uTorrent Grows to 28 Million Monthly Users
Written by Ernesto on December 25, 2008uTorrent – the client of choice for most BitTorrent users – has gathered a steady userbase since it was first released three years ago, one which continues to expand. Last year the number of uTorrent users had doubled, and in 2008 it continued to grow, up to 28 million monthly users.
uTorrent saw its first public release in September 2005. A year later this popular lightweight client was acquired by BitTorrent Inc. who continued to develop the application, recently introducing a Mac version.
Despite its popularity, up until now little has been known about the number of regular users the client has. Based on data from PC Pitstop, we reported in April that uTorrent was installed on 11.6% of all PCs in Europe, compared to 5.1% in the United States. However, the number of installs says little about the actual use of the application.
Trying to discover more about the number of regular users of uTorrent, we decided to ask Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management, and he was willing to share some data with us. Morris told us that every month, 28 million unique clients are actively used. “Client check-ins have continued to grow steadily in the course of 2008,” he said, adding “Clearly the ongoing demand for our freeware seems to be quite strong.”
In comparison, Morris said that the Mainline client – the second most popular BitTorrent client according to PC Pitstop – has 7 million active users a month. More interestingly perhaps, is that the usage statistics of uTorrent gives us more insight into the number of BitTorrent users overall. If we know what the market share of uTorrent is, we could made a fairly accurate estimate of the number of active BitTorrent users a month.
Based on tracker reports, an estimated market share for uTorrent of between 40% and 60% seems fair, which would mean that there are between 50 and 70 million BitTorrent users active each month. If we assume that 70 million active BitTorrent users is an accurate estimate, this means that close to 5% of all people on the Internet are using BitTorrent monthly, which is quite impressive.
Previously: Christmas is All About Sharing, So is BitTorrent
Next: Australian Web and BitTorrent Filtering Scheme Delayed
55 Responses
UT on windows rocks…, wont trade it in for ANYthing else, maybe for morgue pics of Cary Sherman, but nothing else… not sure how its on Mac as am not an Apple fanguy…
Mac people, hows Ut on the Mac?
http://www.eZee.se
Not an apple fanboy either, but I'm sure it runs just fine.
Go Mircotorrent!
If at least 5% of people on the internet are using BitTorrent, and at least some more people are file-sharing, then that is a sizable minority in countries where internet is common. Surely this percentage of people could have political influence?
We need to get this number to over 10% !
And ISPs say that only a minority of internet users use file sharing technologies… That's a convenient excuse when they want to block and slow down users on their network.
so there IS phone home code in utorrent
Take a look at preferences – general – privacy.
1. "client check-ins?" no way I'd use a client like that.
2. I highly doubt mainline surpasses Azureus. When checking peer lists for my client (rtorrent), Az always swamps mainline.
http://e.imagehost.org/0431/uT.png
that’s your phone home code, just disable it if you dont like it
Well, one thing that is important is organization, whether it be formal or informal – although most formal organizations are the result of incorporating, some just start out formal. One benefit of having a formal organization is that it makes a general sentiment (like "sharing files with others is beneficial rather than harmful") more concrete, so that people have something more definite to support. I know that the EFF is already there, but they are not a political organization: the political equivalent of EFF is needed.
Something like a Pirate Party, Roze? Over the last few years we've reported on pirate parties in Sweden, the US, and Germany, and mentioned those in a few other countries as well. As I wrote about 2 weeks ago, a number of parties in Europe are running for the EU parliament election, and they may win at least one seat.
I used to be an Azureus user. That was when it was a good client – highly customizable, all sorts of charts, graphs, etc. Everything I could have wanted, even if it was a bit of a resource hog.
Then they introuduced Vuze. I was all like, "fuck it," so now I use uTorrent.
I think that 5% is not the real number, this is a lot more.
Each person that I know (who owns a computer with internet) uses BitTorrent.
BitTorrent is (in fact) the best and most efficient P2P protocol that exist now. Saying that this is only 5% is very conservative.
5% is a bit underestimation
i've never seen a chinese tracker but most of the people there use weird clients, i'd bet not even 5% of them use utorrent
from the url: Europe: 26.3 % | Asia: 39.5 %
lets double that 5%?
It'd be nice to think so. I read a while back that Limewire is (estimated to be) installed upon 18% of internet connected computers also.
Not if you turn off "check for updates" .
Just because every person you know uses BT doesn't mean anything.
ee
So you know nothing of Chinese trackers but somehow you know that most people are using non-utorrent clients? How – on what basis are you saying this?
Well, got news for you: Vuze/Azureus has exactly the same type of "client check-in" (check for update in non-FUD terms) as Utorrent + Java also does the same thing so your privacy has been screwed twice as much.
If your stupid enough to worry about a widely used freeware client that checks for updates as an invasion of privacy that is…
If your stupid enough to worry about a widely used freeware client that checks for updates as an invasion of privacy that is…
"Each person that I know (who owns a computer with internet) uses BitTorrent."
Each person you know probably jacks off to hentai too. Just because your friends are virginal, basement dwelling, anti-social losers doesn't mean they are a majority in the world…
Most BitTorrent users are not, in fact, virginal, basement dwelling, anti-social losers, just as how most Internet users are not as such.
Cliens you are connected to aren't a good indication of all. Some clients use different PEX or DHT protocols. Also, a torrent of a Linux distro may have very different user profile than the latest PC FPS.
Btw. The stats about Mainline being second were from PC Pitstop – not from BT inc.
i still use azureus, but i nearly changed clients when they introduced that vuze bullshit. then i realised you could turn it off, so to me (as long as that shitty memory wasting interface is turned off) its always gonna be azureus 2.5
utorrent didn't always have translations
back then asian people started to use bitcomet and it's still pretty much the most used client there (based on what i've seen on other trackers and that people usually adapt to new things slowly)
It is a pity they don't plan to release a Linux version.
So you're the exception?
The fact its been mentioned on Digg a several times in comments I think is what has helped it. I just barely started using it myself. I normally just use shareaza, but with uTorrent I can tell it not to grab some files inside the torrent that I might not want, which is very helpful.
Yes, it does. Considering that I have more than 4 years doing regularly technical service to PCs for companies.
A hint for you NubCakes: when there is not anything good to say it is better to have your mouth quiet.
Indeed, something like that. However, the U.S. Pirate Party has yet become an official pirate party. And I was thinking of something more like the Piratbyran.
Indeed, something like that. However, the U.S. Pirate Party has yet become an official political party. And I was thinking of something more like the Piratbyran.
Not everyone that file shares uses bit torrent, and if 5% of all users on the internet use bit torrent then imagine how many people use other file sharing programs and or share files in a way that does not involve the internet. If you added all those file sharers together you might get a large percentage of the people.
P.S Roze I used my grammar skills this time after those comments saying that they where lame.
hrm data in canada showed that in 2005 sept , 5.4 million users were doing forms of p2p , a few months later in 2006 by march that number was 9.8 million, do you think that with 20 million internet accounts that number is less or more today?
Just cause the KwonG sounds more like benGay doesn't mean your a flamin homo …or does it
hrm and a lot of linux users use ktorrent or rtorrent which actually is more robust and a better client then utorrent. Especially on linux.
That's nearly thrice the population of Portugal.
"Not everyone that file shares uses bit torrent"
@Jacob
Right, but 5% is a very conservative number for BitTorrent. I can assure to you, that in the four years that I've been working as computer technician, I can conclude that in general around 70% of my personal clients (that are many) have been (and are) active BitTorrent users.
If you don't believe me, you can ask to any independent computer technician (with many time of experience) of confidence that you know. He will say something similar to this.
lol
Vuze still can't rename incomplete download (in progress) to other extension as utorrent does (.!ut) That's the only reason i dont use vuze…
all other customizable features are useless to general torrenting…
lol what about azureus? good old azureus:s does anyone still use that? if utorrent got a 60% share and mainline is even bigger, dang i must be the only dinosaur torrentuser still having azu installed :/
Those numbers sound highly suspect to me, and several fold larger than any numbers I've heard. The Mainline client is a full 1/4 the size of utorrent? The 2nd most popular client out there? That's total BS! All the torrents I've ever seen are dominated by utorrent and Azureus peers. If that number were true, then the other smaller clients (transmission, ktorrent, etc) would have monthly users measuring in the tens of millions, which is definitely not the case. Sounds to me like bittorrent inc is trying to win some good press after their recent string of bad news.
UTorrent works so well on my Vista Box!!
its an update check. you can disable it. just uncheck the box in the preferences.
I was so happy when they released a Mac client
Actually, I heard some fanbois gripeing about it a little while back… was just wondering if that had changed..
On the other hand, they could be a bit mad because Steve Jobs didnt baptize it or officially give it his blessings :))
4 years of doing "regular technical service", one would think you would have a more firm grasp of the way statistics work.
(Note: Realistically, there is no correlation between one's experience in technical service and said person's grasp of statistics. I made it up to prove a silly point: You sir are a dumbass.)
Lol a whole 4 years! Can you fix mine?!
Actually, I can understand that only 5% of Internet users use BitTorrent. Most of the P2P users I know in RL use Limewire. I guess that's not a very scientific form of study, but there are other things out there than BitTorrent.
Actually, it's a bit buggy and lacking in features. It's definitely a beta. The Windows client is more sophisticated, and the Mac version doesn't even have an advanced settings page. The pieces view is also missing, which is a small thing, but it was something I liked because it was fun to watch the last piece of a file come through, or watch pieces fill up quickly when the speed is very fast. Even more worrying is that an ipfilter file cannot be loaded (the file is in the settings folder, but there's no way to activate it) and OSX's Peer Guardian program sucks.
Still, it's a clean, fast torrent client for OSX in the spirit of the original uTorrent. I imagine they'll be more or less identical by version 1.0. For now, I'm sticking with Transmission.
Never really used transmission, but have mostly Mac guys praise it.. anything in particular you like about it?
I know what you mean about watching the pieces fill up, its like you are watching something being built or… screwing the mafiaa.. one piece at a time :))
I think uTorrent is the best client hands-down. It has a very small footprint (uses a low amount of resources when running and only 250KB to download, some .torrent files are larger than that), it has many features like labels and scheduler which I find very useful, it's supported and recommended by pretty much every private tracker on the internet, it's now available in beta for Mac, everything about it is great.
I'm not so happy about the Bittorrent Inc. acquisition and what could come of that in the future, but that's another thought for another day.
Are you virginal, basement dwelling and anti-social as well? If not, why are you on this blog with all the other file sharers?
Do you really think if uTorrent was phoning home with any sensitive information that someone would not have discovered it by now and that news would spread across the internet like wildfire?
I can name a lot of software that automatically checks for updates. It can be turned off as well if you don't want uTorrent to make any outside contact.
IS ANYONE ONLINE ??
steven;
Your response suggests that any valuable experience from any independent worker who is not linked to any corporation or organization is not valid.
If that is your way of thinking (as this seems to be), then, this is, from any point of view; having a very short vision.
Also, you deny the obvious; that in the actual world, the corporations lie all the time, according to the convenience of the situation.
Good luck for you idiot, believing blindly, without corroboration; any nonsense that corporations say.
DUckie;
No. I have not the remedy for your stupidity and total lack of seriousness in your responses.
12 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.