µTorrent 2.0

The latest version of µTorrent has been out for a few weeks and I finally decided to upgrade to it. This version adds a new BitTorrent protocol known as µtp which "makes incredibly efficient use of network bandwidth while reducing network problems." This technology has been out for some time on other major torrent applications and hopes to replace the old TCP protocol for torrenting files. It also has a pretty cool feature called Transfer Cap that monitors how much you've downloaded/uploaded and can stop you if you reach a limit that you set. This is useful if you download a shit-ton of files and aren't using a program to monitor how much bandwidth you've used so you don't accidentally hit the cap and have your ISP shut you down.

But there is one major drawback to this new µtp protocol. If you are using a consumer router that has a built-in firewall (like my Linksys WRT54G), it may completely clog up your network because your router isn't fast enough to handle the traffic. The firewall will scan all the UDP packets that µtp uses which overloads your router thus crippling your net and making it impossible to surf the web with it open while reducing your download speeds to approximately 1/5 of what it should be. Of course, if you have a bad-ass router or a file server you probably won't have any problems at all. I found this out the hard way and found a fix for this:

Un-check "Enable bandwidth management" under BitTorrent in the preferences and then restart the program. This new setting defines whether µtp will be used and with it unchecked it will revert to using the old TCP protocol again - restoring your download speeds to how it performed in 1.8.5. I advise you do what I did and try downloading a popular torrent like a recent anime episode with it enabled then restart and try downloading the same thing again with it disabled and see how you fare. Here is a screenshot for where the setting is located at:



Here is a screenshot of an anime torrent before doing this: (my download speed maxed at 235 KB/s) - I had to stop it because my mom was yelling at me because she couldn't browse Facebook on the other computer.



I then deleted the torrent and file and re-downloaded it with bandwidth management disabled: (my download maxed at 1.8 MB/s - which is as fast as it was with v1.8.5) - Mom had no problems browsing while downloading.



Your results may vary depending on your connection, your hardware, your settings, the number of peers in your torrent, and how good those peers are seeding to you.
You could also try installing custom firmware that allows you to disable your router's firewall but that has the chance of "bricking" your router on top of leaving your network vulnerable to the outside world as well as being hard to do.

I hope this helps someone out there =)

Actually, this did help. Now instead of downloading at 15kb/s I'm downloading at 45kb/s with the same torrent from BBT or Nyaaotorrents. May not seem like that big of a difference but it's saving me a couple days.

Disregarding the know fact you have "re-discovered" for your self: most consumer routers do not have the power or memory installed to handle anywhere close to full load. Then you should adjust your firewall to allow for the UDP packages, rather than disabling the use of UDP in µTorrent.
I do not know what is so special about the µtp, but most torrent clients have option of using UDP instead of TCP, and it will usually enable you to download much faster.

oh my.. nice one.. this helped..

The only way to disable the firewall in my consumer router is to install a custom firmware which allows me to do that but that has a chance of bricking my router if something goes wrong. Also disabling the firewall would leave my net exposed to the internet and I don't like that idea one bit. My downloads with the tcp protocol are faster than my ISPs advertised rating so I don't see the big hype in using µtp.

I'm sticking to my v 1.8 because I'm too lazy to change the settings on a new one x__x

Besides it still works =]

I download at an average of like 300 kbps. I'll try this and see if it goes faster.

You don't have to change your settings at all.

Probably. I have had no problems with the same settings as before.

I didnt have any problems with speed before, but if it will make it just a bit faster im game.

yeah i downloaded it yesterday after i red this, thanks!

I don't know about speed, things seem to be going a bit nicer but I may have just caught a few good torrents coincidentally. At the very least I like the new icons, though.

This might sound like a ridiculous question (prolly coz it is) but what's the dif between bittorrent and utorrent?

Nothing.

Bittorrent is a protocol and utorrent is a client using said protocol

BitTorrent is also a client. http://www.bittorrent.com/
I also think BitTorrent owns µTorrent but not sure.
µTorrent uses less resources than BitTorrent.

They do not.

The reason that I asked the question was that I heard utorrent was better that bittorrent... is it true or is there pretty much no difference?

My µTorrent is currently using less than 2MB of RAM and I've never had a problem except with 2.0 which I fixed and clearly defined for you guys. Always excellent speeds that are comparable with any speed test. It never uses more than 1% of my CPU usage and I have a slow CPU. Its so good that most of the time I forget that its running in the tray.

Awesomesauce!

Now my download speed is back to its normal 12 mbps. :3

the bittorrent client named bittorrent has always been more sort of a reference client, and has never been popular, so almost any other client is also better than bittorrent.
The advantage of utorrent is its low resource consumption, while other clients provide other benefits. Speedwise I do not think there is a huge difference between most bittorrent clients.