What Are The Good BitTorrent Search Engines?

**Krell** · February 28th, 2006, 11:42 PM

As of February 12, 2006, the 5 Best Bit Torrent search engine sites are listed below. This list is selected from hundreds of reader votes, and voted on each week by a small panel of torrent download users.

The criteria used to evaluate these torrent sites: breadth and depth of database, database currency, ease of use and searching, speed of access, general integrity of files, information provided about the files, information provided on the torrent P2P community, price of membership, and readers' comments.

Warning: omitted

Isohunt (This Canadian database has managed to stave off the threat of an MPAA law suit. The site owner is a true libertarian, and has mounted a compelling defense against the MPAA. Read the details at the Isohunt home page. This is an outstanding torrent database, and P2P users are cheering for its continued success and operations.)
The Pirate Bay (Based in Europe, TPB is one of the longtime players in the torrent game. This site has managed to evade RIAA and MPAA prosecution thus far. The massive user following is also growing daily as people discover this tremendous database.)
Torrent Damage (This spot was previously occupied by torrentspy.com. Torrent-damage has now risen to take its place because of user voting. Although torrent-damage is a bit cumbersome to navigate for new users, and the site does require you to register with a free account, many readers comment that the effort is absolutely worth it. Just get used to "right click, save target as..." as a daily command at this site.)
MiniNova.org (Also a no-fee torrent site, MiniNova is still young. But it is a clean and reliable interface with fast access and searching. With time, the membership and database here will grow.)
BiteNova (Formerly known as “Bi-Torrents”, BiteNova is a free Torrent site with a spartan look and fast searching format.)
**Special Mention: NewNova has been recommended by many reader emails as a successor to the now-defunct SuprNova engine.
**Special Mention: Seedler was a former member of this list that has been recently re-recommended by many reader emails.

http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/...rentsearch.htm

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**Potato** · March 1st, 2006, 07:31 AM

(removed unnecessary HTML)
That's a nice list, thanks Krell.

**lifehacker** · March 1st, 2006, 03:30 PM

The only problem I have with Isohunt is that there is ussually not much info about the torrent, unlike in sites like torrentspy.

**serrebi101** · March 1st, 2006, 03:40 PM

I love
http://www.intorrent.org
seems to have files not found on torrentspy , or in some cases, searchable from the tracker it's on. One example is a file off the tpb.

**shawners** · March 1st, 2006, 06:58 PM

Once you go private, you never go back. Actually having the BYTE rate listed, the quality, the parts and pieces, having a SFV file to check and verify the data, more seeders for longer times, file list. Its superb.

**lifehacker** · March 2nd, 2006, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by shawners

Once you go private, you never go back. Actually having the BYTE rate listed, the quality, the parts and pieces, having a SFV file to check and verify the data, more seeders for longer times, file list. Its superb.

I fully agree.

**nukehella** · March 2nd, 2006, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by shawners

Once you go private, you never go back..

What I have noticed with small private trackers is a few power hungry madmen wannabes always seem to want to impose as many pointless rules as possible on the members.This phenomena occurs when the site owner eventually becomes swamped and takes on mods and admin types based on how much time they spend on the site.The new mods and admin types get huge swelled heads that are so grotesquely large they are to heavy for the human body to support.The head then crashes down onto the keyboard,resulting in a jibberish message that ends in "you have been warned"
Also there is a problem with ratios since you have a much smaller pool to share with.If a site only has a few thousand members and you are one of the last to download a file you get stuck with no uploaders and thus a crappy ratio.

(Sorry to be off topic Krell,I'm just going with the flow)

**lifehacker** · March 2nd, 2006, 02:51 PM

Originally Posted by nukehella

Also there is a problem with ratios since you have a much smaller pool to share with.If a site only has a few thousand members and you are one of the last to download a file you get stuck with no uploaders and thus a crappy ratio.

Also true. But if you make your own torrents and share them on the site your ratio will remain good from all the uploading.

**shawners** · March 2nd, 2006, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by nukehella

What I have noticed with small private trackers is a few power hungry madmen wannabes always seem to want to impose as many pointless rules as possible on the members.This phenomena occurs when the site owner eventually becomes swamped and takes on mods and admin types based on how much time they spend on the site.The new mods and admin types get huge swelled heads that are so grotesquely large they are to heavy for the human body to support.The head then crashes down onto the keyboard,resulting in a jibberish message that ends in "you have been warned"
Also there is a problem with ratios since you have a much smaller pool to share with.If a site only has a few thousand members and you are one of the last to download a file you get stuck with no uploaders and thus a crappy ratio.

(Sorry to be off topic Krell,I'm just going with the flow)

A few easy steps to follow..
DONT POST in the forums.
DONT DOWNLOAD what you cant upload
DONT whine about RATIOS when alot of sites let you upload your own stuff.
DONT JOIN A SITE IF you cant follow the rules. If you create your own site, you can create any rules you want.
MODS Come and go.. Everyone is power hungry and has a ego. THE NET is no different.
THe rules are for your benifet and the members..
Rules on some sites.. CREATE A m3u file for music, a SFV or NFO file(Byte rate, songs,ripper, details) It keeps people from uploading garbage with no details like what torrentspy and all the others have.