14 DAY TRIAL // After many months of waiting, or testing as the case may be, uTorrent 3.0 is finally here. The popular BitTorrent client comes with plenty of new features for power and casual users alike. Among the most touted new features are media streaming before finishing the download, a simple web interface for remote control and drag and drop sharing.
"µTorrent 3.0 is officially live," BitTorrent, the company behind uTorrent, announced. "First, many thanks to the 4+ million µTorrent users who pitched in and tested the beta. Your feedback was a significant contribution to the final product. We all really appreciate it," it said.
The first uTorrent 3.0 Alpha surfaced last summer and the first beta a couple of months ago.
Many of the new features have been in the works for quite some time but have only now reached maturity, being stable enough for the many tens of millions of people that use uTorrent.
Instant video and music streaming
Streaming is perhaps the best example, it's been around since December 2009, but has only now become a standard feature of the stable release.
"Watch videos within seconds with our progressive downloads – no need to wait for the entire file to download. This feature is especially great for previewing a file before committing to the full download," BitTorrent explained.
"To use this feature, simply click the streaming button when it appears in the Playback column within the Torrents tab," it added.
uTorrent remote control
Another great feature making its debut is a new web service from BitTorrent enabling users to control their uTorrent app from any computer or device, by visiting remote.utorrent.com, without the need of setting up a local server or anything of the sort.
Ratings and comments
uTorrent 3.0 is also trying to make the whole process of peer-to-peer sharing more social, not only on a technical level, but enabling actual interactions and conversations between users.
The latest stable release enable users to rate torrents to let others know to stay clear or to grab a quality release. Comments do pretty much the same.
uChat, P2P chat app
Speaking of social interactions, uTorrent 3.0 also introduces an interesting new feature, still in beta, uChat, available as an optional app for the BitTorrent client. As the name implies, it enables users to chat with each other via a distributed P2P network.
There's plenty more to like about uTorrent 3.0, including a refreshed interface, and the possibility of creating new torrent files by simply dragging what you want to share over an area in the app. You can hit the download link below to find out for yourself.
uTorrent 3.0 is available for download here on Softpedia.