BitTorrent Inc. just confirmed to TorrentFreak that their popular uTorrent client has just broken the magical milestone of 100 million active monthly users. This makes uTorrent the most used BitTorrent client around, and it also shows that BitTorrent as a means to download has become more mainstream than ever before.

uTorrent has come a long way since it first saw the light of day nearly six years ago. What began as a minimalist and no-nonsense client targeted at an already BitTorrent-savvy crowd, is now an application that does far more than downloading alone.

Over the years uTorrent’s target audience has also changed. BitTorrent was still a geek thing in 2005, but today its users include hockey moms, grandparents and many others who are not generally classified as computer experts.

This wider appeal naturally translates into user growth. Today uTorrent’s parent company BitTorrent Inc. confirmed to TorrentFreak that uTorrent has officially surpassed 100 million active users a month. By comparison, this is more active users than the much-hyped social network Twitter, and almost quadruple the number of users uTorrent had three years ago.

“This is a big milestone for uTorrent and adds to what has been a tremendous year of growth for the client,” Shahi Ghanem, Chief Strategist at BitTorrent told TorrentFreak.

We’re grateful for our users and we want to thank our global community for their amazing support. We take every bit of user feedback to heart when building uT and we remain committed to keeping it the world’s fastest and lightest BitTorrent client,” Ghanem added.

Although the 100 million milestone is already quite an achievement, one of the main challenges in the future is to keep even more newcomers on board. Previously it was reported that hundreds of thousands of people download uTorrent every day, but that a significant percentage of this group don’t become regular users.

To tackle this problem of “bouncing” users, uTorrent has made changes to its client in recent months that aim to keep more novices on board. An example is the “simplified view,” allowing users to minimize parts of the uTorrent interface to focus attention on the most essential client features. And that’s just one of the many changes the company has made.

Later this year will see another change in course for uTorrent as BitTorrent Inc. launches a paid version of the client. Branded “uTorrent Plus,” this version of uTorrent will come with several added features including the ability to convert videos and transfer files to external devices. More details on this project are expected to come out in the coming weeks.

By reaching 100 million active monthly users the uTorrent brand is stronger than ever before. It is also an indication the BitTorrent’s popularity in general is still growing, despite fierce competition from direct download sites and streaming services. Indeed, BitTorrent is here to stay.