Monthly Archives: July 2009

5 Alternatives to The Pirate Bay

Written by DrewWilson

The admins of The Pirate Bay have stressed that in order for the Bay to stay alive, they need to adapt the site to a legitimate one, selling the site for $7.8 Million in the process. While some users showed their support for the infamous website, others are already jumping ship, demanding that their accounts be removed in the process. We were curious to know what alternatives there are out there these days and have come up with 5 alternative websites.

It seemed almost unfathomable right up to the announcement of the website being sold, but it has indeed happened. While sites like the once mighty SuprNova fell in it’s wake, The Pirate Bay stood proud long after other sites succumbed to pressure from copyright entities. The length the site lasted seemed like the site became very symbol of defiance toward the copyright industry as a whole. Really how many sites can be named that lasted as long as The Pirate Bay? To drive the point home, the admins even created a page of legal threats they received and included responses which became a sensation all in its own primarily for the audacity of the responses, but also for the humour in it all. The Pirate Bay was the biggest ‘stick it to the man’ kind of sites. As a result, many other sites may have been emboldened by the efforts of The Pirate Bay – perhaps because the site lead the way in resilience, or maybe because the site took most of the flack from the copyright industry to name two possibilities.

For these and many other reasons, the loss of such a site in the eyes of many would lead to a huge hole left behind. While the fact that it was such a large site where users went to was, in and of itself, is a large reason for the hole left behind, many would agree that the spirit behind the site being removed can be felt by many file-sharers – how many users out there who never used the site or rarely used the site felt at least one bit emotional about the sale?

While the admins reassured their users that the site isn’t dying, just changing hands, many users have already expressed their doubts and are opting for the attitude that the site died the moment the announcement came that the site was sold – even though nothing has even changed yet.

We here at ZeroPaid were curious. If one were to jump ship, where would the users go? Under the idea that the site has to be somewhat public at the very least, we found 5 alternative websites through our own resources that may be of interest to public BitTorrent users:

1. Mininova

MiniNova is perhaps the most well known in the BitTorrent community. It was formed after the demise of SuprNova by ex-SuprNova staff members. It’s not hard to argue that this was the best site that replaced SuprNova. It indexes .torrent files from other sites, so some of the .torrents are from private sites that only allow members of those sites to download the given files. Still, the site is moderated and well-used by members and, with the release of their distribution network, content creators alike.

2. Demonoid

There’s been some debate in the past on whether or not this is a public or private site, though many would agree that this would be classified as semi-private given how often sign-ups are open. Whether or not you agree with this kind of torrent site, Demonoid has a huge following backing them and a number of it’s users would no doubt defend it’s viability as an alternative to The Pirate Bay.

3. ISOHunt

ISOHunt, like MinoNova, has had it’s share of legal trouble in the past and agreed to filtering content. Still, a number of users still use that site for finding what they want and it has stayed being one of the most populated sites online to this day.

4. 1337x

1337x.org is a lesser known BitTorrent site. Still, that hasn’t stopped their front page from saying “we don’t plan on selling anytime soon.”

MustangX continues, “We welcome all the users of TPB to use our trackers and site. It’s a free leech community with NO ratios to maintain, we have a web based chat , A 24/7 radio station with 8 different DJ’s.”

5. BTJunkie

BTJunkie is another site that is well-populated with users, but not as well known as sites like MiniNova and ISOHunt. Still, many users still find this place to be a torrent home or even a second torrent home when another of their preferred sites goes down or inaccessible on their end.

Afterthought

It should be noted that for many, no site will fully replace The Pirate Bay. That site is easily considered a home site for many and a site that is difficult to impossible to replace in the long run. Still, The Pirate Bay isn’t the only site around these days. It might be questionable if there would be many, if any, sites that could match the longevity and reach of The Pirate Bay, but that doesn’t make the only BitTorrent site around with, at least, a semi-open nature about it.