Telling uTorrent to be less generous

uTorrent is a great torrent client (downloading program), but like the other BitTorrent clients out there, it tends to support torrents for way longer than you'd typically like. Here's what happens:

1. You install it to download a few torrents.
2. Even though you only use it infrequently, it starts with the system and you don't notice it just sitting there.
3. You don't remember to "stop" or "remove" your torrents once you notice they've finished downloading.
4. You keep using it to download more stuff, but the old torrents are still sitting there.
5. Torrents just keep "seeding" (uploading to other people) until you manually tell them not to.

Being willing to seed the torrent for other people after it's finished downloading is part of BitTorrent ediquette. Here's how you can put a limit on that generosity:

1.  In uTorrent, go to the preferences (in the Options menu)
2. Select "Queing" in the list on the left in the preferences box
3. Under "seeding goal" add a minimum ratio. I put 150%, which tells uTorrent that it should aim to give one-and-a-half times the amount as it gets.
4. Under "when uTorrent reaches its seeding goal," enable the "limit the upload rate..." thing, and put a "0" in the box to the right of it. This says, when you've seeded enough, just stop seeding.

This is a setting that uTorrent should guide you through when it first installs. It's not presented in a way that's easy for users to understand.