uTorrent Gains Popularity, Azureus Loses Ground
Written by Ernesto on December 16, 2007With an install rate of more than 5% on Windows PCs worldwide, uTorrent is now by far the most popular BitTorrent client. Azureus, the most installed BitTorrent application of last year fell back to the third place.
The graph on the right (click to enlarge) is based on data published by Digital Music News based on reports from PC Pitstop, a company that gathers data by “inspecting” the computers of users that try their free online virus / spyware scanners. The data used in this report are collected from Windows registry and table entries of over a million PC’s.
The percentages reflect the percentage of PCs that has these applications installed. September last year Azureus was installed on more than 3% of all PCs but their install rate has declined by more than 30% this year, while uTorrent’s install rate nearly tripled.
In the table below we have listed the 5 most installed BitTorrent applications. It is interesting to not that Azureus moved from the first to the third spot over the past year. The BitTorrent mainline client is now runner up. This means that BitTorrent Inc. now owns the two most popular BitTorrent clients.
The percentages in the table indicate the install base of the most popular BitTorrent clients:
| Rank | Application | Installed on % Desktops |
| 1. | uTorrent | 5.56% |
| 2. | BitTorrent (a.k.a. mainline) | 2.28% |
| 3. | Azureus | 2.11% |
| 4. | Bitcomet | 1.89% |
| 5. | Bitlord | 1.27% |
From the data where the report is based on we further learn that Limewire’s popularity is slowly declining. However, with an install base of almost 18% it is still the P2P application that is installed on most desktop computers. Unfortunately Digital Music News has trouble interpreting their own data, they claim in their press release that it is 36.4%, but that is the market share compared to other P2P clients (shame on you!).
Apart from this tiny mistake, there are a few more concerns about the usability of the data. For example, install rates do not equal usage. The fact that someone installed a P2P client does not mean that they actually use it. So the report can’t say much about the popularity of a filesharing network or application. Secondly, it could be that Azureus and BitTorrent Mainline are installed on almost an equal number of PCs, but that the BitTorrent mainline client is hardly ever used. For instance, novices may start with the mainline client, but move on to better BitTorrent clients later on. Lastly, the report is based on a sample of people who voluntarily did an online spyware scan, something to think about.
Perhaps an even more important comment on the data collection for this report, uTorrent doesn’t necessarily use the Windows registry. So the real install rate for uTorrent might be even higher. Also, Azureus is a true multi-platform client, whilst this test is only for windows based systems.
In summing up we think it is (despite all the flaws) safe to say that uTorrent is becoming more popular while Azureus is losing ground. Whether this is due to negative factors affecting Azureus (such as the rebranding to Vuze, Java or the heavy use of resources), or positive factors around the mainline and µTorrent clients (such as the small install size, and low system requirements) it certainly shows a slide for Azureus.
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Azureus has lost its popularity, because is so hard on the computer. Unlike uTorrent, which is only a little over 200k on disk and takes very little processing to run.
All the added features in Azureus were nice to try out, but it just bogged down the client. Having something that is quick, simple, organized, and can run in the background is a must for the new generation of torrent-ers.
It’s a shame the “new generation of torrenters” can’t spend some money on CPU or RAM upgrade, considering all the money they are saving on leeching all latest and greatest in music and movies.Oh well, they are spending it on a iPod or iPhone. I guess if you are still running a P3/P4 or Athlon/Sempron with 512MB-1GB of RAM uTorrent is like the bittorrent messiah. Hell on my Athlon X2 with 4GB of RAM i can DVDShrink a movie, download a torrent and surf the net with no noticeable disruption. I guess it is a matter of perception whether Azureus is hard on your system or uTorent is the best thing since sliced bread.
@2600,
i love it when people use that reasoning, that we have all this money saved from not buying the media we download so it should suddenly be in our bank accounts. :-D
What the hell!
uTorrent isn’t safe anymore now that BitTorrent Inc. owns it! God only knows what they’ve put in the code!
How are people so stupid?? They’ll download anything as long as it comes up on Google!
> but these charts are inaccurate because most people who do online virus scans are computer illiterate
Amen! and a slap on the wrist to Ernesto for this article. The title is very misleading. It should be “uTorrent is more popular amongst clueless noobs” What technically-literate people use is another matter.
So what. I’m on Linux and I use rTorrent. Ha! What’s that supposed to mean now?
I don’t even *have* a registry, let alon SpyWare…
How about the technically-literate people enlighten us all then?
[quote]So what. I’m on Linux and I use rTorrent. Ha! What’s that supposed to mean now?[/quote]
I just remembered about rTorrent… It’s probably more lightweight then uTorrent.
uTorrent is so heavy on resources, you should all use rTorrent now :D
It’s a pretty good client, actually - just a little annoying trying to remember how to do everything with the keyboard.
Still.. wtf are people thinking allowing a site to scan their pc’s for virus’s and spyware?
Bloody hell.. no wonder people get caught sharing content.
the one to blame is sun for the abomination called java. java couldv been the ms killer, but nooooo.. sun screwed it up BIG time.
for azureus blame the java programmers for programming in java lol. too bad they are not a coding wiz like ludde.
Well i don’t think i am speaking for myself but azureus was the shit back in the day with azureus 2, but things went down hill when they merged with vuze and now only azureus vuze client is only available for download. I do not like the azureus vuse client at all so i went to utorrent, which is pritty much exactly the same as azureus.
I think that is a major reason why azureus isn’t as popular.
Azureus used to rock hard. I mean, it was the finest, most stable, most informative BT client out. By far.
Then it got slathered in all this annoying Vuze crap. It’s turned into a complete disaster. Usin Vuze is like trying to watch tv with my fat annoying mother in law. There is simply nothing good about Vuze.
Now I use btdownload and uTorrent. Good riddance Vuze.
I don’t want to sound mean… I really liked this website and check it fairly often. But some of the news here have no real essence other than to fill in spaces. I’d rather see no news than some boring ones.
I installed utorrent and uninstalled Azureus. Then when i used utorrent, I started to get errors on my Harddrive. Then I lost all my movies and Tv shows. So In my opinion, Utorrent sucks ass. Azureus never gave me a problem
uTorrent pwns all, end of story.
For all those complaining about not having a lightweight Linux client (rTorrent excluded due to no gui), check out Deluge. http://deluge-torrent.org/
Very fast, low footprint and supports the most desired features via optionally loadable plugins.
If you _are_ using uTorrent, remember that any build after 474 (that’s v1.6, folks) is owned by bittorrent.com (friends of the MPAA) _and_ is closed-source…
(hint-hint…)
kthxbi
P.S. Azureus blows dead goats these days - & any of you twats that say uTorrent is for nubs only, I’ve been using computers of one form or another since 1979 & am currently a CISCO contractor & I binned Az for uT yonks ago.
uTorrent (pre-474) is lightweight, friendly, & does EXACTLY what it says on the tin - fuck your JAVAbloat bells-n-whistles.
Have a nice day now, y’hear…?
=]
uTorrent is the best, nice and lightweight unlike Azureus which uses freakin java and locks up my XP and Vista systems…yeah ok thanks azureus…GO UTORRENT!
[quote comment="240948"]P.S. Azureus blows dead goats these days - & any of you twats that say uTorrent is for nubs only, I’ve been using computers of one form or another since 1979 & am currently a CISCO contractor & I binned Az for uT yonks ago.
uTorrent (pre-474) is lightweight, friendly, & does EXACTLY what it says on the tin - fuck your JAVAbloat bells-n-whistles.
Have a nice day now, y’hear…?
=][/quote]
I hope you realize that uTorrent is a stripped down version of Azureus. just FYI. I agree on the resource hungry part, though. but with 2-4GB Ram becoming so norm, a software consuming 70MB in the BG hard affects gaming or daily stuff like browsing and playing media files.
uTorrent is proprietary, so I won’t even touch it. Also, I’m running Linux and *BSD, so it isn’t natively available to me.
I’ll stick with Azureus and rTorrent.
Good. This will filter out the newbies that complain about Azureus. Hopefully this is a wake up call. I’ll stick to 2.5 for now.
> uTorrent is proprietary, so I won’t even touch it
righto. uTorrent is just another spyware ap fooling everone.
What sort of people do online “virus scans” anyways?
As for Az using up too much memory…that’s just a matter of opinion because it depends on your computer. Considering all the extra things you can do with Az it’s safe to say that the extra use of memory is well worth it.
Anyone know where I can download uTorrent build 474 v.1.6?
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