The new version boasts slight fixes to uTP, an alternative communication method allowing uTorrent to automatically regulate the bandwidth usage to avoid that it has an impact on the Internet connection of the user.

It basically allows one use to download torrents while other users who use the same connection to use the Internet without noticing a big difference. Another addition to uTP is its own form of STUN which is a method of “getting incoming connections without direct connectivity to the Internet” which increases connectivity and speed.

The transfer cap finally was added to aid users with capped Internet connections. Some ISPs limit the monthly bandwidth to a certain amount and the transfer cap allows a user to track the upload and download bandwidth and configure uTorrent to stop transferring once a limit is reached.

The new uTorrent release can be downloaded from the official uTorrent forum (via Lifehacker).

The developers, who were working on uTorrent 1.9 alpha initially have decided to skip 1.9 and move forward to version 2.0 directly. The release notes mention the following feature additions in the Bittorrent client besides many fixes and changes.

• We’ve added UDP tracker support!
• uTP has been improved significantly over the previous alpha, with many bugs fixed and performance improvements. It’s no longer hidden in Advanced settings.
• The setup dialog has been overhauled to make it much easier to use and with a built-in speed test. It’s still not quite complete yet, but this will give you a good taste of what we’re up to with it!
• A new transfer cap feature has been added to track bandwidth usage, along with graphs to show your usage.

UDP trackers are a different protocol for tracker communication that uses significantly less processing power on the tracker end. It’s important for us to support this because trackers have limited resources, so this should allow them to support many more users with their current hardware and not crash under the load.

Support for UDP trackers could be beneficial not only for torrent tracker administrators and owners but also users as the performance gain could be noticeable on the front end as well.

uTP is an alternative communication method for BitTorrent traffic that allows the client to automatically regulate its bandwidth usage to avoid adversely impacting your internet connection. This will allow you or other users on the network to download their torrents without killing your connection without any additional setup required.

This is probably the most exciting addition for users who like to run uTorrent 24/7.

The transfer cap settings were added in response to various users who have ISP-mandated caps on how much data they can download/upload in a month. Now you can track your usage in MB (with a handy graph to visualize it) and even configure µTorrent to stop torrenting once the limits are exceeded. Currently, you can configure the time interval, the data cap and whether it should stop based on only download, upload, or both combined.
As a privacy notice, this traffic data is not sent back to us or anyone.

The transfer cap settings can be very interesting for users with bandwidth caps but it can also be useful for users who like to keep an eye on their bandwidth usage.

The setup guide on the other hand has been changed as well. Currently only test servers that are located in the United States are accessible which makes it unsuitable for users from Europe and Asia.

Users who want to upgrade their version of uTorrent to version 2.0 beta can do so by visiting the uTorrent forums.