µTorrent is undoubtedly as hated by the media and software industry as it is respected by the P2P community. There are many other applications like it, but if you’re on Windows, there’s almost no reason why you would use any other Program for your Torrent downloading (and uploading) needs. Although as a yearlong Lubuntu user, I was very happy to hear that Transmission has been recently ported to Windows. Another alternative would be the Free Download Manager (FDM). It’s a great, multifunctional, open source download assistant, which supports multiple network protocols, including Torrent. Not bad for those who are looking for an AIO download solution.
µTorrent is suitable for both novice and advance users. To list all of its features would be too long for a single blog post. My favorite features are the possibility to import trackers from similar Torrents, detailed information for each Torrent (including a logger), remote access, a WebUI, custom labels, a scheduler, full bandwidth control, and many more. You can even watch videos as they’re downloading.
The Android version (even the Pro version), however, lacks a lot of these options and features. This is reason enough for me to say that it won’t be the Torrent client of my choice on Android, even if the desktop version steals my focus every time I plug in my phone by switching to that annoying “Devices” tab.
And that’s what this post is all about: µTorrent is annoying. It is so annoying that I would understand if you wouldn’t agree with the points I made earlier on how amazing it is. Ads, weird subscription offers, the offer to stop annoying you while simultaneously checking your files for viruses if you upgrade to µTorrent Pro, and more ads. And if you’re not careful during installation, I will also install various other useless Programs along with it. Weirdo…
So what do to? Well, we could upgrade to Pro. Or in other words: Pay for a program that helps you to download everything you could possibly imagine for free. Paradoxical, isn’t it?
Or we could just install it, and then use it to download a “free” Pro version. That’s actually not a bad idea. I do that all the time with Internet Explorer/EDGE to download Firefox (I know what you’re thinking. Keep it to yourself!). The Problem is that µTorrent occasionally calls home to check for updates, submit statistics, check for comments and whatnot. After some time, µTorrent Pro will realize that it’s not genuine and will fall back to the free version. The only way to prevent this is to sandbox all non-Torrent related web requests made by the application, either by intercepting them and adding them to your Host file, or by using firewall rules. Note that the built-in Windows firewall can’t do that out of the box. You have to use an extension like Tinywall or switch to a different firewall application altogether.
Or… As I have discovered earlier this year, we could just disable all annoyances in the free version of µTorrent, effectively “Proing it.” Many people don’t know that, outside of these annoying ad banners, the only difference between µTorrent Pro and µTorrent free is a built-in antivirus. And because many of us already have an antivirus Program, there’s almost no reason why you would want second one.
Most of µTorrent’s preferences can be found under Options—>Preferences. The Preferences window is pretty overwhelming at first because of the many options you have. You can switch between different types of settings by clicking one of the subsections on the left. The section we’re after is called “Advanced,” and can be found near the bottom of the subsection list.
In order to make it especially difficult for the average user to find the options to disable all annoyances, µTorrent put these in the advance section. Unlike all other sections, in the advance section, you set all options in a variable=value manner.
All variables are set (you can’t add new ones), and their value may be a Boolean, an integer or a string. This is Programmer jargon for 1 or 0 (An absolute value. Either true or false, nothing in between), a value specified by a number (think of them as the same as the absolute value described before, but with more control), and a name (which is interpreted by an application as anything else but executable code. Even if it’s an actual command the application knows how to deal with, it’ll ignore it when specified as a string) respectively.
Anyway just find these variables by using the filter box at the top, and change their Boolean values' to false:
And voilà! After accepting your changes by pressing OK, the only difference between µTorrent Pro and yours are these little green buttons at the top and sidebar asking you to upgrade, and the missing antivirus, but talked we about that…
PS: If you want your version µTorrent to look exactly like the one on the image above, click on the “Options” fly out menu and remove all check marks except: Show Toolbar, Show Detailed Info and Show Status Bar.
µTorrent is suitable for both novice and advance users. To list all of its features would be too long for a single blog post. My favorite features are the possibility to import trackers from similar Torrents, detailed information for each Torrent (including a logger), remote access, a WebUI, custom labels, a scheduler, full bandwidth control, and many more. You can even watch videos as they’re downloading.
The Android version (even the Pro version), however, lacks a lot of these options and features. This is reason enough for me to say that it won’t be the Torrent client of my choice on Android, even if the desktop version steals my focus every time I plug in my phone by switching to that annoying “Devices” tab.
And that’s what this post is all about: µTorrent is annoying. It is so annoying that I would understand if you wouldn’t agree with the points I made earlier on how amazing it is. Ads, weird subscription offers, the offer to stop annoying you while simultaneously checking your files for viruses if you upgrade to µTorrent Pro, and more ads. And if you’re not careful during installation, I will also install various other useless Programs along with it. Weirdo…
So what do to? Well, we could upgrade to Pro. Or in other words: Pay for a program that helps you to download everything you could possibly imagine for free. Paradoxical, isn’t it?
Or we could just install it, and then use it to download a “free” Pro version. That’s actually not a bad idea. I do that all the time with Internet Explorer/EDGE to download Firefox (I know what you’re thinking. Keep it to yourself!). The Problem is that µTorrent occasionally calls home to check for updates, submit statistics, check for comments and whatnot. After some time, µTorrent Pro will realize that it’s not genuine and will fall back to the free version. The only way to prevent this is to sandbox all non-Torrent related web requests made by the application, either by intercepting them and adding them to your Host file, or by using firewall rules. Note that the built-in Windows firewall can’t do that out of the box. You have to use an extension like Tinywall or switch to a different firewall application altogether.
Or… As I have discovered earlier this year, we could just disable all annoyances in the free version of µTorrent, effectively “Proing it.” Many people don’t know that, outside of these annoying ad banners, the only difference between µTorrent Pro and µTorrent free is a built-in antivirus. And because many of us already have an antivirus Program, there’s almost no reason why you would want second one.
Most of µTorrent’s preferences can be found under Options—>Preferences. The Preferences window is pretty overwhelming at first because of the many options you have. You can switch between different types of settings by clicking one of the subsections on the left. The section we’re after is called “Advanced,” and can be found near the bottom of the subsection list.
In order to make it especially difficult for the average user to find the options to disable all annoyances, µTorrent put these in the advance section. Unlike all other sections, in the advance section, you set all options in a variable=value manner.
All variables are set (you can’t add new ones), and their value may be a Boolean, an integer or a string. This is Programmer jargon for 1 or 0 (An absolute value. Either true or false, nothing in between), a value specified by a number (think of them as the same as the absolute value described before, but with more control), and a name (which is interpreted by an application as anything else but executable code. Even if it’s an actual command the application knows how to deal with, it’ll ignore it when specified as a string) respectively.
Anyway just find these variables by using the filter box at the top, and change their Boolean values' to false:
gui.show_plus_upsell
offers.sponsored_torrent_offer_enabled
offers.left_rail_offer_enabled
gui.show_notorrents_node
offers.content_offer_autoexec
bt.enable_pulse
And voilà! After accepting your changes by pressing OK, the only difference between µTorrent Pro and yours are these little green buttons at the top and sidebar asking you to upgrade, and the missing antivirus, but talked we about that…
PS: If you want your version µTorrent to look exactly like the one on the image above, click on the “Options” fly out menu and remove all check marks except: Show Toolbar, Show Detailed Info and Show Status Bar.
