uTorrent

CNET Editors' review

by: Seth Rosenblatt on February 03, 2010

Small enough to run off a USB key, but powerful enough to download any torrent in a jiffy (if it's got enough seeders), uTorrent 2.0 is easy on the eyes and smart on your network. The memory footprint for uTorrent is very small, and system resources are barely touched. While you're torrenting, you shouldn't be surprised to find that other programs that use your Internet connection slow down, but the latest version of uTorrent has an answer to that. Called uTorrent Protocol, or uTP, it's a built-in throttling that detects network congestion and slows down the torrent until the traffic jam has dissipated.

Version 2.0 includes a transfer cap, so that users who have had limits imposed by their ISPs can keep track and automatically kill torrenting when that limit is reached. Skins have also been introduced, but there's no skins option in Preferences: instead, you must go to the uTorrent site and download and install them yourself. That's unnecessarily irritating.

The most difficult aspect of using a torrent client is still finding the torrents, but included are both a torrent search bar and a handy RSS feed download function. Subscribe to select feeds, and uTorrent automatically downloads files as they publish. Adding, starting, pausing, and listing torrents takes merely a click each. A speed guide helps you test your ports and adjust system settings for optimal performance, although watch out for the opt-out Ask.com toolbar when you install. Combined with Local Peer Discovery and DHT Network options, and Teredo and Ipv6 support, uTorrent should be the torrent program of choice for novices, intermediate, and advanced users.