As of July 7, 2009, the most popular torrent search engine sites are listed below. This list is assembled from hundreds of reader email suggestions, and is updated weekly. You are welcome to submit your own torrent suggestions for inclusion in this list.
This list is in random order. Special thanks to the many About.com readers who help keep this list current via their email submissions.
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Related: Anonymity software - conceal your identity from prying eyes with Peer Guardian
NEW: Visual Guide: Top Torrent Sites of 2009
- Vertor: this torrent service claims to filter out bad torrents, viruses, DRM locks, passwords, and fakes. Many readers are pleased with Vertor, and thus far their service has been exemplary. Definitely give Vertor a try.
- Torrent Root: another metasearch engine, Torrent Root will pore through other search engines on your behalf, and display the results in a slick tabbed interface for your easy browsing.
- Isohunt.com In a shocking turn of the tables this September, the Isohunt webmaster is counter-suing the Canadian music industry. He is claiming that previous copyright violation suits against him were unfounded, and that he is entitled to have his legal expenses recovered. Read the entire story at www.isohunt.com.
- Flixflux: a United Kingdom torrent site that is very popular with European downloaders
- Demonoid.com is back online! After legal conflicts in April of 2008, they have reestablished themselves outside of the USA. Demonoid is still a private community, and members are held liable for any leeching that their invited friends do in this community. If you are lucky enough to get a Demonoid membership, invite your friends carefully, lest you lose your own membership.
- Thunderbytes: As of July 2009, Thunderbytes is a family-friendly site with content that is good for kids and parents.
- Entertane: An obscure-but-good metasearch engine. Pore through eight other torrent sites quickly by using Entertane.com
- H33T: Don't let the plain site design fool you: this newer torrent site has gotten very positive reviews from About.com readers.
- The Pirate Bay
News Flash, April 18, 2009: the Stockholm district court has sentenced the four Pirate Bay founders to a year in prison, and over $USD 3.5 million in fines. This is as punishment for violating their country's copyright laws. More on this shocking court ruling here... - Sumo Torrent: Like many torrent sites lately, Sumo is powered by adult ads. But several readers have reported that they like the data visibility of the torrent results at Sumo.
- Zoozle.org: a competent German search engine for finding specific files, cracks, and serials.
- Torrentmatrix.com
- Torrentscan.com (a "meta-search" engine, which is a search engine that searches other search engines)
- Torrentportal.com
- Mininova.org Mininova is the successor to Suprnova, one of the original big torrent databases of the Web.
- YouTorrent.com Still in beta testing format, this new torrent site claims to be the largest legal torrent search engine today. Accordingly, the result sets are much smaller than the "pirate" counterparts, but definitely try this site for yourself.
- Torrentbox.com FYI: like Isohunt, Torrentbox is being sued by the MPAA as of February 28, 2006. The days for this fine search engine may be numbered.
- BTjunkie
- Torrentreactor.to (Torrentreactor has made a comeback from a hijacking and an uncooperative hosting service. They have moved to a different server setup and a Tonga country domain outside the USA. Read the details on their home page.)
- TorrentTyphoon.com (this database is up for sale, if anyone is interested in running a torrent service)
The next 15 torrent sites are continued here...
Special mention: ShareTV.org (ShareTV is dedicated to sharing television episodes and entire TV series. Find "24", "Heroes", and "Lost" episodes here. Special thanks to Chris R. for telling us about his web site.)
Special mention: Torrent-Finder.com (This site has been submitted by three readers as their personal favorite torrent search engine. It "meta-searches" 159 torrent sites as of this writing. Special thanks to Dina, Suresh, and ChaOSthEory for this submission.)
Other Related BitTorrent articles:
-
Editor's Choice: 5 Best Torrent Search Engines
- Torrents 101: How BitTorrent Downloading Works.
- The Best BitTorrent Client Software of 2008.
- Meet Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent open source code.
- Overview of P2P copyright legalities.
- Tip: How to speed up your BitTorrent client download speed
Legal warning for new torrent users: while P2P file sharing technology is completely legal, many of the files traded through P2P are copyrighted. Uploading P2P files may put you at serious risk of a civil lawsuit in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK. These lawsuits are usually class-action suits, filed against groups of users who blatantly copy and distribute copyrighted materials. Recently, the MPAA, the RIAA, and the governments of England and Australia took several thousand users to court, demanding that they pay thousands of dollars in copyright infringement penalties. These P2P lawsuits are very real, and whether or not they are successful, they are extreme financial and emotional burdens on the defendant.
ISP warning: your Internet service provider may choose to release logs of your downloading/uploading activity to potential copyright plaintiffs. The more megabytes you download/upload, the more you risk being sued by copyright protection groups. Please know these risks before you use any of the above torrent search engines.
