Maxxo is a relatively young cloud hosting and synchronization service and one that's not afraid to launch a disruptive feature. Starting this week the company officially adds support for BitTorrent downloads, allowing users to download torrent files quickly and anonymously. When BitTorrent downloads are completed the files automatically sync to all connected devices.

Update November 8, 2012: Maxxo is no more…

With dozens of million of users Dropbox is the leading cloud hosting and synchronization service.

The convenience of dropping files into a folder to automatically sync them online and with other devices appeals to a large audience, but some want even more features.

Earlier this year many BitTorrent users got excited by the launch of a new Dropbox app that enabled the downloading of torrents directly to Dropbox folders. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm quickly faded when Dropbox banned the app over piracy concerns.

According to Dropbox the app’s features “could be perceived as encouraging users to violate copyright using Dropbox.”

Luckily, there are also companies who see BitTorrent for the neutral technology that it is. The relatively new Dropbox competitor Maxxo is a good example, underlined by their launch this week of BitTorrent support as a native feature.

This means that besides backing up and syncing files across devices, Maxxo also enables users to download torrents. Users can simply drop a .torrent file into the Maxxo interface and right-click to start the download.

“By using BitTorrent through Maxxo our users can download files fast and completely anonymously,” Maxxo CEO Luka Hovat told TorrentFreak. “It’s a feature that none of our competitors have.”

Because all torrent downloads go directly though Maxxo’s servers, users don’t have to worry about being watched by third parties.

Maxxo downloads torrents

Maxxo offers free accounts which are limited to five gigabytes of storage and a maximum of two simultaneous BitTorrent transfers. Paid users can download 10 torrent files at a time and have higher storage and transfer limits.

For the occasional BitTorrent user Maxxo is a pretty suitable remote download service, or a “seedbox” with automatic sync across multiple computers. TorrentFreak briefly tested the service and aside from the occasional hiccup, most of the torrent files we tried downloaded just fine.

Maxxo is currently Windows only but they are working on a Mac application, as well as support for mobile devices. BitTorrent support aside, it also allows users to create lists of friends to easily share files with.