Just yesterday, PortableApps.com made its first foray into the world of freeware. Round one of the new releases included Skype and Google Chrome, two Download Squad favorites.

Today, John T. Haller and crew have added another winner to the mix. The world's most popular torrent client, µTorrent, is the most recent addition to the PortableApps freeware family.

You've been able to make µTorrent mostly portable for quite some time, but it's nice to finally have a pre-packaged version - especially one designed to drop in alongside the rest of the PortableApps suite. Portable µTorrent is especially useful on super-sized external hard drives for on-the-go torrenting of massive files.

ed note: pardon the 'u' in the title - but that's what most people search for when they're looking for this app on our site --Lee.

Sure, you can just use Safari and µTorrent's built-in WebUI to monitor your torrents - and you'll have to if you're not the swashbuckling, jailbreaking type. Those of you who don't mind getting a little colored snow on your iPhone or iPod Touch, however, can use µMonitor.

Rejected from the App Store, the developer has decided to do an end run around Apple and release µMonitor via Cydia.
The app actually taps into the µTorrent WebUI API to work its magic. The end result is a solid mobile interface which makes controlling your torrent downloads from your iPhone a breeze.

You'll need to add repo.theiphonebay.org to your Cydia sources if it's not there already -- they're taking care of µMonitor's distribution. You may also want to sign up for a dynamic DNS service like DynDNS.org to give your machine a fixed address to access even if your ISP frequently cycles your IP address (like mine does).

If you woke up this morning hoping to download last night's episode of Mad Men (of course, I totally wouldn't know anything about that) you'll have to look somewhere other than The Pirate Bay. The popular, controversial torrent site was taken down by the Swedish government earlier today, and is still unreachable as of this posting. Authorities got to the Bay by threatening the site's hosting service with hefty fines, according to TorrentFreak.

TorrentFreak also reported that The Pirate Bay is back online after changing hosting companies, but I've been unable to connect to the site all day. The Pirate Bay is currently in the middle of a civil case brought against it by several large media companies, and is also the target of a faltering acquisition attempt by games company Global Gaming Factory. This sort of thing hasn't killed The Pirate Bay before, so I expect we'll see it back up again shortly.

In the meantime, remember how one user posted a complete backup of the site's index last week? Yeah, someone has already posted a TPB clone at BTarena.net. The servers appear to be getting hammered right now and the site is pretty slow. But it's better than nothing.

We all had a good little chuckle when Firefox took Antarctica by storm, capturing 100% of the web browser market share. Today the news is not so rosy for bittorrent and peer-to-peer supporters.

The U.S. Antarctic Program has banned their use. From the official communique from the USAP's director of IT and communications:

There are many different Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications: BitTorrent, LimeWire, Gnutella, and KaZaa to name a few more popular ones. Some are used to download legitimate software and media, some illegitimate. None of them are permitted on the USAP enterprise network for both bandwidth and security concerns. P2P applications have the potential to overwhelm the internet connections on the Ice and inadvertently bring malicious software and traffic into the network.

An unhappy USAP employee wrote FreakBits "The gist I got from it was 'because you are all too dumb to use a computer correctly.' At least the plans for my secret uranium mine won't leak out while I'm down here freezing my ass off."

We went poking around the icy continent to see what other Antarcticans thought about the policy.

One penguin speaking on the condition of anonymity told us, "Hey, there are plenty of legitimate uses for bittorrent. It's going to take forever for our Linux group to download new distros now." He added, "We're not all trying to download episodes of The Real Housewives of Orange County like Professor Opposable Thumbs over there."

And he's right. He stinks like greasy fish, but he's right. Bittorrent and peer-to-peer apps aren't the problem. It's inappropriate use and carelessness that's the problem.

The penguins plan on staging a protest later this month, though they refused to announce any details at this point. "We don't want to jeopardize the operation," said our source.

[via FreakBits]

The latest stable version of the popular Bittorrent client µTorrent is version 1.83. But the developers decided that the next major release packed in too much to simply call it µTorrent 1.9, so the next version will be called version 2.0. And µTorrent 2.0 beta is already available for download.

The update brings:

• Support for UDP trackers, a new protocol for BitTorrent trackers that uses less CPU power on the tracker end
• Improved setup dialog with built-in speed test
• Transfer Cap options that help you track and control how much data you transfer (which helps if your ISP caps your data transfer rates)

The beta is only available for Windows at the moment. The latest version of µTorrent for OS X is 0.9.1.2.

[via Lifehacker]

Microsoft is head-over-heels excited about this announcement: Build 7600.16385 has been officially declared the RTM version of Windows 7.

Strike up the marching bands! Bring in the dancing girls!

But hang on just a tic. Isn't build 7600.16385 already floating around all over the P2P filesharing ether? The previous incremental build 7600.16384 looked pretty real, based on what Softpedia shared.

It sure looks like the new leak is the real deal. IsoHunt has several results for 7600.16385 and they've been happily active for several days. I've even seen it installed firsthand - on someone's Toshiba laptop, though I can't recall where *cough*.

Of course, Microsoft's official line all along has been to stay away from leaked ISOs, because you never know what kind of pure digital evil might be hiding inside. And there could very well be some subtle differences between what's been leaked and what winds up preinstalled on systems and boxed on retail shelves.

I'm pretty convinced that what's out there is legitimate and that someone, somewhere (possibly in Eastern Europe - Wzor, we're looking at you) leaked the build that was later signed off on as the RTM.

What about you?

Breaking addition! Check after the break for ACTION-PACKED footage of Steven Sinofsky signing off! It's better than an episode of Briscoe County Jr....

Over on MusicVoid, Wayne Rosso blogged that he had spoken with Hans Pandeya, chief of Global Gaming Factory. The subject: how to go legit with The Pirate Bay without alienating every last user that still has an ounce of faith in the site.

Rosso states that he has recently met with numerous content providers and "various major executives in the international music scene." Contrary to what most of us would expect, the meetings have apparently been very positive and the parties involved supportive and even excited about Pandeya's vision.

Here's the interesting bit for users. Rosso offers a glimpse as to how the system is going to work, saying "In short, the more computer resources the user contributes to The Pirate Bay, the more his content consumption is subsidized."

That sounds to me like you'll get credit back when you share files you've purchased or acquired legitimately. Perhaps like an iTunes that "pays" you to upload tracks, apps, movies, and other content to other users on the system.

I'm ok with buying from iTunes and I'd love it if Apple gave me credits for uploading my library to other users who make purchases. We all know that's not going to happen any time soon and it's certainly not the same type of sharing that made the Pirate Bay what it is was, but it is a system that could work.

Until more details surface, it's all conjecture - but what do you think? Would you be onboard with a system like that?

iPhone users have been told we aren't allowed to play with a nasty little application like Drivetrain, which remotely controls transmission downloads. We might be using it to control illegal download on another machine, after all, and Apple doesn't want us getting into trouble.

Android users, however, are free to install Transdroid - a handy little app that interfaces with Transmission, uTorrent, Deluge, and rTorrent. In addition to pausing, resuming, and removing torrents, Transdroid can also add new torrents via an IsoHunt powered search (or by providing a URL).

There's also a handy dashboard widget so you can monitor activity without launching the app itself.

Want to see Transdroid in action? Check the Vimeo clip after the break!

[via Android Freeware]

Most of our regular readers probably have a favorite stand-alone torrent application like uTorrent, Vuze, Transmission, etc. Our friends and family, though, who don't download via torrent all that often may not want a dedicated program.

There are plenty of other programs you can use that come with torrent downloading abilities baked right in. Here are six options I've recommended to my friends. If you have some other options to share, leave them in the comments!

Use your web browser: Opera and Wyzo (pictured above) - What better place to get support for torrents than in your web browser? WIth Opera and Wyzo (which is based on Firefox) torrents are handled just like any other download. Click a torrent, and the download manager kicks in the same as it would if you downloaded an image, document, .zip file, or whatever.

Use your file sharing program: Limewire and Frostwire - Many of you are already using one of these programs to download music, but they can also handle your torrent downloads. The newest version of Limewire features much-improved torrent support (thanks to the LibTorrent project). Frostwire is built on Limewire's foundation, and provides the same functionality. One key difference is that Frostwire won't ask you to upgrade to the pro version, because there isn't one.

Use a download manager: Free Download Manager and FlashGet - FDL does tons of great things that you'll appreciate. It can accelerate and resume your downloads, grab Flash videos from sites like YouTube, easily upload files to share with your friends, and tell you what the community thinks about the files you download. FlashGet also does download acceleration and resuming, and it adds some handy download organization features. And, of course, they both support torrents!

While most of you probably prefer using a standalone torrent application, Limewire is actually the most widely-installed client in the world. In the most recent beta version, the Limewire team have greatly improved the program's torrent handling chops.

By adding LibTorrent to the mix, Limewire now includes the engine powering such apps as Halite, Deluge, Miro, Free Download Manager, and more. As a result, the new version gains support for IPv6, Mainline DHT, UDP tracking and HTTP seeding, local peer discovery, and peer exchange (PEX).

Interestingly, being the most widely-installed app doesn't translate into actual use. As TorrentFreak points out, in a survey of nearly 200,000 bittorrent peers only 43 were using Limewire.

Why so few? Limewire users are generally only after the its Gnutella downloading abilities, though as torrenting become more mainstream the program will no doubt be an attractive option for the average user.

As I sat down this morning to begin working on a few small news items, Torrent Freak had dropped a bomb on my RSS: the Pirate Bay has been sold for just under $8 million US.

Swedish gaming giant Global Gaming Factory X will become the new owners, and The Pirate Bay as you and I know it will change forever. A necessary evolutionary step, according to Peter Sunde (brokep).

"We've been working on this project for many years. It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!"

Why would a legitimate company want to purchase TPB? For starters, it's one of the top 100 most visited sites on the internet. While I'm not in the habit of referring to $8 million purchases as a bargain, it's hard to imagine being able to pick up any of the other 99 sites on the list for that kind of money.

It was only a matter of time before the P2P community came up with some workable options for anonymizing our activities. Sure, Tor has been able to do it for quite some time, but torrenting is very taxing on the network and transfers can be painfully slow. Recently, however, three new services have appeared that could provide the privacy protection we've been waiting for.

iPredator VPN - We've known this one was coming for a while. The beta launch date got pushed back quite a bit, but that little courtroom skirmish may have slowed things down a little. In a blog post yesterday, the iPredator team announced that the first 3,000 beta invites have been sent out. If you're in the queue, don't start drooling just yet. There are 179,999 others names lined up.

Furk (pictured) - Find a torrent, paste it into Furk, and you're provided a direct download link. Even with the free account, I still averaged about 275k/s, which isn't much slower than what I typically manage on a straight torrent download (thanks to my ISP). Download links are also passed to you with SSL encryption. Just don't use it to download stuff like what's in the capture - it's there for illustration purposes only, of course...

Paid accounts are just under 10 Euros a month or 24/three months.

BitBlinder - Jay posted about this service the other day. The open source project aims to anonymize not only torrent downloads but also your web browsing. How does it work? Think of your Internet traffic as the fruit in a smoothie. Now take all your friends' fruit, chuck it all into a blender, and press 'liquify'. Pour it into a glass, and all you see is smoothie - you can't tell what's your fruit and what belongs to your friends.

As with iPredator you may be waiting a while to get your invite and download link.

There are a few widely-accepted ways to anonymize your browsing or torrent activity, but they all have their drawbacks. TOR is free, but it's poor etiquette to use it for torrents and put a strain on the bandwidth of the nice folks who run TOR servers. Not to mention that it's incredibly, stupefyingly slow. You could get a VPN, but that'll cost you. So, what's the solution to making your torrents free and anonymous, without a huge drag on your transfer speeds? A new open source project called BitBlinder might be the ticket.

BitBlinder is sort of like a private tracker for your anonymous data. A private tracker requires you to upload a certain percentage of data compared to what you download, in order to keep using it. BitBlinder works the same way, requiring each person on the network to anonymize a certain amount of data for others in order to have their own data anonymized for free. To keep your IP address safe, it's passed through several peers before it reaches your target website, but each computer only receives the address of the next peer in the chain, not the address the request is coming from. That way, you don't know who anyone else is, and nobody else knows who you are, which makes it difficult for anyone to track what each person on the network is doing.

BitBlinder isn't just good for torrents, though. It can also be used to hide your browsing activity and get around blocked sites at work or school. BitBlinder comes with an anonymous browser, built on Firefox. It's worth noting that BitBlinder will be a bit slower than browsing without anonymity, but still faster than TOR. It's planned as a cross-platform project, but the Mac version isn't ready quite yet. Registration is required, and there are currently a limited number of slots available.

[via TorrentFreak]

Torrents have gained some infamy as a way for users to share resources and quickly download large files, but their potential as a way to watch streaming video is comparatively almost unknown. StreamTorrent is a Windows app that taps that potential to let you watch online TV, including HBO, the BBC, and plenty of sports channels. It works the same way torrent downloads work, with a collection of users "seeding" parts of the video to other users as they watch.

It might not be practical unless you've got a lot of people watching and seeding, but you could theoretically stream your own channel over StreamTorrent. Users would only have to search for it to connect. This could prove to be an affordable way of providing large video files when you don't have the cash to pony up for high bandwidth fees, and it can, at least in theory, stream to an unlimited number of users.

[via gHacks]

Who wants to wait until July 1st to try out Microsoft Office 2010? Heck, even if you do want to wait and register your name, you still might not be chosen as a tester.

Fortunately, your friends at the Internet have got your back once again. Yes, the Office 2010 technical preview - like every build of Windows 7 that ends with an odd or even number (or zero) has been leaked to torrent trackers.

This time, Wzor.net didn't just share screenshots of the leaked apps, they've actually provided links to the torrent files themselves.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but remember: if you do decide to download the leaked ISOs, make sure you take the necessary precautions. No, that doesn't mean putting on your tin foil hat.

Thanks, Sandip!

update (5/16/09 7:17 ET): screenshots coming up after the break - stay tuned!