UTorrent.com compromised, malware added to installer
blog.bittorrent.com
blog.bittorrent.com
I'm very wary about auto-updates that pull executables (as opposed to merely data) in this way. It's one thing for Chrome to do it, I assume Google does it in a way that's safe. But freeware/shareware projects? Not so much. Hell, who's to say the authors don't lose interest in two years and let the domain expire. I had one freeware or open-source app that didn't even have the courtesy of asking, it just pulled fresh binaries and restarted -- ouch. (At least you could disable this feature in the preference.)
validating your updates via asymmetric crypto can be mildly expensive (http://www.verisign.com/code-signing/content-signing-certifi... lists Windows Authenticode certificates at $400/yr) but is within the realm of a small company.
setting up a Google-scale CDN and writing a reliable push update framework? that's the hard part.
That's VeriSign for you. Thawed sells the very same certificates for $200, and Comodo runs a coupon deal for Tucows members that gets you the cert for $99 (though the actual process is a bit too contrived compared to Thawte's).
update verification is a < 100-line block of code using system cryptographic libraries on Windows.
for Chrome-style background updating, the solution is as simple as:
1) running a thread in the background to ping an API to check when updates are available, 2) downloading them via HTTP when they arrive, and 3) having a program which gets run at update-required-exit, which verifies and applies the patch to your main executable.
yes, writing update machinery for your software is some work. no, it's not insurmountable, and will certainly get easier as the Mac App Store and Windows Store gain traction because they allow you to piggyback on the update machinery of the platform.
So, if the server is hacked, or a DNS is spoofed, you cannot make auto-update pull broken/malware binaries.
The problem is that, if your update process is buggy in some release, you loose those users forever...
It's open-source, cross-platform and very similar to µTorrent in both functionality and looks.
Deluge has all the features I want on a torrent client, I will replace my uTorrent installations on windows by deluge.
I think it is somewhat lighter resource-wise (I'm running it on my NAS), but apart from that I don't know the exact differences between Deluge and Transmission, but I thought I'd mention it for completeness' sake.
However, my experience is that some Qt apps on Windows behave normally, and depending on the application (but in this case, especially just the need to manage torrents) a web UI works just fine and avoids the waste of developer hours fighting against the local platform's quirks.
For my enlightenment, what do you consider as an example of a great Windows UI?
https://github.com/apankrat/assorted/blob/master/validate_pa...
Basically the idea is to get an Authenticode certificate and sign the update .exe with it. Then, when a program checks for an update and pulls it down, it would validate the package signature and will not proceed if the details - the application and the certificate subject names - are wrong. It is as simple as it gets.