μTorrent
 | The neutrality of this article is disputed. |
| File:Utorrent-screenshot.png Screenshot of µTorrent | |
| Developer(s) | Ludvig "ludde" Strigeus |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 1.3 (Build 364)
/ December 10, 2005 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | BitTorrent client |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | utorrent.com |
µTorrent (correctly pronounced as 'micro-torrent' or 'mu-torrent') is a BitTorrent client for Microsoft Windows. The entire program is included in a single 115 KiB executable. It was designed to use as little of the computer's resources as possible while offering a lot of the functionality expected from 'full-featured' clients, such as Azureus and BitComet. The title is commonly abbreviated as µT or uT (due to the difficulty in typing the µ character on a US keyboard). On windows machines, µ can be typed by holding alt and pressing 0181 on the number pad or holding alt-gr and pressing m. On mac machines, µ can be typed with alt-m.
Features
- Multiple simultaneous downloads
- Smart bandwidth usage
- File level priorities
- Configurable bandwidth scheduling
- IP blocking table
- Configurable disk caching
- Global and per-torrent speed limiting
- Unicode support
- Quickly resumes interrupted transfers
- UPnP support (Windows XP only)
- Supports popular protocol extensions
- DHT (Mainline compatible)
- Customizable search bar
- Customizable icons
- Localized to different languages
- Typical memory usage less than 6 MB
- Small footprint at only 115 KB
- Super-seeding
Size
Operating as a single executable of 115 KiB (with no installation required), μTorrent is an extremely compact BitTorrent client. This small size was achieved by avoiding the use of many heavy libraries (notably, the C++ standard library and stream facilities) and creating substitutes written especially for the program. The executable is also compressed to roughly half the original size using PECompact2.
Author
ludde (Ludvig Strigeus, Swedish) is the only developer of µTorrent. vurlix (Serge Paquet, Canadian) used to coordinate releases and maintain the website and forum. However, recently, vurlix has begun work on his own BitTorrent client that will be easier to port to Mac OS X.
History
Tired of using bloatware, Vurlix suggested to Ludde to make a small, yet still powerful, BitTorrent client, since he often uses BitTorrent. Ludde originally did not intend to make a feature-rich client, but he worked on it for a month or two in 2004 before taking a break from it for a year. By autumn 2005 he had completed version 1.0 and development has continued to the end of 2005 at a satisfyingly rapid pace.