BitTorrent has announced on its blog Ad-Free uTorrent for $4.95 USD annual subscription.
For customers of uTorrent who are tired of the ads in BitTorrents torrent downloading client, there is now an option - a cheaper one than before - of dismissing those ads.
Earlier in November 2014, BitTorrent had announced a paid version, now called uTorrent Pro, that not only gets rid of the ads but also offers other services, like a built-in video converter, streaming of torrents, and integrated malware scanning for users. The package costs $19.95 a year.
Before this, BitTorent had been completely free. Since then, in 2011 and 2012, BitTorrent started to generate revenue from its users. This was employed by introducing two big changes: one, they initiated showing ads in uTorrent - and two, they offered a paid version of the application that removed those ads and offered additional features like a built-in video converter and integrated malware scanning.
The new cheaper package of $4.95 USD annual subscription only gets rid of the ads on the application and does not offer additional functionality features.
BitRorrent advertised this feature as being 25 percent of the cost that the older $19.95 a year was.
The tangibly popular app has over 100 million downloads across all its platforms where it is accessible.
In its announcement, BitTorrent did not mention how many users are opting for the paid version as opposed to users who are utilizing uTorrent for free.
BitTorrent, in a forum post from August of 2015, talks about how uTorrent is free for its customers, and how it needs to be supported. It claims that to do this, they use bundled software and offers to make up for the the cost that the users are not currently paying for.
It says this familiar revenue model is one used generally among other software companies, and it lets BitTorrent fund costs related with software development as well as other projects and innovations
The forum post goes on to say that they are not happy with this model because it "detract(s) from a premium user experience." It says they "want to find a model that adds value to our product and our users."
