Back in February, uTorrent owner BitTorrent Inc. quietly rolled out a brand new product. Leveraging the hugely popular brand identity of its flagship product, uTorrent Web provided new ways to consume torrents online.
The premise is simple. Rather than rely on a completely stand-alone torrent client, uTorrent Web allows users to download and even stream torrents, directly in their web browser. A piece of software does have to be installed (Windows only currently) but the rest of the action takes place in Chrome, Firefox, or compatible browsers.
Early September, with rather more fanfare, BitTorrent Inc. announced that uTorrent Web had exited beta. The company said that the product’s focus is on simplicity and quick playability.
“With a simple download to play experience as the focal point of µTorrent Web, we see more users successfully downloading and playing torrents than with any other product in BitTorrent’s history,” the company said.
While it will be a long time before uTorrent Web eclipses the 100+ million active users of uTorrent desktop and mobile, BitTorrent Inc. says that uTorrent Web has just reached a significant milestone
Celebrating its first month out of beta, the browser-based torrent client now has one million daily active users.
“Our users have already downloaded our licensed content, which features both top-tier and emerging content creators, well over 100 million times,” says Jordy Berson, Chief Product Officer and COO at BitTorrent Inc.
“While the growth in our daily active users is a great validation of product market fit, we are equally proud to see that µTorrent Web drives dramatically more user engagement and playback than any product in BitTorrent’s history, which is a huge win for our 30,000+ licensed content creators.”
With uTorrent Web clearly on a roll, the product could be in for some additional upgrades before the year is out. A feature to stream files stored on a home computer to an Android device is the first to be announced.
uTorrent Web was first teased last year by BitTorrent inventor Bran Cohen, who said that browser-based torrenting is “just a nicer experience.” It’s also more accessible to a generation of content consumers who have grown up with the explosion of web-based streaming.
