"Adding value" as opposed to simplicity

[zezidud]

I've been using uTorrent as my principle torrenting program for many years, but now I am one of the people who think that the new version has become overly heavy with new "features" with the result that the basic system no longer works as well as before and uTorrent has become very frustrating to use.  It looks to me as though the programmers/designers are making the all-too-common mistake of adding features at the expense of fundamental functionality.  This is a very bad idea.  

 

Due to the simplicity and elegance of uTorrent, I hold the programmer who originally wrote it in very high regard.  (I forget his name, sorry.)   That is not to say that uTorrent has not had its problems.  It has, for example, always been a resource hog, which is why I've tended to prefer BitTornado for single download jobs (though not any more!), but the current stable version of uTorrent overwhelms the entire machine.  I have never had the kind of problems that I am now experiencing every time I use it, even though I've applied the recommended settings and also fiddled around with them a bit.  

 

Unlike other similarly frustrated users, I do not intend re-install a previous version of uTorrent, though I've got several in storage.  It's too important to keep up with the changes in the torrenting eco-system, including things like trackerless operation and magnet links, etc.  

 

So, this brief remark is my little contribution to the effort of trying to keep things simple.   

 

Thanks for your attention.

 

--William

 

(Your call is important to us!)

 

 

[zezidud]

It was really not my intention to troll this board just for the hell of it.  The torrenting scene has apparently changed somewhat since I've been away in an alternate universe, but I'm back now and have upgraded to the new version only to find the difference to be greater than anticipated.  That's all, really...

 

Today I've been playing around with various other clients, of which there are a surprising number even just in the open-source realm on SourceForge.  It's something of a mind-expander.  I'd encourage anyone to sniff around and not be locked in anybody else's jail.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[zezidud]

"I came back" to uTorrent.  It is still the best.  But, while researching more about bit-torrent technology, I learned that adding trackers does not speed up torrent downloads and also overwhelms trackers with unnecessary traffic, causing them to fail and go offline.  I found this information here:      "ktech.co.uk/2014/01/bittorrent-tracker-madness"   If this is true, why does uTorrent provide the ability to add more trackers?  I thought adding trackers speeds up slow torrents and I therefore often search on a torrent's hash to add more trackers (and peers).  I *thought* this worked, but according to the information on that site, this is a misconception.  So... I may be confused but I'm certainly not alone in thinking that adding trackers is a good idea, and I'm still posting to the wrong forum, so here is my feature request:  Something in the interface that educates users about how the system works so they don't add trackers unnecessarily? 

[zezidud]

Woops, the link to the article doesn't show up in my last post.  I'll put quotes around it this time to see if that works:

 

                         "ktech.co.uk/2014/01/bittorrent-tracker-madness"

[DreadWingKnight]

uTorrent provides the ability to add trackers on the off chance that adding the small number of trackers does actually help.

The typical list of trackers that people try adding to every torrent possible causes a DDoS effect against the trackers, especially since they put the list in badly, multiple times and/or with excessive duplication of addresses within the list.

[zezidud]

Yes.  It seems to me that the ui should provide guidance on this to at least try to prevent that syndrome.  I had no idea this was occurring.  But also, adding a tracker or two does often seem to make a difference.