Remember when uTorrent was great? The upstart BitTorrent client was super lightweight and trounced other popular BitTorrent clients. But that was long ago, before BitTorrent, Inc. bought uTorrent and crammed it full of crapware and scammy advertisements.

Spiral that. Whether you lot need to download a Linux ISO or…well, exercise whatever else you do with BitTorrent, you don't have to put up with what uTorrent'due south become. Use a ameliorate BitTorrent client instead.

qBittorrent: an Open-Source, Junk-Gratuitous uTorrent

Nosotros recommend qBittorrent. It aims to exist a "free software alternative to uTorrent", and so it'south the closest matter to a junkware-free version of uTorrent you'll notice.

qBitTorrent strives to offer the features most users will want while using equally lilliputian CPU and memory as possible. The developers are taking a middle path–non cramming every possible feature in, but also avoiding the minimal blueprint of applications like Transmission.

The application includes an integrated torrent search engine, BitTorrent extensions like DHT and peer substitution, a spider web interface for remote control, priority and scheduling features, RSS downloading support, IP filtering, and many more features.

It's bachelor for Windows as well as Linux, macOS, FreeBSD–even Haiku and Os/2!

Drench: a Plug-In Based Customer You lot Tin Customize

Drench is another open up-source, cross-platform BitTorrent customer. Overall, Deluge and qBittorrent are fairly like and take many of the aforementioned features. But, while qBittorrent generally follows uTorrent, Deluge has a few of its own ideas.

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Instead of being a characteristic-filled customer, like qBittorrent, Drench relies on a plug-in system to get you the advanced features you want. Information technology starts off as a more minimal client, and yous have to add the features you want through the plug-ins–similar RSS support, for instance.

Drench is built with a client-server architecture–the Deluge customer can run every bit a daemon or service in the background, while the Deluge user interface can connect to that background service. This means you could run Deluge on a remote organization–maybe a headless server–and command it via Deluge on your desktop. But Deluge will function like a normal desktop application by default.

Transmission: a Minimal Client Overcome by Security Issues

Transmission isn't as popular on Windows, mostly known every bit a client for macOS and Linux. In fact, information technology's installed by default on Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions. The official version doesn't support Windows, but the Manual-Qt Win project is an "unofficial Windows build of Manual-Qt" with various tweaks, additions, and modifications to work better on Windows.

Alert: Since the original writing of this article, Manual has had some serious security problems. In March 2016, Manual's servers were compromised and the official Mac version of Transmission contained ransomware. The project cleaned things up. In August 2016, Manual'south servers were again compromised and the official Mac version of Manual contained a different type of malware. That's two major compromises in five months, which is practically unheard of. It suggests there's something seriously wrong with the Transmisison project'south security. Nosotros recommend staying away from Transmission entirely until the project cleans up its act.

Transmission uses its ain libTransmission backend. Like Deluge, Transmission can run as a daemon on another system. Yous could then use the Manual interface on your desktop to manage the Transmission servicerunning on another computer.

Manual has a different interface that won't be immediately familiar to uTorrent users. Instead, it's designed to be as simple and minimal as possible. It dispenses with a lot of the knobs and toggles in the typical BitTorrent client interface for something more basic. It's even so more powerful than it first appears–you tin can double-click a torrent to view more information, choose the files you want to download, and arrange other options.

uTorrent 2.two.1: a Junk-Free Version of uTorrent That's Sometime and Out of Date

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Some people prefer sticking with an older, pre-junk version of uTorrent. uTorrent 2.two.1 seems to exist the old version of choice. But we're non crazy about this idea.

Sure, you become to keep using uTorrent and you won't have to worry about updates trying to install garbage software onto your organization, activating obnoxious ads, and pushing BitCoin miners on your PC. Merely uTorrent 2.2.1 was released in 2011. This software is over 5 years old and may contain security exploits that volition never be stock-still. Information technology volition also never exist updated to contain new BitTorrent features that could speed up your downloads. And so why waste your time when you could employ the like and much more up to engagement qBittorrent?

It may have made sense to stick with uTorrent ii.2.1 years agone, just modernistic alternatives have improved dramatically.

Sure, there are many more than BitTorrent clients for Windows, merely these are our favorite ones that won't effort to install junkware on your system. With the exception of the old versions of uTorrent, they're all open-source applications. Thanks to community-driven evolution, they've resisted the temptation to overload their BitTorrent clients with junkware to brand a quick buck.