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Add to SafariWhen comparing VLC vs µTorrent, the Slant community recommends VLC for most people. In the question“What are the best Mac OSX apps for someone that's new to Apple?” VLC is ranked 3rd while µTorrent is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose VLC is:
VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX, and Linux with source code available [here](http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-sources.html).
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Free, open source, and cross-platform
VLC is licensed under the CC-SA v3.0+ and available on Windows, OSX, and Linux with source code available here.
Pro Simple to setup and use
VLC is an incredibly robust application but very simple on the surface. It makes playing music simple, yet still manages to give the user all the tools he/she wants in a music player.
Pro Very versatile and easy to use
Pro Doesn't require additional codecs
Everything VLC needs to play media files is contained within which means no outside codecs are needed. This makes it one of the most hassle-free music players as it can play virtually anything as soon as it's installed.
Pro Tons of advanced settings
Besides basic configurations, video player has an extensive amount of adjustable settings.
Pro Doesn't manage your music library for you
You organize your music into folders any way you want. Want to play an album? Drag and drop. No tags, no confusion, no fluff. Easy.
Pro Can be almost completely keyboard-driven
VLC includes keyboard shortcuts for most actions. The video player can be controlled with simple and customizable keyboard commands.
Pro Surprisingly Lightest on Resources
Yes. Lightest. Even better than the ones known to be light. Both when playing music, only a single song or when playing a video. Either in terms of Ram and Cpu. Compared with almost all, including the ones from Windows like mpc-hc .. or light ones from Linux like Alsa Player, Audacious, SmPlayer .
Pro Can play every format video available (as of 2017)
Pro Supports a GUI interface and an ncurses terminal interface
Pro Can easily stream music across your home network from any device on the network
Using sftp/ssh music (and videos) can be streamed from any server on the network to any device running VLC. VLC can also be used as a webcam for streaming and snapshots. Amazing all in one package
Pro Large amount of extensions
VLC has a large amount of extensions.
Pro Lightweight
Weighs just barely over 1MB. And while it's gained a bit of feature creep over the years, it's still a lighter-weight client than many of its competitors.
Pro Full-featured
µTorrent covers basics such as Prioritization, Selective Downloading, DHT, PEX, LPD and Magnet URIs as well as Broadcatching, Sequential downloading and Search. It includes MSE/PE for security. It has graphical and web interfaces. Has UPnP, NAT-PMP, NAT traversal for automatic router configuration. Has UDP tracker and µTP data transfer protocol support. Even covers IPv6, web seeding, Embedded tracker, Super-seeding and proxy servers. And it auto-updates.
Pro Clean and easy to navigate user interface
A clean, visually-appealing interface that’s incredibly simple to navigate and cuts down on clutter by allowing any element of the UI not needed to be hidden.
Pro Doesn't slow down other Internet activities
The application automatically manages bandwidth it takes up to not get in the way of other Internet-dependent activities.
Pro Portable
µTorrent can be run without having to be installed as it stores all files and settings in the same folder. It can be put on an external storage device (such as a USB drive) and run directly from it.
Pro Built-in search
Built-in search engine allows finding torrents to download right from withing the torrent client.
Pro Cross-platform
µTorrent is available on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.
Cons
Con Not really meant to be a music player
VLC is made to be a video player. Therefore, it won't carry out actions such as managing your music library.
Con Lacks libraries and advanced music player features
VLC is a media player first and foremost. There is no library management (aside from playlists), limited usage of tags, and no rating system. VLC is best at playing a file directly from a folder, but falls behind when it comes to helping you manage or find good songs in your music library.
Con Absence of personalization
VLC Player has only one basic interface in white or black, and overall personalization opportunities are quite narrow. Unfortunately, you're pretty much stuck to the default look.
Con Contains some insignificant but irritating flaws
Despite all keyboard shortcuts, the width of the picture can't be controlled by trackpad. Besides that, the VLC start-up window doesn’t open at the same place or the same width at which it was previously closed.
Con Proprietary
No source code is publicly available. As such there's no way to independently check what security and privacy features are implemented and how as well as whether there's any malicious code or not.
Con No tracker exchange
Tracker exchange functionality allows peers to exchange information about trackers of a given file. It is another way of ensuring that the file is downloaded from the optimal source. µTorrent lacks this functionality.
Con Are known to bundle riskware
In additional to typical toolbar and ad bundles, µTorrent has previously bundled an automatic cryptocurrency-miner called EpicScale even if the user opted out of other bundled software.
![[deleted]](https://avatars.slant.co/identicons/50/a1404da0-5397-55ec-a973-a1a26b33e81c)
Con Inappropriate ads (can be disabled)
Not only does μTorrent have ads in the free version, they tend to be inappropriate ads for scammy things like "meet russian women".
Ads can be disabled in the options. It's important to note that disabling ads (as well as all bundled software and featured content) can be a difficult process as it requires manually editing multiple key/value pairs in advanced settings.
The following keys have to all be turned to false by going to options > preferences > advanced:
bt.enable_pulse
distributed_share.enable
gui.show_notorrents_node
offers.left_rail_offer_enabled
gui.show_plus_upsell
offers.content_offer_autoexec
offers.sponsored_torrent_offer_enabled
offers.featured_content.badge.enabled
offers.featured_content_notifications_enabled
offers.featured_content_rss_enabled
Con Bundles bloat
Installation wizard starting with version 3 offers installing a variety of garbage features including toolbars and ads. And makes the process of opting out of such bundled software difficult. It's possible to find version 2.2.x online (1,2) - same lightweight, feature packed application without all the unneeded extras or ads.
