µTorrent - Torrent Downloading Software Review and a cool Secret! - Tech Tuesday

Hey all! Welcome to my blog on this nice Tuesday evening! :) I had been busy and scheduled posts for the weekend and Monday on Thursday only. I hope you understand. Sunday-Monday I had my first Interviews. It went well and I got selected! :) CHEERS! :D



Getting back to the post, today I would like to talk about my favourite BitTorrent client, µTorrent. It is light and looks cool apart from being quite user friendly and easy to use. Let's have a little review and about it and then I'll tell you about the secret game of Tetris hidden inside the µTorrent! :D

What are torrents?

A torrent file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms. A torrent file does not contain the content to be distributed; it only contains information about those files, such as their names, sizes, folder structure, and cryptographic hash values for verifying file integrity. Depending on context, a torrent may be the torrent file or the referenced content. Torrent files are normally named with the extension .torrent, as in MyFile.torrent.

What is µTorrent

µTorrent is a free-of-charge, ad-supported, closed source BitTorrent client owned by BitTorrent, Inc. It is the most widely used BitTorrent client outside China (where Xunlei is more popular.)The "µ"(Greek letter "mu") in its name comes from the SI prefix "micro-", referring to the program's small memory footprint: the program was designed to use minimal computer resources while offering functionality comparable to larger BitTorrent clients such as Vuze or BitComet. The program has received consistently good reviews for its feature set, performance, stability, and support for older hardware and versions of Windows.

The program has been in active development since its first release in 2005. Although originally developed by Ludvig Strigeus, since December 7, 2006, the code is owned and maintained by BitTorrent, Inc. The code has also been employed by BitTorrent, Inc. as the basis for version 6.0 and above of the BitTorrent client, a re-branded version of µTorrent.

µTorrent is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android. A µTorrent Server is also available for Linux. All versions are written in C++.

Why µTorrent is the best?

Features present in µTorrent include:

1. Streaming of video torrents
2. Teredo tunneling / IPv6 support
3. Micro Transport Protocol (µTP) preliminary support as of 1.8.2 with full-support added in 2.0
4. UPnP support for all versions of Windows, without needing Windows XP's UPnP framework
5. Protocol encryption (PE)
6. Peer exchange (PEX) with other BitTorrent clients:
   
   • libtorrent and clients based on it like Deluge have full µTorrent PEX support
   • Transmission and clients based on libTransmission have full µTorrent PEX support
   • KTorrent has full µTorrent PEX support as of 2.1 RC1
   • Vuze, formerly Azureus, has full support as of version 3.0.4.3
7. RSS ("broadcatching")
8. "Trackerless" BitTorrent support using DHT, compatible with the original BitTorrent client and BitComet
9. User configurable intelligent disk caching system
10. Full proxy server support
11. HTTPS tracker support
12. Configurable bandwidth scheduler
13. Localized for 66 languages.
14. Initial seeding of torrents
15. Customizable search bar & user interface design.
16. Configuration settings and temporary files are stored in a single directory, allowing portable use
17. WebUI: A plugin currently in beta testing that allows µTorrent running on one computer to be controlled from another computer, either across the internet or on a LAN, using a Web browser
18. A new web user interface, codenamed Falcon, is in development. It supports encrypted sessions and the ability of going through firewalls without port forwarding, while being more complete and easier to start using than its predecessor.
19. Embedded Tracker: a simple tracker designed for seeding torrents, lacking a web interface or list of hosted torrents. It is not designed for secure or large-scale application.
20. Quick-resumes interrupted transfers
21. Versions of µTorrent up to 1.8.5 build 17091 can use as little as 14 MB of RAM running on a 486 processor on Windows 95. Unicode support for Windows 95/98/ME, avoiding use of the Microsoft Layer for Unicode which is several times larger than µTorrent. As of March, 2011, newer versions required at least Windows XP or newer. Currently µTorrent requires at least Windows XP

Thus being light and loaded I guess there's no better option. You'll try to get rid off it thinking it checks too much at times, but well you'll switch back to it once you'll try a few other clients. Mark my words, it is the best, at least for now! :)

What they say?

Torrent is an efficient BitTorrent client for Windows. Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in uTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading, and Mainline DHT. Additionally, uTorrent supports the protocol encryption joint specification and peer exchange. Unlike many torrent clients, it does not hog valuable system resources--typically using less than 6MB of memory, allowing you to use the computer as if it weren't there at all.

The Secret Game of Tetris

Now the cool thing, rather COOOOOOOOOL thing! :D Click on Help>>About



Press 't'



Play the game! :D The score is in the titlebar of the game window :)



CLICK HERE to download for free! :)

I hope you found the content useful and interesting. Enjoy your evening hope to see you all soon again! :)