uTorrent is a popular torrent program that tops the list of best free torrent client software for good reasons.
The RSS Downloader and remote web interface are excellent features in uTorrent. Let your favorite RSS items download automatically and control the uTorrent program from any web browser.
Some torrent clients dazzle you with their array of powerful features. Not uTorrent. It’s designed to cover the essentials, and with a footprint of just over 2MB on disk it’s smaller than a typical smartphone photograph. That means it doesn’t hog all your system’s resources, which is important with big downloads: it uses around 6MB of RAM, so it’s not going to make your system crawl like some apps can do.
Just be careful where you get it. We’ve provided a link to the official site, but there are lots of counterfeits out there selling subscriptions or charging real money for a free product.
uTorrent’s main appeal is that it’s fast, and you can take advantage of power user settings including remote management, scripting and automation. You don’t get all the features of the paid-for Pro version – there’s advertising, and the free version doesn’t scan downloads for viruses and malware – but you do get bandwidth management in the form of speed limits. You can customize those for specific days and times, so for example you might tell uTorrent to slow down when you’re likely to be on your PC and to go full throttle when you’re asleep or out.
Are torrents legal?
Torrents have a bad reputation due to piracy, but they aren’t illegal in themselves and have lots of legitimate uses, including downloading open source software and material that’s in the public domain.
It all depends on the content you’re downloading. Provided the copyright holder has given permission for the file to be shared this way it’s fine, but using torrents to download content you’d otherwise have to pay for is not legal.