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Popular BitTorrent Search Engine Site Torrentz.eu Mysteriously Disappears (softpedia.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the mystery-machine dept.

monkeyzoo writes: Softpedia reports that Torrentz.eu, the internet's biggest BitTorrent meta-search engine, has mysteriously and suddenly shut down. Visitors of the website see a simple message that reads, "Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines." Trying to run a search, or clicking any link on the site changes that message to "Torrentz will always love you. Farewell." The main .EU domain, as well as all backup domains (.ME, .CH, and .IN), have the same message. The reason for the disappearance is mysterious, but there is speculation that Torrentz.eu admins decided to pull the plug on their own and avoid any future legal problems in the wake of increasing legal pressure on The Pirate Bay and the arrests related to KickassTorrents. It also cannot be ruled out that the site was hacked.

55 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I take it everyone else is busy trying to find another engine? What have you found?

    1. Re:First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, I remember the days of old on /., when you wouldn't have to ask that question, there would already be several links of alternative posted.

      R.I.P. /., I miss it.

    2. Re: First Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Really? If thats true, then this site has become a worse feelgood hugcircle than reddit is.

    3. Re: First Post by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Reading /. daily, usually, I'd be more than surprised if anything was removed from the posts. You, on the other hand, chose to post as AC, removing any legitimacy from your claim.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    4. Re:First Post by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      These days I find Google is pretty good, or DuckDuckGo if you prefer. Sometimes I use Yahoo Japan or Baidu too, because they seem to ignore American DMCA censorship requests.

      On Google/DDG try filetype:magent or filetype:torrent. With the former you can often get the link you need from the result snippet without even opening the site it came from.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re: First Post by lucm · · Score: 1

      The factual accuracy of a claim is not influenced by the person claiming it nor by the manner through which it is conveyed.

      - AC

      That's correct. But the odds that a claim is accurate are lower when it's made by someone with zero credibility. That's the real issue.

      Here's an example to help you understand. If Kanye West was to hand me a roll of toilet paper on which he has scribbled down in his own excrement a series of numbers that he claims to be four thousands decimals of pi, I would probably not believe him. It doesn't mean pi has less than four thousand decimals, it just means I don't think they've been written down by Kanye West on a roll of toilet paper.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    6. Re:First Post by lucm · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't you find that whole torrent thing a bit labor intensive, while for $10/month you can get a gold-plated download experience on easynews?

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    7. Re:First Post by adolf · · Score: 1

      I find it a bit labor intensive to pay for Usenet.

      It's not even September anymore, FFS.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    8. Re: First Post by Calydor · · Score: 1

      Well, there's a simple way of proving it all.

      Link to a single edited post where it is obvious there was a link which has been removed.

      We'll be waiting. :-)

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    9. Re:First Post by Calydor · · Score: 4, Informative

      It will always be September.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    10. Re:First Post by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      I use usenet as well, but I find torrents are better for some releases. There is unfortunately quite a lot of spam on usenet. Because torrent sites usually let people vote or comment it's easier to filter out. Releases go up on torrent sites a lot faster too.

      Personally I prefer Astraweb for news. Similar pricing for monthly, but I use use PAYG because I wouldn't get my money's worth from monthly.

      Torrents aren't labour intensive for me anyway. I wrote a little Greasemonkey script that adds links to a popular TV calendar site that go directly to torrent sites. I need to update it now KAT and torrentz.eu are gone, so look for an update in the next few days.

      Don't look at the source, BTW, I'm utterly ashamed of it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:First Post by houghi · · Score: 1

      Google accepts the worde "filetype:torrent" without the quotes in your request. e.g. metallica filetype:torrent

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    12. Re:First Post by houghi · · Score: 1

      For me it is a moral question. I do not want to pay for it, so if I would pay for it, so ME that would be wrong.

      I just use google and it would take almost no time turn that into a webpage.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    13. Re:First Post by ausekilis · · Score: 2

      I for one insist my downloads come on gold plates. That way if the download sucks I have free plates.

    14. Re:First Post by malditaenvidia · · Score: 1

      Paying to pirate? I'd first pay for the actual software/media, thank you.

    15. Re: First Post by WallyL · · Score: 1

      Duh, or else he wouldn't have linked people to it. Self-abasement sells! (Or is that sex?)

    16. Re: First Post by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      > I had some sort of computing device since the TI99-4a

      Oh gods. As soon as I read that, I heard those two-tone startup beeps in my head...

    17. Re: First Post by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      Anyone go so far back as to have built and programmed an ElF (Cosmac CDP-1801)?
      Or the Zx-80 (Pre-Sinclair)?

    18. Re:First Post by adolf · · Score: 1

      No. I think September is done: The only singular group of unwitting, unwashed masses who have yet to ruin it for everyone are the North Koreans. And nobody's going to turn them all loose at once, so that won't spawn a new September.

      We just haven't managed to re-group since it ended.

      --
      Kid-proof tablet..
    19. Re:First Post by L0Rd_V3ga · · Score: 1

      Torrentz may be dead, but there is another torrent search engine out there, torrentfrog.

      Also, it seems they published a database of all KAT torrents: http://torrentfrog.com/kat_dum...

    20. Re: First Post by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Or the Zx-80 (Pre-Sinclair)?

      I tried to persuade my father to get me the kit-form for my birthday or something, but I think he got me a mountain tent instead. It was about the same time.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    21. Re: First Post by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      Wow. Well, good to see some adherents of the old "Radio Electronics" magazine!

    22. Re: First Post by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      I honestly couldn't remember the magazine for sure. I do remember that we were taking a day-trip down to some exhibition at the NHM or Science museum, and Dad thought (mad fool!) that getting the magazine would shut me up for the train journey.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    23. Re: First Post by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      Was pretty cool when I was 17

  2. Nuuuu! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This a dark day indeed. RIP Torrentz.

  3. is torrent still a thing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    its 2016. torrent is so 90s.

    1. Re:is torrent still a thing? by Aaron+B+Lingwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Torrents are not supported by my VPN provider, streaming sites are.

      That is more an indictment of the shortcomings of the VPN provider you chose.

      Streaming is a 1:Many relationship which is prohibitively costly. For media: This may be subsidized by advertising, tracking, or malware. A 'capture' of a stream will not yield a unique hash so services such as cover art scrapers and subtitle-downloaders will yield non-optimal results. The file is also unlikely to be compressed in a way that maximizes quality while efficiently using disc space and processing power. For applications/OSes: This can become unsustainable for a small company or result in overloaded and slow servers for a large company (ie: ASUS).

      Torrents allow for leeching (Many:1) and seeding (Many:Many) which takes the burden off the host, allows redundancy, and achieves far greater speeds than having a single point from which to obtain the files.

      --
      [Rent This Space]
    2. Re:is torrent still a thing? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Computers are a passing fad. They will go away in a few years.

    3. Re:is torrent still a thing? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the wheel, which is so -4000s.

  4. It works by petermp · · Score: 2

    It works for me like charm - no problem at all. I am based in EU.

    1. Re:It works by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      I am in the EU also, and the site does NOT work like a charm. Only the main (home) page loads, but nothing else works.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    2. Re:It works by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      OK, now I can confirm after some time has passed: the website does absolutely not work!

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  5. Fine for me... by jgheld · · Score: 1

    It's still works for me... I don't know where your problem is...

    1. Re:Fine for me... by jgheld · · Score: 1

      Never mind, now it is.

  6. Seems like there is a big crackdown by diesalesmandie · · Score: 1

    Along with all these torrent sites going down for whatever reason, people seem to be getting caught more frequently; recently a friend of a friend was fined €800 for downloading 2 episodes of a TV show. Might seem like anecdotal evidence since its only one example, but i've heard of a few more cases in the past year. Looks like the chickens are coming home to roost. I've agreed with my girlfriend to get a VPN before downloading anything else.

    --
    This is my sig, there are many like it but this one is mine
    1. Re:Seems like there is a big crackdown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you're a Netflix user too: Since you're in the planning stage (and should be VPNing all your traffic for privacy anyway), be sure to pick a provider with an IP range that Netflix hasn't blocked out yet. It's not easy to find one since pretty much all the lowendbox types have been blacklisted, especially the good ones (e.g. Ramnode, etc.).

      Don't want the girlfriend getting pissed at you when the dreaded “You seem to be using an unblocker or proxy.” message pops up.

      Captcha: fuckhollywood

    2. Re:Seems like there is a big crackdown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Fined by whom? The government, the isp, the courts, what?

    3. Re:Seems like there is a big crackdown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Where does your friend live? This is kind relevant.

  7. Google is censoring TPB too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Google search results for "TPB" used to take me to the latest Pirate Bay website, but now all links to TPB itself have been scrubbed and all I get are links to sites referring to TPB in a news story or something. TPB is no longer linked from Google. Bing and DuckDuckGo still work properly though. This only happened in the last week. I think something is up.

    1. Re:Google is censoring TPB too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Try the wikipedia, thepiratebay info is usually updated fast.

    2. Re:Google is censoring TPB too by SeriousTube · · Score: 1

      Nah, a search for pirate bay works fine.

  8. Re: google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Use DuckDuckGo dot com search

  9. Certainly not popular anymore by sciengin · · Score: 2

    I liked that search engine too, but that was quite some time ago.
    Several months or even years ago, they stopped serving decent search results, claiming that those torrents had been subject to DMCA notices.
    This is what you get when you try to appease the MAFIAA I guess: First you screw your fans, and in the end the Music corps turn against you anyway.

    I now mostly use www.filesloop.com which can also search on 1click hosters. Unfortunately it omits some big torrent sites.

  10. Re:That is impossible. by lucm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Something just does not become impossible. if something impossible does exist then you'd be able to see it.. if somebody for example made something impossible it actually is not impossible because it had succeeded via the person's own intent. but if that person had covered up the intent well that is still not impossible because we already know something impossible cannot exist.

    "His weapon flails wildly at any or all targets, the truth. his theory placed with humble intentions cannot be understood until someone proves him wrong"

    What in the fuck is wrong with you?

    Those are actually lyrics from a Ke$ha song.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  11. Re: google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yandex is pretty good

  12. Popular BitTorrent Search Engine Site Torrentz.eu by silkfabric1999 · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, PR value and ranking the end of such a good website.

  13. Re:Alternative by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    Beware: that company spies and tracks you and also shares your data with the NSA and corporations. Do not recommend!

  14. And there is a simple method of disproving it. by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Back when the kat issue came up, there was a post with links. I bookmarked it. https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... Looks like it is still there links intact.

  15. Suggestion: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    IIRC, Not more that one or two US Senators, if that many voted against the DMCA. Wonder how many of them or their staff download copyright violations as torrents?

    Sounds like a job for Anonymous to me. Good way to see if A aren't just a CI arm of the Feds, at least.

  16. Re:Alternative by KiloByte · · Score: 1

    Google still returns massively better results than DuckDuckGo. And for spying/tracking, there's Tor.

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  17. Re:That is impossible. by gosand · · Score: 3, Funny

    Something just does not become impossible. if something impossible does exist then you'd be able to see it.. if somebody for example made something impossible it actually is not impossible because it had succeeded via the person's own intent. but if that person had covered up the intent well that is still not impossible because we already know something impossible cannot exist.

    "His weapon flails wildly at any or all targets, the truth. his theory placed with humble intentions cannot be understood until someone proves him wrong"

    What in the fuck is wrong with you?

    Those are actually lyrics from a Ke$ha song.

    I think the question "What in the fuck is wrong with you?" still applies.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  18. I can't believe you guys by dyrewolf · · Score: 1

    Jesus, am I the only loyal /. reader who actually makes his living off content that is pirated daily on tubes sites??? I literally have more stress over feeding my family because of illegal torrents. I guess I won't have too much guilt if I decide to break into your homes and steal something nice I want.

    1. Re:I can't believe you guys by dyrewolf · · Score: 1

      Jesus, am I the only loyal /. reader who actually makes his living off content that is pirated daily on tubes sites??? I literally have more stress over feeding my family because of illegal torrents. I guess I won't have too much guilt if I decide to break into your homes and steal something nice I want.

      tubes -> torrent... but yeah tubes too

    2. Re: I can't believe you guys by dyrewolf · · Score: 1

      So no commercialized intellectual property "benefits humanity"? Wow, bold statement. You know that rules out most books, movies, music and art created in the past 500 years, right?

  19. Re: SLASHDOT HONEYPOT SNITCH BAIT SOCIAL ENGINEERI by brasselv · · Score: 1

    has someone declared tinfoil day on /. and I missed it ?

    --
    "Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)