uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

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Nemo
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uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

Post by Nemo »

uTorrent Garbage App Turns Out To Be a Bitcoin Miner.

uTorrent users claimed the software's latest update was being bundled with a Bitcoin mining program called Epic Scale. It was alleged that the installation was taking place silently – i.e. users weren’t aware the software was being installed.

BitTorrent Inc., the company that created uTorrent, flatly denied a silent installation was taking place.

What is Epic Scale?

Epic Scale, for context, is a piece of software that purports to use your ‘unused processing power to change the world.’ In short, it mines Bitcoin in the background for charitable purposes – although it also claims to help process scientific data.

We have no reason to suspect it does anything other than what it says, but equally there's no tangible evidence – other than its word – that Epic Scale does donate to the charities it claims and how much of its revenue it donates if it does.


Image

Read here for a detailed orignal article plus the whole installation process:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/epic-scale-and-utorrent-bitcoin-mining-riskware-investigated.

Also at the forums people are upset and angry.
When I updated uTorrent to version 3.4.2 build 28913 (32-bit) this morning it silently installed a piece of software called EpicScale. There was no information about this during installation and I did opt out of your other bundled software.

EpicScale is a bitcoin miner that also purports to use your "unused processing power to change the world". It's easily noticeable by the increased CPU load when the computer is idle.

The file date/time on the EpicScale files matches the time of the uTorrent update, which confirms uTorrent as the source.
Read here: http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/95041-warning-epicscale-riskware-silently-installed-with-latest-utorrent/

uTorrent has said the following about it:

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We design our software to ensure that partner software downloads don't occur without approval by the user. But given your report, we’ve also double-checked this particular offer, and have determined that it cannot be installed without user approval.

Epic Scale is a cryptocurrency miner that uses a portion of your CPU cycles to contribute to the mining effort. A portion of the proceeds from this effort go to philanthropic initiatives. Please visit http://www.epicscale.com/ for more information. Epic Scale is a great partner for us to continue to generate revenue for the company, while contributing funds to good causes. In the future, Epic Scale plans to contribute CPU cycles to other initiatives, such as Genome mapping and other academic studies that require a great deal of processing power.

As Groundrunner stated, it's easy to uninstall the software via Add/Remove Programs. Per the Epic Scale CEO's response in comments on the link you shared, the only data left in ProgramData\Epicscale is a simple UUID (Unique User ID). This remains so that in case the software is reinstalled, BitTorrent would still be associated with the user. Feel free to delete this folder. You certainly won't see any persistent auto-reinstalls of the software, it will be gone from your machine for good.


It seems that alot more users are leaving the uTorrent boat in search for alternatives after this riskware mining hidden installation.

For more information see here also:
UTORRENT QUIETLY INSTALLS CRYPTOCURRENCY MINER, USERS COMPLAIN
http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-quietly-installs-riskware-bitcoin-miner-users-report-150306/
Last edited by Nemo on Sat Mar 07, 2015 9:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ciaobaby

Re: uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

Post by ciaobaby »

People should realise, that there is always a price to be paid for a 'free' product with PAID for developers.


Free speech is one thing, ... ... Free beer is a whole different ball game.

And I did post several warnings at the uTorrent for anyone who cared to listen that the situation would only get worse as BitTorrent Inc. tried to squeeze every possible cent out of their product, and said that it would take 'revolution' not 'rhetoric' to halt or change the course that uTorrent was heading.
When v3 was first released [ or should that be unleashed? ] it was plainly obvious that the opinions of the existing uTorrent user base was of zero importance to the company and they were simply an 'acquired asset' to be exploited as much as possible.
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Nemo
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Re: uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

Post by Nemo »

The forum seems gone also, it redirects to the blog explaining about the mining program. Probably to prevent the users raging at the forums about this issue who knows.
100%

Re: uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

Post by 100% »

qBittorrent has replaced µTorrent on ninite.com. Now, that's a really good sign.
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Nemo
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Re: uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

Post by Nemo »

Definitly, its great to see that qBittorrent is being accepted globally as a worthy replacement for uTorrent. I think that any open source client is better at this moment than uTorrent. Or use an outdated version but I wouldn't advice that too quickly when there are alternatives that are being updated and maintained.

Even if there is still a few improvments needed for certain group of users that miss some features (which will always be needed anyway, there is always room for improvments) qBittorrent will get there with time, I trust sledge and others at Github fully. As it stands right now its already rock solid. Infact im using the alpha as stable :D.
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Re: uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

Post by Nemo »

Instructions on how to delete it can be find here: http://www.depotekk.com/2015/03/how-to-remove-utorrents-epicscale-from.html.

Could be handy for some, if in search for it.

Quote from the site at the end;
Anybody that bundles crapware in their installer shouldn’t be trusted.

You should probably go uninstall uTorrent and find a better client, because they will probably do this type of thing to you again.
Halsey56

Re: uTorrent being bundled with bitcoin mining program.

Post by Halsey56 »

Thank you for the details
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