New uTorrent update boosts performance, improves Vista support

The popular, lightweight Windows torrent client, µTorrent, has released its first major update in some time, packing in some significant new features.

From a layout and UI standpoint, not much has changed, but under the hood µTorrent now supports Teredo, which promises much improved IPv6 support. Teredo is a tunneling protocol that allows even IPv6-unaware NAT devices to handle IPv6 traffic.

The end result is IPv6 connectivity without needing to upgrade NAT hardware, meaning better connections and improved torrent performance.

Other features in µTorrent 1.8 include better Windows Firewall registration in Vista, better skin handling for customizing the look and feel and quite a bit more. Check out the µTorrent forums for the complete change list.

Also welcome news is that with the release of 1.8, the µTorrent team plans to focus its effort on the long-anticipated Mac OS X version. No time line has been announced, but µTorrent developer Greg Hazel hints to TorrentFreak that “the first public Alpha version will be released in just a few weeks.”

As always µTorrent is free and you can grab the latest version from the downloads page.