Malicious BitTorrent Clients: Torrent101 & Bitroll
Written by Ernesto on January 20, 2007Torrent101 and Bitroll are two relatively new BitTorrent clients that can seriously damage your computer. The worst thing about it is that popular sites like Torrentspy, Torrentscan, and even The Pirate Bay display ads for them.
Both clients are scam products that claim to bring you ‘high speeds downloads’, but all they do is install malware, and hijack your browser. We already posted about Bitroll a while ago, and if you take a look at the comments on that post you will see that these clients bring nothing but bad things.
Even worse is the fact that they advertise these malware clients on several torrent sites, using phrases like “Download Torrents using Torrent101 for high speed downloads”. Torrentspy and Torrentscan are two reputable sites that knowingly advertise for these clients. They go so far as to integrate the ads into their design. Experienced BitTorrent users will probably not fall into this trap, but I bet many newcomers will.
You might wonder why respectable BitTorrent site admins advertise for these clients. Well the answer to that is simple: MONEY. The developers pay a lot of cash to these admins, who get paid for installing malware on their turn.
The ads also appear on The Pirate Bay and several other sites through contextual ad-services like Adbrite and Targetpoint (screenshot). They they tried to get on mininova as well, but the site admins rejected the ad proposal on Adbrite, and blocked ads from these malicious clients via Targetpoint.
Another site that was recently infected is Snarf-it. One of the junior admins accidentally made a deal with Torrent101, something that goes completely against the ’safe ads’ policy of one of the cleanest BitTorrent sites on the net. The contract was canceled as soon as possible, and Rafe, the site admin later apologized for the mistake.
So watch out! And avoid these malicious clients.
Previously: Filesharing News Site p2pnet.net up for Sale
Next: Grooveshark to Offer Legal P2P Alternative
52 Responses
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too bad they had a contact us section. I gave them a piece of my mind!
It’s really a bloody shame that BT sites lower themselves this much just to get a few buck more. But what’s even more sad is that they use their reputation to harm their own visitors. As for the snarf-it response; I personally don’t believe 1 word. TPB guys are a bit smarter they let those crooks advertise their spyware via a network like targetpoint for a low fee and then take much more money from another way.
ps. this is not flaming, just my thoughts.
LoL, this is funny, I just noticed that torrentscan has removed meganova from their javascript “search engine”. We are going to sue them for linking to us without permission ;-)
Good work. I just went to torrentspy and saw they had it advertised, but torrentspy is my fav BT search engine and I know Azureus and uTorrent are very nice clients!
Installing Ad Muncher will block all the ads you see on every torrent site.
http://www.admuncher.com/
It’s like browsing a different world.
There is no reason for anyone to be tricked by these stupid ads anymore.
just use firefox with adblock plus, i havent seen an ad in months on torrent spy and many other sites, you just have to set it up right…
May i just add that the guy saying that snarf-it is lying dosent know what he is talking about, it was an honest mistake by an admin and was removed as soon as it was found out. Dont be so quick to judge
me and a few mates reverse engineered bitroll and it contains the Cydoor Variant just so that you know ;)
> Torrentspy and Torrentscan are two reputable sites that knowingly advertise for these clients.
Two reputable sites that help distribute copyrighted material illegally. I guess they are reputable amongst pirates, arrrr.
You’re kidding me? I thought sites like Torrentspy had such great ethics.
Adbrite is known among the SEO crowd as “the home of the scammers”
Basically 100% of adbrite’s ads are for frauds or scams, because those advertisers were kicked off google’s adsense, or kanoodle, or yahoo’s publishing network.
Why on earth would anyone who gives a shit about their visitors EVER use adbrite? Every single fucking ad from that company is a fraud designed to steal money from people.
Ads-Lander - I’m another satisfied Ad Muncher user. Well, beta tester actually. Love my free license. Got it for helping Murray track down some elusive Hotmail problems.
Check the credits for QangMartoq, aka Klingon or Beta Testing Klingon. ;-)
Check this program out, people. It eliminates nearly every type of ad there is, and is configurable to no end. It’s lightweight, resource efficient, Firefox/Opera friendly, and to top it off, the author is a pleasant guy who deserves some credit for this extraordinary program.
http://www.admuncher.com
“Torrentspy and Torrentscan are two reputable sites”
You got to be freakin’ kidding?
Look at what they do!
BWilde
I love the way Bogaa feels he can scorn a site for correcting a mistake when his own site carries the Usenext ad which has been proved to scam users out of their money. Why hasn’t he removed this ad? Money means more than the welfare of his users, that’s why.
Such hypocrisy.
No, it’s because that stupid propaganda was launched by snarf-it to begin with. Usenext is not a scam, ask anyone who has actually used it, instead of believing someone who is pissed off because their site got banned from affiliation.
Yes I can see why you would say that seeing as you benefit greatly from the users who are conned by them, after all you get 50% of every sign up you send to them I think?
Try telling the people involved in this thread it’s not a scam, I believe they qualify for your “ask anyone who has used it” statement:
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16878
Now I have nothing against people who want to make money, that’s fine but I do have issues with people who have a high and mighty atittude like Bogaa while sitting in a glass house.
Your site is responsible for sending thousands of users to Usenext who sign up for a 14 day free trial only to be charged when trying to cancel. I have no problem with you doing this as its your site to run how you please but don’t pretend you are this holier than thou person, you have no right to critiscise a site that has held it’s hands up for a mistake when you are still scamming your own userbase and have been for ages.
./end rant.
If ppl stupid enough to think they have won a laptop/ipod/xbox/Wii, got a message or are the millionth visitor on just about every page they visit, then they deserve to get fucked, its survival of teh fittest.
#17
Haha, that´s right! i totally agree! :D ppl need to think sometimes..
#17 ehehe i agree too
Has no one noticed that Torrent Scan only has one ad for the entire site?
Torrent Scan cannot be compared to a site like TorrentSpy. TorrentSpy has loads of advertisement, even porn. The admins are obvouisly intrested in making lots of cash.
Torrent Scan on the otherhand only has one ad, the ad replaces a popup as it says on the changelog..if money is the goal, the popup would still be up and there would be loads of other banners.
Fact: servers cost money. Fact: some adware programmer is paying to keep a file sharing site running. It’s the circle of life. Installing the software descreases his profits (just a matter of how you look at it).
Wow, I’m really glad I decided to research the client first. I saw the add on TorrentSpy, which is my second favorite search engine next to Demonoid. I knew it sounded too good to be true. So I googled it, and this site came up first on my list. Thanks a bunch for the warning!
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