uTorrent client is stealing your CPU cycles to mine Bitcoins

[gradient456]

 

 

If you recently installed or updated uTorrent on your PC, you may have have picked up an unwanted passenger: a Bitcoin miner called Epic Scale. That piece of code comes attached at the hip with the latest uTorrent build (version 3.4.2) and uses your computer as part of a Bitcoin farm to generate revenue for someone other than you. Users first reported the situation on uTorrent's forums, and it was quickly confirmed by a senior support manager. He said that the app "cannot be installed without permission," but one user pointed out that there was "never a warning about it," even though he opted out of other bundled software.

 

 

 

Once it's installed, the program will take up CPU cycles, slowing your machine and causing it to burn more power. The support person described Epic Scale as "easy to uninstall," but that's doesn't seem to always be the case. It didn't show up in the "Programs and Features" list for Windows for one user, and another said he needed anti-adware software to be rid of it. (Epic Scale said the app can be uninstalled normally, but confirmed that it leaves behind registry keys.)

uTorrent's parent company BitTorrent said that the Epic Scale is "a great partner for us to continue to generate revenue for the company, while contributing funds to (philanthropic initiatives)." With the recent Lenovo SuperFish affair, however, users are on edge about unwanted software. One uTorrent forum user called Epic Scale's unexpected presence "disgraceful and quite a pity," adding "I will switch because of this."

 

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

[Max Norris]

Yeaaaaa and I'm out, thanks.  I could deal with ads that could be disabled as the client itself is still good (arguably the best) but that's just too much, who knows what's next.  Plenty of other clients out there.  

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

my question is - does this Epic Scale shut down when you shut down uTorrent?

 

i stopped using the latest builds of uTorrent after it became a bloated mess. Can they really call it micro anymore?

[Mockingbird]

The joke is on the company when it finds out that the users are switching from uTorrent to a different bittorrent client completely.

[blank]

Well thats one way to tarnish your company and software.

People don't forget things like this. Shady is shady.

[gradient456]

Its especially difficult to uninstall on windows

[john_alex]

Just switch to Qbittorent: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qbittorrent/

 

Opensource software that looks similar and does the same

[neufuse Veteran]

I remember when uTorrent was small light and good.. now its a bloated mess of adware, and revenue stream installs

[theyarecomingforyou]

I remember when uTorrent was small light and good.. now its a bloated mess of adware, and revenue stream installs

Yeah, I gave up using it a long time ago. It would always bypass my upload limits and became more and more commercialised. Now I use Vuze, which works great for me.

[+therealDamien Subscriber¹]

so it only gets installed when running the downloaded recent installer?

[Elliot B.]

I remember when uTorrent was small light and good.. now its a bloated mess of adware, and revenue stream installs

Yeah, they've gone too far for me now.

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

why are people even worried?    in fact why are people even upgrading to the latest version?
i have stopped upgrading to new version a long time ago.     my trusty utorrent 1.8.2 is still running just as awesome as it was in the day it was released.

 

i don't need any extra functionality, and everything i wanted was covered by old version.

 

there was ok versions in v2,   but v3 was all extra bloatware.... the reason i started using utorrent was to get rid of it.

 

 

 

u  want a good torrent client?    just go back to 1.8.2 and never update the software again.

[sinetheo]

This needs to go to front page news.

Who else is tired of hearing about SSL deceypters, Spyware, malware, and slimy tactics like these?

The pc platform is being harmed and will only encourage more mac users and android adoption.

[blank]

I think its silly to even use torrent software. Cheap and far more safe to subscribe to services that download the torrents for you, and allow you to download it from their servers at high speed and anomalously.

No software other than a browser, or download manager needed.

[+therealDamien Subscriber¹]

I havent had any problems.

[jamesclarke555]

Glad I switched over to Tixati a while back.

[+Random Stranger Subscriber¹]

I remember when uTorrent was small light and good.. now its a bloated mess of adware, and revenue stream installs

 

 

it is still there.   there are several old versions that work amazing.      NOTHING worthwhile has being added since then.   so why not just use the old version?

[Boo Berry]

Thank God I stopped using uTorrent several years ago. qBittorrent for the win!

[DeusProto]

Just switch to Qbittorent: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qbittorrent/

 

Opensource software that looks similar and does the same

Would love to if qBittorrent could import all 900+ of my torrents from uTorrent. It wouldn't be practical for me to do it by hand and wait weeks for them to rehash

 

uTorrent uses a BEncoded resume.dat file that contains location data and the file hashes. Since there are open source libraries available to decode BEncoded data, it would be feasible for alternative clients to have an import feature that not only imports all the torrents, but imports the hash data too so it doesn't have to rescan the data.

 

Unfortunately until that happens I am stuck with uTorrent. 

[Yorak]

I have tried other torrent programs, but I cannot get over the poor aesthetics of seeing GTK and Qt buttons, etc. in Windows. Months ago, I switched back to

[123456789A]

Just nuked it.

[DavidM]

I just popped over to their forums to see what everyone was saying, but I'm getting an "Account Suspened" page? That can't be good can it?

[ViperAFK]

I defended utorrent for a long time, since I'm not necessarily opposed to a program being ad supported especially if the ads could be easily disabled, but goddamn this is ridiculous....mining without the user's consent...really?

[Guest]

How can we see if we have this? I recently installed uTorrent and I don't notice anything different?

[devHead]

And this is why I'm still running 2.2.1 version of uTorrent.