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Comment by Goronmon | Hacker News Reader

If you want to avoid ads and bundled spyware, better to use up-to-date FOSS instead of years-old unsupported versions of uTorrent.

Why is it better to use up-to-date FOSS if the older version of uTorrent works fine (better even, in my experience)?

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What if that version of uTorrent has an exploitable bug, or embeds an exploitable library (openssl)? In a network-facing situation you absolutely need to be using up-to-date software.

https://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-177-stable-080127/

That article is 7 years old...

Because any vulnerabilities in obsolete software will likely stay unknown and unfixed?

Because one day it might stop to; actually it "will".

What makes you think that? The torrent protocol would need to fundamentally change to completely stop the older versions from working. I don't see that happening.

The environment it runs in (your PC, operating system) changes over time. Yes, backwards compatibility is a big priority, but eventually something is going to fall out of compatibility. It's also known as bit rot.

And when it does, I can switch. For now, the older version of uTorrent works quite well and is RECOMMENDED by the trackers I use.

I'd love to hear a rational explanation from a private tracker operator as to why those recommendations are made. I understand banning misbehaving clients but the vast majority are fine.

The last good version of uTorrent actually fails to run under Windows 8 64-bit for me.

I'm running uTorrent 2.2.1 on Windows 10 Tech Preview 64-bit just fine.

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