Vuze adds social features to BitTorrent video client

When Azureus launched the Vuze desktop video player with built in BitTorrent support last year, a lot of folks shrugged. A few checked out the new Vuze client, but many kept using the company's trusty old BitTorrent client. Now the company is killing off the standalone client and changing its name to Vuze. There's also a new version of the Vuze client which adds a few new features.

Probably the most significant change in Vuze 3.1 is support for searching multiple BitTorrent tracking web sites. Previously if you wanted to find a video, you could only search through the Vuze catalog of free and for-pay downloads. Now you can find a whole lot of results from other sites including Mininova and Sumotorrent as well. You can also add other sites to search simply by clicking the add/edit button.

Vuze 3.1 also adds some basic social networking features. Users can create profiles, add friends, and recommend torrents that they think their friends would like. There's no way to chat or see if your friends are online, so these social elements feel tacked on rather than tightly integrated into the experience.

When you install Vuze 3.1 you'll be asked to install a browser toolbar as well. Feel free to uncheck the box next to this option. The wording is a bit tricky since it makes it sound a bit like you need to accept the terms and install the toolbar to continue the installation. But this is not the case.

[via NewTeeVee]

Tags: bittorrent, vuze, vuze-3.1