
It works fine. Still a bit of a memory hog but we have more ram now. They're
going down the path of adware/spyware too, however, you have to opt out in a
convoluted way and you're still shown ads. But at least it doesn't carry a
coin miner. Yet. Fingers crossed.

~~~
the8472
> you're still shown ads.

current version, classic UI, no ads:
[http://i.imgur.com/8nD46ab.png](http://i.imgur.com/8nD46ab.png)

------
blumkvist
qbittorrent guys. Forget that uTorrent shit.

