uTorrent 2.0.3 Possible Ads?

I recently got the auto update of uTorrent 2.0.3 B20664 and after using it for a couple of days I noticed that the search bar in the top right of the toolbar changed to a blank white space with a link to "Take our survey"... now when you restart uTorrent it is originally the search bar but after some time (not sure exactly how long) it switches to the "Take our survey" link. I have not clicked on the link as I'm not sure if its an ad or just a poorly done feedback link for uTorrent so I'm not sure if its genuine.

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/6398/utorrent203ad.jpg

Anybody else get this? Is there a way to get rid of it?

why don't you just copy & post the link ? I sugget you delte this uTorrent, and re-download it (from my sig/site...)

I can't get any information ie. right clicking for properties or to copy the link, I've tried everything short of clicking on the link which I don't want to do until I know where it leads and whether or not its a genuine part of uTorrent. I don't want to uninstall and reinstall as this would technically be already on my system and the uTorrent version was downloaded through uTorrent's self update feature (I knew a new version was out so I did a check for updates and installed) so I want to know exactly what it is.

dunno what it is. just re-download from my sig and replace the exe. no need to "install" anything...

This doesn't happen to me, and never has. Then again, I only used the 2.Xb for a few days before switching to the 3.0a. In the few days that I did use it, though, I never saw it. Just follow what rafi said, if the problem doesn't go away, you should consider uninstalling and reinstalling the entire program.

When I go to preferences, under Advanced then UI Extras, then under search engines the following entries were listed which I believe are the default:

=================================

Google|http://google.com/search?q=

BitTorrent|http://www.bittorrent.com/search?client=%v&search=

=================================

If I remove the entries the "Take our survey" link with the white background disappears completely but so does the search toolbar. However if I leave either entry (Google/Bittorrent) the link still stays there. So it's something tied in with the search engine feature.

I'd like to find out what it is exactly, as it worries me that others aren't seeing this. IE or Firefox do not have any search engine toolbars other then the default Google that comes with an install so its not something that is cross-installing. Avira/Malwarebytes comes up clean as well.

I have downloaded the 2.0.3 build and installed it on a VM and I cannot reproduce the ad link.

Is this on Wine?

looks like XP with zune theme....

the link takes you to a surveymonkey survey, or similar. I noticed it after replacing an alpha with a stable this morning.

XP SP3 and it's squeaky clean, this was definitely not there in the previous version 2.0.2, not sure what build. I notice these things right away as did I with this change. One thing I noticed on the VM install is that it now asks to install toolbars to support uTorrent and a whole bunch of other preferences, I have never seen this before since I never went the install way, it was always an .exe run or just the auto update through "check for updates" as I always have, so it was not like I allowed something else by missing a check box to get added as all that happens when I did the auto update was a uTorrent reload and that was it. Then maybe 30mins later when I checked up on downloads I noticed the pesky link.

ktech - sorry just saw your response, thanks for ringing in, I've been panicking somewhat lol.

So that's odd, I get the ad on my machine but not on my VM, so what triggers it? What are the q's for the survey, are they related to uTorrent or something else?

Come to think of it I think I saw it on mine as well (2.2 20663) didn't think much of it at the time. Apparently its back to normal now.

It's just an in-client survey for µTorrent, but it's not actually supposed to show up on XP (and you can see why, it's all broken on XP). It's also not supposed to replace the search bar...

Since it seems broken, are you going for a hotfix and completely remove it from 2.03 ? Maybe together with removing some other gliches found in 2.03 ? before you go for 100% on autoupdater ?

We might hotfix 2.0.3, yeah.

What are the issues that you think should be attended to in it ?

2.0.4 build 21586 still has the same problem, I can always reproduce it by letting it run overnight but I am unsure of how long it takes for the "Take our survey" to appear.

2.0.4 build 21586 still has the same problem, I can always reproduce it by letting it run overnight but I am unsure of how long it takes for the "Take our survey" to appear.

Same build, XP SP3... same problem so if it was actually fixed in 21515 as per the change-log then it got broke again.

Why don't you guys just remove all the code regarding the user survey? If you want users to fill out a survey, use the status bar to show a message telling the users there is a survey you want us to fill out, with maybe an URL to the utorrent website, and stop the "cute" "only once" showing of the link where it conflicts with a program feature.

I am running Windows XP SP3, and since the machine needs to be rebooted every couple of days due to "critical vulnerability patches", the stupid survey link is always there, since I do not want to stop the program and restart it since I am always seeding something.

Upgraded to 2.04 build 22150 and still there.... the search box was there for a while (not that I actually use it anyhow) but disappeared at some point and was replaced by the "take our survey" link again.

Seen that yesterday and thought "wtf my system is compromised, format c:, let's go.".

Relieved to find this thread. :cool:

uto 2.0.4 build 22150 on XP SP3.

Just closing/reopening uto made the survey link disappear.

But please fix or warn peeps about this "bug", chill down the spine otherwise.

can`t μTorrent just drop this spyware behaviour at all?

@rafi, deleting and redownloading executable works only because it involves application restart (binaries are same byte-by-byte). Restart fixes it, another restart makes it appear again.

Ugh. I love uTorrent, but this "Take Our Survey" thing makes it impossible to run searches through uTorrent. Help! Until they fix this, isn't there a registration key or setting to remove it?

What version are you currently using?