uTorrent

[Azhtek]

So I assume people who aren't Cheeky torrent (because he's a cretin who only streams TV shows and has yet to learn his lesson). And I assume that a lot of people use a client which has become pretty synonymous with torrenting, uTorrent. μTorrent, whatever.

Well, as of its most recent update, you may want to think twice about using it. With its most recent update, it installs bitcoin mining software into the uTorrent client.

Is it dangerous? No, not really. But it is detrimental to your computer's overall performance. Here's why. Bitcoin mining works like this; all bitcoin mining computers are issued a mathematical problem they're asked to solve. The way they do that is by using your computer's CPU to crunch numbers. Your single CPU isn't really powerful enough to solve the problem on its own in a timely manner, so the bitcoin network shares the load between many computers. If and when the problem is solved, you get a share of a bitcoin. That's the fundamentals of it. (There are some coin miners which use your graphics card [GPU], but same basic principle.)

But the biggest point is that it uses your CPU. When your CPU is forced to dedicate part of itself to a process, then that's less for you to use on whatever it is you idiots look at. Hyper fat baby pony macros, if FA is any indication.

I'd suggest moving away from uTorrent, if not abandoning it immediately, update or no. There are plenty of other alternatives out there which don't flood you with ads or try to do this underhanded bullshit. Links below.

Halite: Extremely lightweight, open source. This is my torrent client of choice. Extremely simple, non-intrusive and no useless crap. [Link]
qBittorrent: Marketed as a direct and less dickish alternative to uTorrent. [Link]
Deluge: Another lightweight option. I don't use it myself, but it's a lot less clunky than uTorrent. [Link]
Tixati: Much like Deluge, very lightweight, no-bullshit. I haven't used it in a few years, so hopefully they aren't shit. Might be a bit of a shock to people who aren't used to being flooded with information. [Link]

[Sock]

I'd like to add, that something that is always good to do is not just click accept all the time.
When installing things like uTorrent, it looks like in the picture above. You could click decline offer, and it won't install that piece of software.

I agree with moving away from utorrent, but if you're staying with it, then make sure to decline the offers (I mean unless you want your computer to be used for mining and stuff like that ^^)