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uTorrent Changes: A response to your feedback


bigfalls

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I understand you all have plenty of reason to be very cynical of companies in general and skeptical of my refrain in particular: that we are listening. In that context, and after much discussion, I want to provide more substance behind my words by revealing some specifics of our plans.

1) 3.0 and "bloat"

As some of you know, we have listened – Firon, myself, developers, others - to those of you distressed over the past many months about what you consider bloat in 3.0.

Response: In the past six months, the team has been dedicated to everything BUT new features. And no new features are planned. Instead you've gotten improvements to existing features, bug fixes and performance improvements, which I've named previously.

New information: We will be removing Apps in a near-future release because they've not been a success among our user base worldwide. Similarly, we will evaluate other existing features. We know that not every one of our features is a success, and our goal is to ship a slim base product with only those features users like and use.

Beyond this, we hear the calls among many of you for a µ that is smaller and meaner than the current µ. Something like 1.6, 2.0 or similar. Over the past year, we’ve discussed various paths to getting there and are taking this request seriously.

2) On the new client offers

We hear all of your concerns and comments. And from the very first post, I said we would listen and adjust as needed.

Response: This being an experiment, we’ve previously discussed whether or not to provide an offer opt-out. Given your feedback, we’ve decided to go ahead with this in the upcoming version. Each of you will have the opportunity to see and experience offers for yourselves. If you don’t like what you

see, simply opt out entirely.

Having said that, we stand behind offers as a reasonable trade-off to providing our users with valuable, free software, and we will continue to pursue them. Our goal is, frankly, to provide a better experience than we do with our current offer mix. Of course this is not an overnight change.

Thanks to everybody who offered their feedback, and to those who stuck around to work with us constructively and faithfully throughout this process. Your feedback has been

invaluable.

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Great news. What has been the discussion on the lite version thus far? Do you have a possible time frame for release? Sometimes things get taken seriously but left on the do do shelf.. As mentioned in the previous thread, I'd happily pay for a lite ad free version.

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I'm happy that you've provided the opt-out option, and will be removing the bloated apps platform from the client. I'll go delete qBittorrent, Tixati and Deluge now. I would also just like to throw in that I would be happy to pay for a Lite version closer to the "meanness" of the 2.0.4 codebase as suggested in the other thread. :)

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Great news. What has been the discussion on the lite version thus far? Do you have a possible time frame for release? Sometimes things get taken seriously but left on the do do shelf.. As mentioned in the previous thread, I'd happily pay for a lite ad free version.

We don't have any details to announce on our solution to the ask for a lighter, meaner µT right now. But thanks for the feedback!

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Would wait instead for bloat free, free version which may never happen else we would have it now. Also rather not have any bloat code in the software even if has opt-out options. While it is there it is able to be run or keep running even though user doesn't see it.

A good idea, what people no longer see they no longer care about, this acumen is score 10/10. Which does say who have you in your team making such business decisions. Someone with other intentions other than utorrent future, or who has sold out !

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Thank you BigFalls, Firon, and all the other devs, for *actually* listening - we, your core userbase, DO appreciate it!

*I* think that this is a very equitable approach. Those who don't mind the ads can opt in, those who don't like them can opt out. Very reasonable.

I really think that the idea of using a Plug-In (or similar optional) feature for each of the potential options would be the most effective way to go - that way you don't have the extra code in the core client. Keep the CORE lite and clean, with the ability to ADD IN anything additional. That also has the benefit of not screwing something in the CORE up when you change something in a Plug-In.

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@bigfalls

A disappointment to you to make the people who used their software to gain on his back!

Why did not big news to people as "Add anomos in utorrent protocol" that in his beloved stock ideas?

You just said you would do thinking it was a transparent and more useful for the community!

You must realize that people want, they want fast and clean software evolved, making it the return of money always sucks! donations even if we could think of you donate!

I am sincere tixati use of time, but even using other software I'm worried about the situation in common p2p!

If large orders to carry out the community you came back to be large, but as for a company that brings ta ve money so the situation could soon to repeat it differently!

Courage to admit her for an abortion of advertising in your software! Now rethink your attitude after being badly done, I hope to be saved!

The many solutions for you to continue at its peak just shut his eyes to the profits of billion of dollars!

back 2.2.1 and evolve from there often with ideial lightly, fast and functional without added crap ..

open source the project.

Are only some ideas, but I hope you go through the ideas in your own stock ideas to add to utorrent, because what it is what this community wants to be added utorrent, not a target peaks in the eyes please do so you will cripple user with a reduction of your software

why shut down the other topic? let people discuss their action!:rolleyes::rolleyes:

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You seem to be admitting defeat with great distaste. Which based on other forum posts by the utorrent team makes me wonder, oversized ego, etc.

Wouldnt surprise me if you were petty too. Which leads me to my question:

So how will you punish the users who opt-out of the ads ?

Ads have never been useful to me, most ads are lies, the biggest cause of surfing slow downs, filled with malicious software, etc. Like the toolbar utorrent wants to install.

So of course people will put security and performance first and opt-out directly.

This you should know already which is why i ask.

You are trying so hard to milk the poor user base of money.

utorrent was made popular by the fact that is was fast, light, portable, user friendly (no ads), no bullshit "features".

The things you have done recently have changed that.

When will you learn you got your user base based on what utorrent stood for in the beginning and by every act of greed is a slap in the face of this user base.

Sooner or later somebody will say enough and make (or reverse engineer) a new torrent client that is open source and that stands for the same ideas utorrent stood for before.

What do you think will happen with your user base when that happens ?

Of course they will leave you.

Calling your attempts of greed as "experiments" will not help you.

What will you do next ? Try to lock in the user base by using proprietary tech like apple and microsoft are doing ?

utorrent and what it stood for wasnt made to make money. Accept that already !

Make utorrent one of the good guys again, please.

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This is a pretty weak compromise, and point #1 and #2 contradict each other.

You claim that

In the past six months, the team has been dedicated to everything BUT new features. And no new features are planned

Yet point #2 regardless of how you look at it IS a new feature to the application, flying in the face of your assertion that no new features will be added.

Please leave the advertising "feature" out of the client entirely. As many users in the other thread pointed out, there is enough bloat in the 3.x series as it is.

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I think the main response was people questioning the motivations and integrity, and frankly, intelligence behind the decision to add ads to a program that is used for downloading stuff for free. On top of that, people feel strongly about NOT monetising file sharing tools, as any money involved should be sent to the artist or developer directly, and not skimmed from use of any particular distribution channel.

Its a bit ironic that some secretive organization who refuses to open source their programs is the heart of p2p file sharing. Part of me wants to see utorrent go the way of ads, bloat and crap features so that a project true to the values of p2p and more largely, free and open software, can take the lead.

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it's about time apps were removed, and i'm glad to hear it. finally we're moving back in the right direction! however I don't intend on continuing to use utorrent until I can see where the opt-out leads, among other things.

Sorry guys, but you're not the top client on the block, nor are you the only one. All the relevant torrent clients that exist are free and so far this is the first major one to discuss the idea of putting advertisements into the code. (I'm sure there have been clients loaded with adware and what not, but they've never gotten far.) You're already at a disadvantage by being closed source (a theoretical disadvantage only; few users will fish through the code to be sure of what it does, but open source does promote confidence when people are often moving illegal data, and afraid of corporate eavesdroppers). Adding stuff like advertisements and apps takes away from what a client is supposed to do - torrent. utorrent remains very good at that but is losing track of it in a sea of crap. How do you intend to keep up against a broad array of completely free competitors if you start turning people off of your own client? I know that I, personally, would never put money into a torrent client. I could just switch clients for free, and hell, I'd sooner write my own than pay. What can you do to stop me? Are you going to lock up and monetize the entire BitTorrent protocol, and prevent any other agency from using it? (Okay obviously that was a rhetorical question; it would never happen and it's obviously a very bad idea.)

With so much competition from people who really are not looking to turn even a penny from their clients, it's tough to justify one that hopes to monetize the system, even if the reasons to do so are legitimate. utorrent's dominating market share will not last forever and events like this only increase the publicity of other clients. Browsing random communities and forums not related to torrenting at all, you can find, in their off-topic sections, discussions about torrent clients that are suddenly springing back to life. It's the first time in a long time that anyone's asked about an alternative to utorrent, and there's no shortage of alternatives being suggested, either. I don't think that's what you're trying to accomplish.

And while I understand the objective is to promote torrenting as a content syndication and distribution system for the internet (breaking free of the stereotypical image of torrenting as a means of obtaining illegal software and warez), these changes have been the wrong way to do it. They're damaging the image of the premier torrent client, which makes it more difficult for first-time torrenters (looking to obtain legally distributed music or what have you) to pick it up. Moreover, the content distribution system for torrents is already established through indices and trackers - not all of which are private, or bearing a reputation for illegal content. As a client, that's not the place to be pushing into.

This is definitely a move in the right direction. Is it enough? No, not really, but it's progress, and that's always a good thing. I hope to see more good stuff like this, and remember, less is more!

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If you would like to see what Windoze users would like to see in a bit torrent client, and also what they do not want to see:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/trqtw/

Why would anyone want to use anything else?

To be honest, Transmission is a bit too bare-bones for my taste.

I still have to how the new ads will impact the UI. If they're not annoying, or I can turn them off entirely, then I don't have any issues with them going in. I would greatly prefer that uTorrent remain freeware (not adware), but I can't control that.

And we'll always have Deluge.

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Have a basic client without the bloat that is free for everyone to use.

Which has the ability to add plugins or similar direct from utorrent that to have other bloat added after payment. One low cost payment is only needed only for each feature would keep sales active and money rolling in. This way would keep everyone happy and still maintain active development of the one client

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Hello, I just registered to say this on behalf of a certain 2+ petabyte private tracker:

That's it, utorrent staff. We're disappointed and our patience is finally exhausted. We've been discouraging members from using new utorrent versions, sticking to 1.8.2, 2.2.1 etc, hoping... But we can't keep like this forever. We're planning to move all the projects, as well as we test various bt clients for various platforms to choose a "new default bt client" for the userbase. We DO want (as we always wanted) a light, fast, stable and secure, spartan and efficiently result-oriented, predictable and flexible software with powerful and up-to-date core functionality which utorrent was at a time when it kept to the roots. We DO NOT want a piece of bloatware with ads, useless functionality, "targeting" and "partner" modules and other monetization crap you made in what utorrent is now. Instead of doing what community wants, you keep saying your "we're listening" mantra. No you're not listening. That is why it is time to move on.

Good luck with your "features" and monetization crap.

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Couple of things that bother me here.

First, 3.x has gone from problem to problem, causing people to leave already. I, for one, am out of good will and patience after having to deal with continous bugs and empty promises. 3.2 tipped the scale for me and I changed to older version. So where is your sense of timing? You don't even have a well functioning client and you pull this shit on users? Are you sure its the best time to do that? Why not offer a good product before trying to cash in? Now you're just trying to use the remains of an almost lost reputation.

As for your announcement, it made an awkward reading. Like slimy politicians you tried to use rhetoric and misleading words, like 'experiment' and 'content we feel you might like', instead of manning up and admitting you wanted to get paid. Wanting to get paid is something people can relate to and understand. You just looked like a bunch of weasels trying to lie your way through it.

Finally, its always funny when companies, and especially piracy driven companies, make emotional pleas to its customers about supporting them, doing the right thing and 'keeping the lights on'. What happened to let the market decide, best product being the cheapest and most effective. If you want to have any credibilty you chose one road and you stick with it. Communtiy and charity diven projects can ask for 'understanding' and 'donations', not corporations. It sounds so silly I can't find the words for it.

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