Torrentz.eu, one of the world's largest torrent sites, has announced "farewell" to its millions of users. The meta-search engine, which hosted no torrents of its own but linked to other sites including The Pirate Bay, has decided to cease its operation. The surprise shutdown marks the end of an era.

Founded in 2003, Torrentz has been a stable factor in the torrent community for over 13 years.

With millions of visitors per day the site grew out to become one of the most visited torrent sites, but today this reign ends, as the popular meta-search engine has announced its shutdown.

A few hours ago and without warning, Torrentz disabled its search functionality. At first sight the main page looks normal but those who try to find links to torrents will notice that they’re no longer there.

Instead, the site is now referring to itself in the past tense, suggesting that after more than a decade the end has arrived.

“Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines,” the text reads.

The site’s user are no longer able to login either. Instead, they see the following message: “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.”

Source

 

I was wondering what happened. I was just there and saw the farewell on the page

 

looks looks like its the end of the line for most torrents site , i honestly think they all work for a goverment agencies anyway , and just pretend , any one still on demonoid ????

 

I am. But seeds are low... At least anything I DL.

 

Luckly to me I never tend to use that site, but what a shame.
Hope that new sites will come in a near future. we're all are kinda slowly getting out of choices, big ones at least.

 

One by one,they are disappearing,no doubt the agencies are pressing on them with lawsuits.
Only a matter of time till they start pressuring saint to close down audioz.
But then again....Saint is prepared.

 

can't say i use this one regularly but it seems more open torrent websites are losing seeds like crazy in the past couple of years.

tpb being one of the big offenders.

glad one of my favourites is an invite only community therefore stays fruitful.

 

They've taken BTdigg (my favorite), they've taken KAT, and now Torrentz. All I got now is Rutracker, if they take that down, I'm going copyright troll hunting. I'm gathering an army. I am now accepting applications to join this militia. We can't let em take AudioZ from us, either. That is our online home.

 

A lot of International governmental "intimidation" (led by the U.S. and all the inherent implications) is beginning to take it's toll. If you go back just over a few years, you will see some significant arrests by various governments of some pretty prominent players. Sometimes the fault of the arrestees, and at other times, the government gets lucky. It's a damn shame. But, there is little doubt that these recent voids will be filled by others (it will take time of course, but it WILL happen). It's a vicious cycle (circle) that some participants love to engage. No time to hang heads, that's for sure.

 

I found things on rutracker that i couldnt even buy anywhere.
Its so much more than just about downloading and copyright,its about keeping art alive.

I dont know if you are aware but rutracker was almost finished in the spring.
Somehow they have managed to survive,but the russian government is under heavy pressure from US,sony,holywood etc...to close down their servers.
I guess its only because of the current political situation with the NATO that the Russian government isnt fully cooperating now,idk,just my opinion.

 

Damn straight! I have a pair of brass knuckles up in my attic.

 

Instead of confirming what we already know, we should propose the solution. So, what is the solution?

 

Russians don't give a flying fuck about US laws or copyright. US can't do shit in Russia so they ignore Russian trackers

 

Huge torrent site RuTracker is one of more than a dozen sites permanently blocked by Russian ISPs in the past week after complaints from rightsholders. However, it now appears that the action will have unexpected consequences. In addition to opening up what was a partially closed site, RuTracker has ended all cooperation with rightsholders.

In common with many countries around Europe, Russia believes that the way to bring Internet piracy to its knees is to block pirate sites at the ISP level. The theory is that Internet users will get tired of trying to circumvent blockades and will begin to spend money on movies and music instead.

In addition to targeting individual URLs indexing specific content, Russia is now engaged in so-called “eternal blockades”, the blocking of allegedly infringing websites at the ISP level on a permanent basis. Last week telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor announced the blocking of 13 sites (listed below), including the popular RuTor.org tracker.

But yesterday came the big one, with authorities confirming the permanent blockade of torrent site giant RuTracker. The huge site has experienced problems with rightsholders for many years, but during the past few months things have been slowly coming to a head.

Last October, with a permanent ban looming on the horizon, the site mulled the deletion of several hundred thousand torrents to pacify rightsholders. However, after polling its members the site decided to leave the torrents in place and accept the blockade.

Following separate action from book publishers and music labels including a subsidiary of Warner, a Moscow City Court order to permanently block the site came into force on January 12 and was carried out yesterday. But rather than the effect rightsholders had hoped for, the action signals the start of a new era for the site.

While undoubtedly a huge index of infringing content, RuTracker has long-standing agreements in place with many copyright holders to keep certain content off the site. This kept the content creators happy while easing some of the legal pressure from the tracker. However, RuTracker says that since they are now being completely blocked, the gloves are coming off.

“For many years our tracker has worked with rightsholders, in this respect many of their representatives were present on the site. They were free to cover all distribution protected under copyright law. In this regard, many releases were either banned or not recommended for distribution,” a staff member explained yesterday.

“But today we put an end to these agreements, as users of the Russian Federation are now blocked from accessing our tracker. Therefore rights holders did not want to continue their cooperation, which allows us to do more and not adhere to it.”

As a result, special accounts given to rightsholders to enable them to swiftly remove content have been downgraded to standard user status and members are now being informed to share whatever they like.

In the past this would’ve meant that only Russians would have greater access to content, but RuTracker has also opened up its previously members-only site to the general public. While English speakers still need Google translate to navigate the site, ominously it is also testing an English language version.

Only making matters worse is that RuTracker has removed the so-called ‘private flag’ from its torrents. This means that the site’s hundreds of thousands of active torrents should now be accessible via BitTorrent’s Distributed Hash Table (DHT), which opens up the content to a worldwide audience.

Of course, all of this is of limited use if people can’t access the site. As expected, however, people are already working hard to circumvent the blockades. While VPNs and proxies do the trick, a new site called Dostup-rutracker.org now provides free plugins for all major browsers which transparently bypass the ISP bans.

And so far things are looking promising for the site. According to the owner of the site’s former domain, who says that he’s now just a regular user on RuTracker, as of yesterday more than half of the site’s users had already circumvented the blocks.

Only time will tell whether RuTracker will grow into an international giant, but it’s fair to say that thus far the ISP blockade has had very little success, quite the opposite in fact.

 

I have a blackjack, a taser, and my farts are deadly !!! Don't be messin' round here !!

 

this is so sad....

 

We need to go back to emule....

 

yes, the days of the wild frontier appear to be ending.
it sucks, esp. sites that host nothing bit information. VIrgin media have been censoring a shit load recently, no more kickass ( well you can use a proxy i guess) i hear the guy who runs is being hauled over the coals. this is ridiculous. they are putting people in jail or trying to for nothing more than hosting a community of free info and communication. this they happily do morning noon and night whilst the real criminals, like tony blair and hilary clinton walk around free and smug, the cunts.. fascism in action i am afraid..

 

Well, being that a lot of these "take down" efforts of these sites are primarily led by the U.S. Congress that is essentially the political muscle for the Anti-Piracy forces (we all know who they are). Maybe it's time for us to seriously start looking at the voting records of some of these Congressmen/women and Senators who 'blindly' side with these very aggressive AP forces. I've been saying for years, that without these politicians, SIIA, et al would not be nearly effective... Unfortunately, there are also people out here who are more than willing to make a quick buck by feeding information to organizations like SIIA. They are offering $1000 to "rats" for information about organizations that use "illegal" software, etc. These broke MF's are more than willing to sing a sweet tune for a few filthy lucre. It's wild, crazy and back-stabbing out here. No easy "solutions" in sight, I'm afraid.

 

Let's go offline.