TorrentFreak Email Update

uTorrent Makes Advertisement Optional Again

Posted: 29 Jun 2014 02:34 AM PDT

With roughly 150 million monthly users uTorrent is by far the most used BitTorrent client around.

This dazzling number is a dream for most advertising agencies, but not all uTorrent users appreciate an ad-filled application.

When the makers of uTorrent made the client ad-supported two years ago there was a small user revolt. As a result, parent company BitTorrent Inc. chose to make the ads optional.

However, earlier this month the company appeared to have changed this position. Without public notice the banner position in the lower left corner was made permanent.

The bottom left ad(s)

Previously, users had the option to turn the ad off through the options dropdown menu but this option was removed. The advanced setting that allowed users to disable the banner ad disappeared as well.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the uTorrent team now appears to have reconsidered its position. The latest stable release, which came out just before the weekend, reinstated the advanced setting.

“Added back: Feature gui_plus_upsell in advanced settings,” the changelog reads.

BitTorrent Inc. hasn’t commented publicly on the forced advertisement issue, but it seems plausible that the company reconsidered its earlier decision after users voiced their complaints. However, since the ad can only be disabled through the advanced settings, it’s expected that most users will never turn it off anyway.

In addition to the toolbars and other software bundled with uTorrent, ads are an important source of revenue for BitTorrent Inc. Last year the company said that uTorrent is good for five billion ad impressions a month.

Judging from these numbers the revenue potential is enormous, as long as you don’t alienate the users.

Banner can be disabled now

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Pirate Bay Founders’ File-Hosting Site Wiped From Google

Posted: 28 Jun 2014 12:45 PM PDT

Nearly three years ago Pirate Bay founders Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde launched Bayfiles, a new file-sharing venture.

The site has been growing ever since and has accumulated a steady user base. Instead of using P2P transfers, Bayfiles users can upload and download large files directly from the site.

Besides some issues with their payment provider, Bayfiles hasn’t run into any significant problems to date. However, very recently the site suffered a setback after it became impossible to reach through Google.

Without explanation, Google wiped all of the tens of thousands of Bayfiles links from its search index. The search results below show that the file-hosting service is no longer featured as the top result and a more specific search reveals that all of the site’s URLs have been wiped.

No Bayfiles in Google

TorrentFreak spoke with the Bayfiles team who have no clue what’s going on. Their robots.txt allows the site to be indexed and other search engines such as Bing do so just fine.

“Perhaps they don’t like filehosting services that can’t be cut off from their payment provider, as we no longer have paid accounts,” the Bayfiles team suggests.

Bayfiles never had a lot of traffic from search engines so there is no major impact on visitor numbers. Still, it’s never good to have your entire service removed by Google.

The most likely explanation is that Google found Bayfiles guilty of some sort of violation for which the site has been removed from Google as a penalty. What type of violation that might be remains a mystery to the site’s operators.

Penalty or not, Bayfiles will continue to serve files all around the world, free of charge.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.