uTorrent 1.0 for Mac gets a stable release

uTorrent, one of the most popular torrent apps for Windows, is getting a stable release for Mac today. According to the uTorrent blog, it's been a years-long road toward a Mac client that has nearly achieved feature parity with its Windows counterpart. All of the protocol enhancements that make uTorrent fast are part of this Mac release, including (and this is straight off the blog, so I don't leave anything out) D HT, PEX, Protocol Encryption and the new uTP transport.

uTorrent looks like it might give Transmission a serious run for its money as the best Mac-ready torrent client. Both are lightweight and focused on speed, which makes them a lot more useful than some of the torrent bloatware out there (I'm looking at you, Vuze!).

And that uTP transport thing? That's the protocol which helps us get around ISP traffic throttling by dynamically giving you the best speeds possible based on network conditions, and it yields to your regular TCP traffic (think web browsing) so that running torrents won't cripple the rest of your online activities. Although it's somewhat controversial, many people in the torrent community see it as a very good thing.

Tags: bittorrent, mac, torrents, utorrent, utp