uTorrent users claimed the software's latest update was being bundled with a Bitcoin mining program called Epic Scale. It was alleged that the installation was taking place silently – i.e. users weren’t aware the software was being installed.
BitTorrent Inc., the company that created uTorrent, flatly denied a silent installation was taking place.
What is Epic Scale?
Epic Scale, for context, is a piece of software that purports to use your ‘unused processing power to change the world.’ In short, it mines Bitcoin in the background for charitable purposes – although it also claims to help process scientific data.
We have no reason to suspect it does anything other than what it says, but equally there's no tangible evidence – other than its word – that Epic Scale does donate to the charities it claims and how much of its revenue it donates if it does.
Read here for a detailed orignal article plus the whole installation process:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/epic-scale-and-utorrent-bitcoin-mining-riskware-investigated.
Also at the forums people are upset and angry.
Read here: http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/95041-warning-epicscale-riskware-silently-installed-with-latest-utorrent/When I updated uTorrent to version 3.4.2 build 28913 (32-bit) this morning it silently installed a piece of software called EpicScale. There was no information about this during installation and I did opt out of your other bundled software.
EpicScale is a bitcoin miner that also purports to use your "unused processing power to change the world". It's easily noticeable by the increased CPU load when the computer is idle.
The file date/time on the EpicScale files matches the time of the uTorrent update, which confirms uTorrent as the source.
uTorrent has said the following about it:
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We design our software to ensure that partner software downloads don't occur without approval by the user. But given your report, we’ve also double-checked this particular offer, and have determined that it cannot be installed without user approval.
Epic Scale is a cryptocurrency miner that uses a portion of your CPU cycles to contribute to the mining effort. A portion of the proceeds from this effort go to philanthropic initiatives. Please visit http://www.epicscale.com/ for more information. Epic Scale is a great partner for us to continue to generate revenue for the company, while contributing funds to good causes. In the future, Epic Scale plans to contribute CPU cycles to other initiatives, such as Genome mapping and other academic studies that require a great deal of processing power.
As Groundrunner stated, it's easy to uninstall the software via Add/Remove Programs. Per the Epic Scale CEO's response in comments on the link you shared, the only data left in ProgramData\Epicscale is a simple UUID (Unique User ID). This remains so that in case the software is reinstalled, BitTorrent would still be associated with the user. Feel free to delete this folder. You certainly won't see any persistent auto-reinstalls of the software, it will be gone from your machine for good.
It seems that alot more users are leaving the uTorrent boat in search for alternatives after this riskware mining hidden installation.
For more information see here also:
UTORRENT QUIETLY INSTALLS CRYPTOCURRENCY MINER, USERS COMPLAIN
http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-quietly-installs-riskware-bitcoin-miner-users-report-150306/