After what felt like an eternity, the final version of the popular lightweight Bittorrent client uTorrent 3 has been released today. The final version is build 25406 and existing users should see update notifications when they start their client on their system, or by manually checking for updates by selecting Help > Check for Updates. Users of uTorrent 2.x can download the latest version of the program from the official website, where it is available as a 32-bit and 64-bit application for the Microsoft Windows operating system.
The release notes are as usually available on the official forum. Version 3 of uTorrent adds features such as a portable mode, streaming, torrent ratings or drag and drop sending of files. The complete list of changes and fixes is available in the forum.
The drop files to send feature is incredibly easy to use. Just drop a file that you want to share on the drop area, and uTorrent will create the torrent for you. The program displays a tiny url link that the recipients of the file need to open. The torrent is then added to their uTorrent version. If they do not have uTorrent it is installed on their system.
Streaming needs to be activated in the uTorrent options before it becomes available. All suitable media players are automatically available for selection in the options.
The Stream button becomes then available in the torrent listing. A click on the button loads the stream url in the selected media player. It is then possible to play the media in the player directly, even if it has not been downloaded completely yet.
Depending on your previous version, you may see a different looking client with additional features that you had not had access to before. This includes uTorrent apps which more often than not provide access to media and file releases of companies and organizations. You find some apps among the available ones that add features to uTorrent, a chat for instance.
The getting started guide in the client seems to be new as well. It offers a step by step guide, a beginners guide and links to faqs and information about the program (correct me if I’m wrong here).
The developers have fixed a boat load full of issues, from crashes and stability issues over freezes and hangs to cpu optimizations.
Users should take a look at known issues before they update, if they want to make sure that the program works on their system without difficulties. The list displays confirmed problems and issues that are not fixed in the uTorrent 3.0 stable release.
Most of the bugs listed seem to be limited to display issues, only a few indicate stability issues.
On a personal note. I’m running uTorrent 3.0 since the first alpha and did not have a single problem ever since. The update to version 3.0 went without difficulties. Some users in the release thread are on the other hand reporting problems with the version.
Have you made the update to uTorrent 3.0 yet? What is your impression of the new version.
