uTorrent may be installing Bitcoin miner silently

bbrownmia user on March 7th, 2015 / post 67012
It seems that uTorrent has included a bitcoin miner in the latest update (some say it installs silently), in light of this you may want to  switch over to something else, preferably an open source client (deluge and qbittorrent seem to be a couple popular clients). Be sure to check this out if you recently updated as the program can/will use your CPU cycles to mine bitcoins for someone else's profit. I found it hard to believe at first, but as more comes to light this seems to be the case. Proceed with caution...

Here are some links you may want to read up one the issue:

https://www.engadget.com/2015/03/06/utorrent-bitcoin-miner/

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/utorrent-silently-installing-bundled-bitcoin-mining-software

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2y5czf/eli5_what_is_an_automatic_cryptocoin_miner_and/

https://www.reddit.com/r/tech/comments/2y53qe/utorrent_client_installs_bitcoin_miner_silently/
slash ProDanceCulture on March 7th, 2015 / post 67013
ha.. thanks for the info... those guys try, who can blame them... =) does that mean that bittorrent.com software version of utorrent may also be having that?

basically, i'd recommend older version of utorrent, i and many others have stopped at Utorrent 2.2.1 long time ago...
bbrownmia user on March 7th, 2015 / post 67015
slash wrote:
ha.. thanks for the info... those guys try, who can blame them... =) does that mean that bittorrent.com software version of utorrent may also be having that?

basically, i'd recommend older version of utorrent, i and many others have stopped at Utorrent 2.2.1 long time ago...


BitTorrent bought uTorrent, I think, like ten years ago. They are basically the same program, just different names, and uTorrent supports Linux and Mac OS. I'm not sure if they included the miner in the Bittorrent installer, but I wouldn't doubt it...there are a lot more uTorrent users so I'm guessing that's why it was noticed there first, or maybe that is why they targeted that user base first. I was using an old version of Utorrent until last year, the main reason I stopped is that older software like 2.2.1 has a lot of vulnerabilities that have been patched up over the years. I prefer the open source clients for peace of mind as any unsafe code is usually found quickly...but maybe I'm just paranoid.  :unsure:
munkynstar Moderator on March 7th, 2015 / post 67016
bbrownmia wrote:
slash wrote:
ha.. thanks for the info... those guys try, who can blame them... =) does that mean that bittorrent.com software version of utorrent may also be having that?

basically, i'd recommend older version of utorrent, i and many others have stopped at Utorrent 2.2.1 long time ago...


BitTorrent bought uTorrent, I think, like ten years ago. They are basically the same program, just different names, and uTorrent supports Linux and Mac OS. I'm not sure if they included the miner in the Bittorrent installer, but I wouldn't doubt it...there are a lot more uTorrent users so I'm guessing that's why it was noticed there first, or maybe that is why they targeted that user base first. I was using an old version of Utorrent until last year, the main reason I stopped is that older software like 2.2.1 has a lot of vulnerabilities that have been patched up over the years. I prefer the open source clients for peace of mind as any unsafe code is usually found quickly...but maybe I'm just paranoid.  :unsure:



read this today on torrentfreak...personally ditched it just after 2.2.1 having gone back to that after a few rev's... rtorrent and transmission for me does the job!
slash ProDanceCulture on March 8th, 2015 / post 67017
well, vulnerabilities or not, there's simply no client that can withstand 18000 torrents that i have in my utorrent...

and i dare anyone to exploit those so called vulnerabilities of my client. never had a single security problem with torrents.
C64lightning Power User on April 3rd, 2015 / post 67191
I think that uTorrent 2.2.1 is the best version. it's recommended by many users
slash ProDanceCulture on June 23rd, 2015 / post 67681
haven't they mined all the bitcoins already anyways?
Seraiel Fanatic on September 9th, 2015 / post 68181
slash wrote:
well, vulnerabilities or not, there's simply no client that can withstand 18000 torrents that i have in my utorrent...

and i dare anyone to exploit those so called vulnerabilities of my client. never had a single security problem with torrents.


qBitTorrent is capabable of even more as I read Slash, it takes less RAM and less CPU time for it's work, so less resources, and it's even about 10% faster overal in downloading, uploading wasn't tested. It's a great program from what I can tell, I unfortunately couldn't get it to run properly, because of sitting behind a VPN, and as they explained to me, only uTorrent supports "UDP hole punching" (whatever that is) which seems to be needed for me to be connectable.
t00narmylightning Power User on October 9th, 2015 / post 68416
slash wrote:
haven't they mined all the bitcoins already anyways?


Quote: After 21 million coins are mined, no one will generate new blocks

When operating costs can't be covered by the block creation bounty, which will happen some time before the total amount of BTC is reached, miners will earn some profit from transaction fees. However unlike the block reward, there is no coupling between transaction fees and the need for security, so there is less of a guarantee that the amount of mining being performed will be sufficient to maintain the network's security.



Taken from here
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths
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