uTorrent Flagged as Threat by Microsoft and Antivirus Vendors

rgMekanic

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TorrentFreak is reporting that this week several Windows users that the uTorrent BitTorrent client was suddenly being flagged as a threat by Windows Defender as "Potentially Unwanted Software." The article goes on to state that other Antivirus software has been labeling uTorrent as a threat, and the uTorrent download page now triggers a warning from MalwareBytes real-time protection.

If you use BitTorrent to get your latest Linux distro, you may want to stray away from uTorrent. I know personally I never updated passed 1.6 until switching to qBittorrent a couple years ago. Based on what I saw from later versions of uTorrent, this news isn't all that surprising.

“We believe that this passive flag changed to active just hours ago with the Windows patch Tuesday update, when a small percent of users started getting an explicit block,” the company told TorrentFreak.
 
https://deluge-torrent.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(software)

100% GPL... install it from the source code if you want. No spy crap... and if you wanna make 100% sure of that scroll through the code yourself. lol

Linux software, Complied for BSD, Windows and MacOS as well.

Written in Python fast light... and feature rich if your looking for support for block lists or wanna write your own add ons ect.
 
im using utorrent and had this happen last night. it looks like it was the update it tried to install but was caught as a PUA and defender quarantined it. scanned with defender and MB, system is clean. tried utorrent this am and it is fine. this is only the second issue ive had with it, last was something in one of the ads that got caught too.
 
Deluge. It's open source so you know can inspect the code if you have any doubts as to it's security, it looks very similar to utorrent and offers similar functionality and it's available on Windows, Linux and OSX.

I haven't used utorrent since it was tricking users into installing PUP's with a tiny little checkbox on install.

[EDIT] Just realized I was beaten to the punch!
 
Yeah, uTorrent has been coasting on its own momentum for awhile.

https://deluge-torrent.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(software)

100% GPL... install it from the source code if you want. No spy crap... and if you wanna make 100% sure of that scroll through the code yourself. lol

Linux software, Complied for BSD, Windows and MacOS as well.

Written in Python fast light... and feature rich if your looking for support for block lists or wanna write your own add ons ect.
Deluge. It's open source so you know can inspect the code if you have any doubts as to it's security, it looks very similar to utorrent and offers similar functionality and it's available on Windows, Linux and OSX.

I haven't used utorrent since it was tricking users into installing PUP's with a tiny little checkbox on install.

[EDIT] Just realized I was beaten to the punch!

Open source or not, Deluge has some issues, IIRC. Some private trackers still explicitly forbid using it.

I've had the best luck with Tixati, at least on Windows. It seems to beat against my ISP's speed limit better than other clients, and I absolutely adore the informative, no-nonsense UI.
 
https://deluge-torrent.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(software)

100% GPL... install it from the source code if you want. No spy crap... and if you wanna make 100% sure of that scroll through the code yourself. lol

Linux software, Complied for BSD, Windows and MacOS as well.

Written in Python fast light... and feature rich if your looking for support for block lists or wanna write your own add ons ect.

Yeah, I was using uTorrent 2.2.1 for a long time until I saw all the rave reviews for Deluge on here, so I switched.

Seems to work well for the most part, though I have had some issues with some public trackers just not working on it for some reason.
 
Yeah, uTorrent has been coasting on its own momentum for awhile.

Open source or not, Deluge has some issues, IIRC. Some private trackers still explicitly forbid using it.

I've had the best luck with Tixati, at least on Windows. It seems to beat against my ISP's speed limit better than other clients, and I absolutely adore the informative, no-nonsense UI.

Private trackers are run by people that can forbid whatever they want for whatever reason they want.

Funny enough the one private tracker I use forbids Tixati. lol :)

Deluge uses Libtorrent to take care of its network stuffs which is the same bit of code used by qbittorrent and a lot of games that use torrent tech for downloads such as world of tanks ect.
 
https://deluge-torrent.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(software)

100% GPL... install it from the source code if you want. No spy crap... and if you wanna make 100% sure of that scroll through the code yourself. lol

Linux software, Complied for BSD, Windows and MacOS as well.

Written in Python fast light... and feature rich if your looking for support for block lists or wanna write your own add ons ect.


Personally I use rtorrent, as it works well in a screen session in terminal on my headless NAS server.
 
Really, I've never experienced this? Having said that I'm more of a usenet sort of guy.

So I looked into it more closely (I'm kinda outta the loop too), and Deluge versions before 2016 are still bannable from 2 trackers I checked due to some kind of privacy bug. Newer versions are allowed, but there's still alot of forum chatter about how it's still... suboptimal (though admittedly alot of it is over my head).

That's how I discovered Tixati awhile back. Its not the most popular client and it's closed source (for now), but I've heard nothing but praise from all the torrent gurus in forums I probably shouldn't link.

Private trackers are run by people that can forbid whatever they want for whatever reason they want.

Funny enough the one private tracker I use forbids Tixati. lol :)

Deluge uses Libtorrent to take care of its network stuffs which is the same bit of code used by qbittorrent and a lot of games that use torrent tech for downloads such as world of tanks ect.

Certain qBitorrent versions were on a blacklist too...

I guess every client has issues.
 
I switched from utorrent to deluge a couple months ago. It seems fine, little things different here and there but not that big of a deal. Also, no ads, which is a plus.
 
https://deluge-torrent.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(software)

100% GPL... install it from the source code if you want. No spy crap... and if you wanna make 100% sure of that scroll through the code yourself. lol

Linux software, Complied for BSD, Windows and MacOS as well.

Written in Python fast light... and feature rich if your looking for support for block lists or wanna write your own add ons ect.

My go-to under Linux. Didn't know they had it for Windows as well.
 
Also OSX, I use it on everything and it's never given me a moments trouble. Transmission's usually packaged with Linux distro's, but it's just too stripped out and simplistic for my liking.

For sure. When I first opened it I wasn't entirely sure how to use Transmission.. it looked like an empty window with nothing.
 
Used uTorrent for years, it's crap now. Switched to qBitTorrent. Much better. See how many av and malware progs flag your cryto dirs. Oh, look what's quarantine now.. Create yet another exclusion.
 
Windows defender blocks some of the swf (ick) ads that utorrent shows. It often attempts to load them rapidly until one that isn't swf or isn't blocked finally queues. I reported it to the devs via their ad reporting mechanism, but I probably will avoid utorrent just for that. It's a shame, because it used to be a decent program.
 
As others have said, there are better options. uTorrent has always been proprietary, but things got worse in terms of ads and questionable behavior way after it became the "official" client of BitTorrent INC and they tried to monetize. No matter what your torrent use happens to be, you will be better off using...

Deluge - https://deluge-torrent.org/
QBitTorrent - https://www.qbittorrent.org/
Transmission - https://transmissionbt.com/

All of these three are open source, cross-platform, are full featured yet lightweight in terms of resources, and are easy to use. Most can even be handled in a headless/WebUI fashion if you want to drop their on your file server and control them from your other boxes. Supported these kinds of open, privacy respecting clients is important, but they also have some of the best features around!
 
As others have said, there are better options. uTorrent has always been proprietary, but things got worse in terms of ads and questionable behavior way after it became the "official" client of BitTorrent INC and they tried to monetize. No matter what your torrent use happens to be, you will be better off using...

Deluge - https://deluge-torrent.org/
QBitTorrent - https://www.qbittorrent.org/
Transmission - https://transmissionbt.com/

All of these three are open source, cross-platform, are full featured yet lightweight in terms of resources, and are easy to use. Most can even be handled in a headless/WebUI fashion if you want to drop their on your file server and control them from your other boxes. Supported these kinds of open, privacy respecting clients is important, but they also have some of the best features around!

I don't do much torrent downloading outside of some Linux ISOs but when I do I use Transmission. It gets the job done.

In terms of something like a torrent client you really can't go wrong with one that is open source and under active development.
 
https://deluge-torrent.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(software)

100% GPL... install it from the source code if you want. No spy crap... and if you wanna make 100% sure of that scroll through the code yourself. lol

Linux software, Complied for BSD, Windows and MacOS as well.

Written in Python fast light... and feature rich if your looking for support for block lists or wanna write your own add ons ect.

But IPT doesn't support most clients, they just love utorrent :(
 
I've never had trouble on IPT with any of the 3 I listed. None of the 3 are on the "banned list", "not supported" just means "if your ratio isn't being counted correctly, we can't help you if you're not using one of our approved clients etc." . Unfortunately, their approved client list is pretty ancient, but newer versions of them seem to be just fine.
 
I switched to Tixati after reading other recent threads. Works well despite its MS-DOS looking, and slightly non intuitive interface.
Anyone recommend a good torrent search engine? I use Bit Che atm. It is okay, but would like another option.
 
Q or deluge for me. Never touch tixati unless i have to, has performance issues whenever i try it for some reason
 
I've used uTorrent for years, and still have zero issues with it.. I would assume these alerts are coming from the Ads or Ad Servers uTorrent is connecting to.

I can disable all Ads and junk in about 3 secs after a fresh install, and those settings stay even after updating to newer versions of uTorrent.

I have tried all the other Torrent software and can't find one that is as stable or as easy to use and navigate with as many settings and options as uTorrent.

Qbittorrent is probably the closest, but there are few things about it I just cant stand.

Since Net Neutrality, torrenting has taken a sever hit, I don't see it surviving much longer as a mainstream tool. Private Trackers, and VPNs will be the only way forward.
 
Honestly the last time I used utorrent years ago there was so much unnecessary ad crap in it I would flag it as a threat as well.
 
I've used uTorrent for years, and still have zero issues with it.. I would assume these alerts are coming from the Ads or Ad Servers uTorrent is connecting to.

I can disable all Ads and junk in about 3 secs after a fresh install, and those settings stay even after updating to newer versions of uTorrent.

I have tried all the other Torrent software and can't find one that is as stable or as easy to use and navigate with as many settings and options as uTorrent.

Qbittorrent is probably the closest, but there are few things about it I just cant stand.

Since Net NonNeutrality, torrenting has taken a sever hit, I don't see it surviving much longer as a mainstream tool. Private Trackers, and VPNs will be the only way forward.
Fixed.

As long as VPNs can operate without throttling (and there's some reports of that happening in the US), there won't be much impact.

I'm waiting for the day we go back to the real old days and start mailing each other USB sticks.... <_< >_>
 
Fixed.

As long as VPNs can operate without throttling (and there's some reports of that happening in the US), there won't be much impact.

I'm waiting for the day we go back to the real old days and start mailing each other USB sticks.... <_< >_>

I can only hope they don't mess with VPNs; hopefully, there will be enough push back from deep pockets (such as businesses) that they don't even try. I am a bit concerned that if they do however, they will basically leave kinda crappy older PTPP or even L2TP/IPSec VPNs alone for business, but crackdown on OpenVPN and other better protocols for security and privacy. Alternately, they could allow ISPs to throttle VPN services that aren't based (or don't have servers) in the US or "spying friendly" nations - but the outcry should be deafening and rightly so.

I think Torrents are here to stay, but thankfully there are still other avenues for peer to peer file sharing from the old school (IRC, Usenet etc..) to a newer generation. http://retroshare.net/ is of particular note as it functions both as a secure file sharing community and/or a social network, both predicated on inviting people specifically to your particular network.
 
I don't use Torrents much any more, but I recall uTorrent being an add infested heap for the 1 linux distro I have to download every few years Transmission is fine.
 
I don't use Torrents much any more, but I recall uTorrent being an add infested heap for the 1 linux distro I have to download every few years Transmission is fine.
The last version I used before going qBt was 3.x, and it sucked rancid monkey balls.
 
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Another vote for qbittorrent here. Dumped uTorrent a long time ago, it got too problematic.
 
What is this uTorrent that everyone is talking about?

I've stopped using µTorrent a few years ago when I set up a FreeNAS box on a testing basis and installed Transmission. It's still used on my production FreeNAS box at home, and I have verified it is running 2.93.
 
What is this uTorrent that everyone is talking about?

I've stopped using µTorrent a few years ago when I set up a FreeNAS box on a testing basis and installed Transmission. It's still used on my production FreeNAS box at home, and I have verified it is running 2.93.

I stopped using torrents when I discovered usenet.
 
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