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BitTorrent still alive, uTorrent doubles user-base in 2009

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On December 28, 2009, 4:16 PM

This was a great year for uTorrent, an increasingly popular, lightweight BitTorrent client. The software's user-base has climbed to 52 million uniques per month from 28 million last November, which is contrary to some frequently cited numbers floating around the Web, according to TorrentFreak.

Reports earlier this year suggested that of all Internet traffic, the portion consumed by P2P has declined, indicating the slow "death" of BitTorrent, but that might not be right. TorrentFreak and others say that when looked at more closely, P2P activity has risen -- though, streaming sites like YouTube and Hulu are growing a little faster.

Despite legal troubles faced by sites like The Pirate Bay, Mininova, and isoHunt, torrent outfits across the board have seen an increase in visitors over the past months. Simon Morris, BitTorrent's VP of Product Management said this growth is reflected in the usage stats of uTorrent.

"We see no evidence whatever that BitTorrent clients are any less popular," Morris said. BitTorrent Mainline, another client, rose from 5 million users at the start of 2009 to 10 million in November -- a similar growth rate to uTorrent.

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6 comments

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  1. December 28, 2009 7:19 PM
    Tekkaraiden
    Tekkaraiden said:

    Not too surprising since a lot of game developers use a torrent system to deliver patches and content updates.

    Reply
  2. December 29, 2009 1:18 AM
    Puiu
    Puiu said:

    Torrent are going to be here for another 10 years for sure. Unless something better is found in a few years.

    Reply
  3. December 29, 2009 11:09 AM
    SNGX1275
    SNGX1275, TS Special Forces, said:

    Might not be significant, but I think in 2009 they released a Mac client. There aren't many good torrent clients for OS X so they probably gained about half of the OS X torrenters.

    Reply
  4. December 29, 2009 2:46 PM
    tengeta
    tengeta said:

    Its mostly because of legal torrents, as well as the public realizing torrents on their own are not illegal.

    Reply
  5. December 29, 2009 9:05 PM
    Guest said:

    Ha!.... Corporatism, Socialism, Communism, Oligarchy, Theocracy all different and yet the same. The freedom of information, communication and assembly is the only tool society needs for true liberty. Long live the Torrent.

    Reply
  6. January 1, 2010 11:06 AM
    gobbybobby said:

    My ISP still block all torrent traffic, even if Legal; between 6Pm and midnight. BT SUCK!

    Reply

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