The best BitTorrent client has now been acquired by BitTorrent, Inc. and the author Bram Cohen and one can immediately smell the fish here. BitTorrent, Inc. is pushing hard to improve the reputation of BitTorrent protocol, as it is often considered synonymous to Internet piracy and they have also made deals with the movie industry. At the same time uTorrent has become the most popular BitTorrent client as it is an excellent piece of coding, offering the best features and low memory footprint (compare to bloatware Azureus, etc). So was this just a tactical maneuver to buy uTorrent out of business, or a genuine attempt to improve BitTorrent development?

This is Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, and Ludvig (Ludde) Strigeus, the writer of µTorrent.

Together, we are pleased to announce that BitTorrent, Inc. and µTorrent AB have decided to join forces. BitTorrent has acquired µTorrent as it recognized the merits of µTorrent’s exceptionally well-written codebase and robust user community. Bringing together µTorrent’s efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent’s expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client.

What does this mean for the µTorrent community? Not much, at least not at first. The intention is to maintain the website as it is, and keep the forums and community active. Moving forward behind the scenes, we will continue to develop µTorrent and will be using the codebase in other applications, especially ones where a fast, lightweight implementation is more suitable, such as embedded systems on TVs, cell phones, and other non-PC platforms.

The existent µTorrent and BitTorrent communities are immensely valuable to us, which is why we are announcing this here first to make sure you’re all the first to know about the news. The plan is to continue to foster the health and growth of the community that has been critical to the success of µTorrent. Thank you in advance for your support.

Source: uTorrent and thanks to Afterdawn.com for the heads up.