Lots of people who like uTorrent simply use older versions, like the last version right before all the contested changes of v3 (v2.2.1 Build 25302 which you can get here[1]), or even some of the older 1.8x versions.

[1]: http://www.filehippo.com/download_utorrent/9859/

I never use installers for these types of software, I prefer using portable versions where possible:

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/utorrent_portable http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/qbittorrent_portable

I still use uTorrent Portbale, never had problems with toolbar installers or hijackers yet.

I've never upgraded from 2.2.1 and it still works great for me, except for the fact that I have to tell it not to update every time it loads.

You can turn that "do you want to update?" off: Options -> Preferences -> General and then uncheck "Check for updates automatically".

This is the beauty of an open protocol. No matter how much market share one client gets, if it screw up everyone just move to the next.

Imagine if everyone were using gshare and the company decided everyone had to use gshare+ and all the data was dependent on their servers/network. Good luck trying to keep an older version or trying an alternative after one company dominated the majority of the market.

I recommend 2.2. AFAIR subsequent versions were released after the company got bought and I lost all faith.

On Windows, you're going to want Transmission-Qt Win: http://sourceforge.net/projects/trqtw/

(Although I personally prefer qBittorrent: http://www.qbittorrent.org)

While we're nominating our personal favorite BT clients, I want to make a warm mention of (the free and open) Deluge: http://deluge-torrent.org/

Works pretty well on Windows.

One of the Deluge feature I appreciate is its ability to run a Deluge service on a machine and being able to connect to it from any Deluge client (there is a GUI and a terminal client). In my experience it's less tedious than transmission service to set up.

You can use a remote connection to connect to uTorrent but it goes through uTorrent's server for authentication if my memory serves me well.

I SO second this, and I raise you an excellent web-interface to boot. I have it running on a (headless) server and it's simply wonderful. On the tablet, I installed Torrent Manager which can connect to Deluge (and other daemons like Vuze) and it actually handles magnet links from the browser. I'm very happy about this setup.

uTorrent... I had to stop using uTorrent because it just stopped working. All torrents failed before they really started. I don't remember the error but I installed Tixati, which is also very functional (but now I have no Windows machine that I want to use for any torrent-related things anymore).

transmission has an excellent web ui, that doesn't require installing anything on other machines

uTorrent has a webUI that allows you to log to it remotely; you have to install it on the PC that uTorrent resides on. You set the authentication details on said PC, so I doubt it goes through any sort of server, as it doesn't need to.

I am referring to the the remote connection which uses remote.utorrent.com. Of course I'd favour the webUI too.

I'm not a fan of the Transmission UI, and much prefer Deluge because its UI is much like uTorrent's but without all the bloat of more recent versions. It's become my standard client since I found out about it.

Deluge utterly chokes if you add in 2k+ torrents, unfortunately, as it's a really nicely designed program.

I've read sourceforge is pretty sketchy these days too bundling "helper" applications to any downloads.

there are other options too :)

Deluge - http://deluge-torrent.org/

Tixati - http://www.tixati.com/

qBittorrent - http://www.qbittorrent.org/

Third for Deluge. uTorrent users will find it's interface very familiar.

Second for Deluge.

i'd say deluge over transmission

I absolutely love Deluge, specially the web interface.

Deluge is great.

Second for tixati. It's the fastest among what I have tried.

I love qBittorrent.

This also says a lot about Yahoo, by the way.

Windows users can turn to Free Download Manager[1]. It's open source (GPL)[2] and just works like uTorrent does. It supports HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, audio/video preview, partial ZIP downloads, rate limiting, download scheduling, download from multiple mirrors and Chrome/IE/Firefox/Clipboard integration. Plus it "looks native."

I have been using it for years and have never gone wrong - it's extremely fast and because it's FOSS it is obviously ad/spyware/searchware free.

Edit: I am not affiliated with these guys in any way - just a happy user.

[1]: http://freedownloadmanager.org/ [2]: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/freedownload

Yes, uTorrent has long been spyware/malware.

There was a case where the application started downloading some strange 5GB file that users did not add: http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=728504

Other times it threw open a window from the application to a webpage with shady screensaver installers.

Using a closed-source torrent client in this climate is dangerous.

I'm not sure I would specifically "blame" uTorrent for this, it's the shame shady practice that a lot of software uses now to install other crapware. You need to be very careful when installing anything free so uncheck all those toolbar installers and things.

But, there are a lot of other torrent clients listed here, I will be trying some of these out :)

Agreed.

Recently i lost my htpc so i looked for one client for the tablet.

Of the dozen available, one supported 'only encrypted' mode. One/12

Since there are a lot of suggestions here, I'd like to add my personal favorite: http://baretorrent.org/

While it does not have all of the features of more heavy torrent clients, it does have a plugin system - although not many plugins exist yet. It's cross-platform, open source, and pretty light. The author has good priorities and is conscious about issues such as privacy, and having good installers that aren't bundled with questionable content.

That actually looks really nice! Thanks for bringing this up, Kelet.

Ubuntu/Linux support too which is always nice to see!

Thanks for posting this. I'd forgotten about Transmission.

Anecdotally, I had occasion to fire up a torrent client and grabbed uTorrent, what I used some time ago and found to be a good client. I was shocked to see how it had turned into crapware. It felt like sleazy garbage and I actually worried I'd inadvertently installed spyware on my machine.

The only reason I still use uTorrent is for the integrated RSS parser. Is there something like that for Transmission?

I use Automatic for RSS and just have it deposit torrents to Transmission's watch directory.

The transmission guys are against rss for some reason. Tixati and qBittorent have it.

Maybe http://flexget.com/

I use Flexget and Transmission. Wondeful combo. Keeps Plex well fed :>

I was going to say just this, but found this comment. I was an Azureus user, but they jumped the shark. Then I switched to uTorrent, and was delighted that the resource use on my computer went down a ton. Then uTorrent started getting bloatware I didn't want, but by then, Transmission had gotten good.

whenever i get utorrent, i always find out that i've "chosen" to install a toolbar.

Or Tixati!

http://www.tixati.com/

That's what I use, but keep in mind it's closed source (not sure what their business model is)