BitTorrent Mainline 7.1 now has uTorrent's apps

BitTorrent Inc's Mainline client (i.e. the one you can download from their homepage) now has the ability to use apps that, until now, were only usable with uTorrent. These apps allow you to augment your BitTorrent client much in the same way that Firefox add-ons or Chrome extensions alter your browser.

Built using JavaScript, HTML and CSS -- the same 'Open Web' technologies that Mozilla has been harping about -- these apps are free, and easily downloadable from within the new BitTorrent client. Having said that, only 11 apps are available at the moment (including the rather cute 'Torrent Tweet' and a BitDefender-powered virus scanner) -- and I'm not quite sure how developers go about having their apps indexed by the client's built-in search engine (which might be why there are only 11 apps...) Still, if you want to have a go at developing your own app, there's an official SDK and some tutorials to get you started.

I'm a little baffled by this feature coming to BitTorrent Mainline before uTorrent -- but perhaps BitTorrent Inc wants to try it out on Mainline's 'paltry' 14 million users before rolling it out to uTorrent's 60+ million users. Incidentally, if you're a uTorrent user, apps should find their way to a stable release before the end of the year.

[Direct BitTorrent 7.1 download link]

Tags: apps, bittorrent, bittorrent mainline, BittorrentMainline, download, mainline, open web, OpenWeb, p2p, peer to peer, PeerToPeer, torrent, utorrent