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uTorrent Browser Toolbar Mystery Causes Confusion

Posted: 18 Dec 2010 01:11 PM PST

uTorrent's parent company BitTorrent Inc. recently signed up with a new toolbar partner. Last week millions of users got the offer to install this new addon with the upgrade to uTorrent 2.2, but it appears that it wasn't that optional for everyone. Several disappointed users report that the Conduit toolbar was installed without notice, or even when they explicitly opted out. The uTorrent team regrets the dissatisfaction and is trying to get to the root of the problem.

toolbars For a year a bundled browser toolbar has been one of the main sources of income for uTorrent’s parent company BitTorrent Inc. The toolbar is offered to new users and is offered as an option with fresh installs.

With a few dozen million downloads a year, the added browser toolbar has provided BitTorrent Inc and the uTorrent development team with a healthy and much needed revenue stream. Initially, the Ask toolbar was promoted but recently a switch was made to the Conduit toolbar.

In addition to offering the toolbar to users who do a fresh install of the uTorrent client, the new Conduit toolbar was also promoted to users who upgraded to the latest uTorrent 2.2 release. However, this process didn’t go as smoothly as it should for everyone, and several TorrentFreak readers reported serious issues during the upgrade process.

Instead of getting a popup notification asking the user if they wanted to install the Conduit browser toolbar, it was instead installed on some users’ computers without any notification at all. Another group of users did get the popup, but when they chose not to install the toolbar, the software was installed on their computers nonetheless.

Over the last few days the uTorrent forums have been filling up with several of these confused users, and others wrote blog posts addressing this unexpected behavior and their frustration.

Despite several complaints the issues seem to be relatively isolated. We’ve tried to reproduce the “bug” on several systems but at our end everything went fine. Simon Morris, Vice President of product management at BitTorrent Inc. told TorrentFreak that they have no idea what went wrong either, but that they are aware of isolated issues.

“It has not escaped our notice and it is obviously NOT our intent,” Morris said.

Initially BitTorrent Inc. and uTorrent’s forum moderators denied that there was a problem at all. Instead, they were convinced that users must have selected the wrong checkboxes, which can be perceived as deceptive by some. However, this position became harder to hold as time went by and complaints kept coming in.

“We have seen some isolated suggestions that the toolbar installed even though the checkboxes were unselected. If this is indeed true then we would consider it a very serious bug. If anyone can help us reproduce this type of bug then we will investigate it and fix it immediately. In spite of extensive tests we have been unable to reproduce this particular problem,” he added.

uTorrent Browser Bar

Morris further said that because of this massive rollout to all upgrading users, the level of attention is probably more amplified than usual. Many long time users see the toolbar offer for the first time and might be caught by surprise, or confused by the checkboxes. Although this is partially true, it would be wrong to simply deny that something went wrong during the upgrade process for some people.

The uTorrent team has promised to get to the bottom of the issue, and fix any errors that they come across.

“Both our team and Conduit's team have been investigating further whether there is any problem with the install, but we have been unable to find any evidence that the toolbar will ever install if you deselect all 3 checkboxes. Conduit has found and is fixing one minor uninstall issue,” Morris said.

“We regret any dissatisfaction, and we welcome inputs on anything that may be going wrong. One thing is very clear – the offer is designed to be purely optional, such that if you deselect the offer checkboxes it will not install,” he added.

All uTorrent users who had the Conduit toolbar installed ‘accidentally’ can easily remove it via the Windows control panel where the software is listed as ‘Conduit’ and ‘uTorrent toolbar.’ Did you have any issues upgrading to the latest version of uTorrent or did it go smoothly? Please let us know and drop a comment.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

BitTorrent Domain Exodus Continues As Torrentz Dumps .COM

Posted: 18 Dec 2010 06:28 AM PST

The Internet's second biggest BitTorrent site is dumping its .COM domain. In an apparent response to the US Government's Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement recent seizures of domain names, the site moved to a new home. Despite being only a meta-search engine, Torrentz.com appears to be taking no chances with an immediate .EU domain migration.

torrentz.eu The fallout from last month’s domain name seizures carried out by US authorities continues to spread in the file-sharing community.

Torrent-Finder, which shifted to a .INFO domain to continue its operations, is fighting back with legal representation. Others, unsettled by the developing atmosphere of uncertainty, are taking steps to mitigate any potential future action against their sites.

Already several private trackers have invested in alternative domain names which are at least currently believed to be outside US control or influence. Early December the popular Demonoid tracker showed its hand with a shift from a .COM to a .ME domain.

While seizing the domain names of a fully fledged torrent site with index, categorization, heavy moderation, tracker and seedboxes might not be a huge surprise in the current climate, the targeting of the Torrent-Finder meta-search engine came as a real shock to the file-sharing community.

So there can be little doubt that Torrentz, the Internet’s second biggest torrent site, eyed the recent developments with an element of disbelief. As a meta-search engine it should be absolutely fine but the unofficially established rules of the game appear to have changed, despite being based on a case filled with serious mistakes.

To that end, today we can confirm that Torrentz has officially dumped its .COM domain in favor of Torrentz.eu. There’s no official announcement from the site but anyone visiting the old URL is immediately redirected. This change is a permanent one, we have learned.

Two years ago Torrentz already faced a hostile domain takeover from a hacker, but this issue was resolved quickly and without any serious consequences. We assume that moving away from the .COM domain is deemed to be the path of least resistance by the Torrentz team.

But its not just BitTorrent sites that are affected by this environment of uncertainty. With the seizing of the domains of several hip-hop sites – RapGodFathers.com, RMX4U.com, Dajaz1.com, and OnSmash.com – that community is also worried for its future.

A handful of bewildered site owners have contacted TorrentFreak during the last month with questions ranging from “Why were these sites taken down?” through to “What can we do to avoid the same fate?” Our answer to these sites has been consistent – they have been targeted for being involved in RIAA-label music.

For those in hip-hop, the chance to really take their music back to the streets should be a breath of fresh air and a poke in the eye for the corporates who have tried, once they realized it was a money spinner, to absorb their scene during the last 20 years.

For everyone else, other tactics will have to be employed. The technology war to stay online – and findable with a search engine – has only just begun.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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