Create Your Own YouTorrent Clone in 1 Minute

Written by Ernesto on April 25, 2008 

YouTorrent recently restricted the number of sites it indexes, but before that, it was one of the most widely used BitTorrent meta-search engines. Due to this popularity many have copied the concept -and as of today- everyone can have their own YouTorrent clone, thanks to the free and open source “YouTorrent3″.

Update: The YouTorrent3 script used code and results from NowTorrents without permission. The links are removed.

When we announced that YouTorrent was launching, we did not expected the site to grow in popularity as quickly as it did. Only a month after its launch the site was pulling in 2.5 million visitors and climbing - quickly. In fact, YouTorrent became so popular that the site made it into the top 25 most visited BitTorrent sites only 2 months after its launch.

Unsurprisingly, other webmasters soon cloned the YouTorrent concept, and within a few weeks PizzaTorrent and NowTorrents saw the light, and even more clones followed. One of these clones is special though, as the code it offers is open source and available for free. The open source YouTorrent clone is named YouTorrent3 and has the same look and feel as the site it’s based on.

“In less than 1 minute you can have your own YouTorrent clone,” YouTorrent3 developer Aleksander told TorrentFreak. He explained that he decided to code it because he noticed that there was a growing interest for open source and easy to use YouTorrent clones.

It is extremely simple indeed, all you need to do is upload the files to your webserver and you’re good to go. It works fine, but the code can still be improved on, as Aleksander notes: “Don’t forget that work is coded in 1 hour, so don’t wonder why some code is strange or looks lame.”

At the moment only the frontend is available for download so people don’t need to install a database, and they can have their own YouTorrent clone online in a few seconds. Aleksander is still tweaking the backend to improve the caching system and make the database compatible with different SQL servers. The backend will be made public in a few weeks.

The source and instructions on how to get it working are available over here.

youtorrent3

Previously: IFPI Expert Witness in Pirate Bay Case Worked for IFPI

Next: Louis Vuitton Sues Darfur Fundraiser for Copyright Infringement

53 Responses

1 Apr 25, 2008 at 06:40 by H22

cool!!!!!

2 Apr 25, 2008 at 06:48 by TwoBoob

Join in the fun!

3 Apr 25, 2008 at 07:01 by tt

Nice

4 Apr 25, 2008 at 07:20 by Peter

Running mine now!
Not sure if I will remove the Google analytics code though.
I don’t want tracking, I’m not a torrent!
Seems it must be run from the root dir to work.

5 Apr 25, 2008 at 07:32 by Mango

Dev site seems to be offline, =(

anyone got any mirror or can someone PLEASE host the files on rapidshare\megeshare ?

any help\response is appreciated.

6 Apr 25, 2008 at 07:40 by Aleksander Hristov

just wait couple of minutes , my internet provider has some problems

7 Apr 25, 2008 at 07:45 by Aleksander Hristov

Ok its fixed

8 Apr 25, 2008 at 08:01 by Mark

are you going to release the backend code?

9 Apr 25, 2008 at 08:02 by Aleksander Hristov

The backend will be made public in a few weeks

10 Apr 25, 2008 at 08:11 by Mark

cool, looks great

well done

11 Apr 25, 2008 at 08:37 by Jag

Woot! Talk about sharing!
Other than questions and complaints nobody has said what needs to be said here in the comments, so let me be the first one to say: “Thanks Mr.Aleksander Hristov!”

I think I would really love to add this to my site, but will wait till the backend is released and a little while after that as there are sure to be a couple of bugs.

If I may make a suggestion, if you are using php you might want to consider using adodb to connect to the database(s) so it works with nearly all DBs without any/much change in code, plus that code has been tested to hell and back so there should be very few surprises.

This should really see an explosion of these sites on the net, now only if there was an explosion of actual trackers… the anti piracy scum would have to hang up their hats (or better still hang themselves)

Anyway, good news!

Cheers!

http://www.ezee.se

12 Apr 25, 2008 at 08:45 by NdtA

It shows all results twice

13 Apr 25, 2008 at 09:31 by Aleksander Hristov

ive posted a temporary fix ( itll be a fix until version 0.2 ) here http://dev.youtorrent3.com/howto.php

14 Apr 25, 2008 at 09:38 by Anonymous

see my youtorrent alternative it is coded by me and its similar to youtorrent http://www.yupitorrent.com

15 Apr 25, 2008 at 10:54 by Anonymous

I’d recommend not using stats from certain sites that have year old stats - monova seems to be one that has really old stats :)

16 Apr 25, 2008 at 11:01 by Mark

living in the real world we only need MySQL compatibility for the backend

my first request of the backend is an admin function to add sites, the current selection is odd and includes too many search engines. i would want to add the big trackers

17 Apr 25, 2008 at 11:11 by Aleksander Hristov

Mark which exactly are the big trackers?

18 Apr 25, 2008 at 11:45 by Ezzy Elliott

This is great I will definitely having a look at it.

Open source is the way to go.

I have open sourced http://www.dargens.com , an anonymous bit torrent alternative. It shares files via torrents but uses a different protocol to BT.

You can share with anyone on the network but only you friends private or public know that you are connected.

All p2p communication is encrpted and connections are made via SSL on 443 so can’t be shaped by ISP.

Users can get help via irc on the website.

I was only able to develop this cos of the availability of opensource code. I’ve used Ruby or Rails which is open source and even the irc is as well.

Maybe I can add BT indexes to the site as well.

It has only just launched but is doing well partly cos it’s open source and partly cos it is sharing loads of adult videos etc.

So thank you Youtorrent3.

19 Apr 25, 2008 at 12:06 by Rycon

lol nobody is going to want to buy youtorrent.com now, that guy made a huge mistake

20 Apr 25, 2008 at 13:19 by Dave

Great, decent bt indexs will have a bunch more stupid sites searching them. All returning the same results. What is the point exactly? You only need one or two meta-searches.

21 Apr 25, 2008 at 14:27 by dwpbike

[quote comment="359328"]lol nobody is going to want to buy youtorrent.com now, that guy made a huge mistake[/quote]

does anyone have a copy/paste explanation of “open source” handy? it’s all about improvement potential.

22 Apr 25, 2008 at 14:29 by dwpbike

[quote comment="359380"]Great, decent bt indexs will have a bunch more stupid sites searching them. All returning the same results. What is the point exactly? You only need one or two meta-searches.[/quote]

i still suffer from the loss of torrent spy. “one or two” won’t do.

23 Apr 25, 2008 at 14:32 by Sarcastic Steve

If I am understanding what Mark is saying, the basic idea is admin abilities to edit the site list would be great and I do agree. Most of the sites I see listed are just public dumpsites, so they will have the same listings as the other dumpsites. What you need are more big tracker sites like The Pirate Bay, SumoTorrent & FileSoup if it is back up after the raid.

24 Apr 25, 2008 at 15:15 by Markos

[quote comment="359328"]lol nobody is going to want to buy youtorrent.com now, that guy made a huge mistake[/quote]
Serves him right for dropping the main sites in the hope of going legit.
The old show and switch move kind of backfired on his ass.

25 Apr 25, 2008 at 16:10 by Anonymous Too

We have a dozen dump sites and 2 dozen search engines that reference those sites… so what have we gained here? …not a damm thing.

26 Apr 25, 2008 at 16:42 by Not an Anonymous poof! - Josh

I’d rather get some more torrent sites rather than 1million that search all the trackers. Its pointless to have more things searching the trackers than there are trackers.

27 Apr 25, 2008 at 20:44 by steve4576

by looking at the source code it looks like a clone of nowtorrents.com witch is a clone of youtorrent.com :)

28 Apr 25, 2008 at 22:03 by Anonymous

Woot, now I can share additional home made porn of me and my rabbit.

29 Apr 25, 2008 at 23:48 by Anonymous

meta search sites are useless, we need more trackers

30 Apr 26, 2008 at 00:19 by steve4576

how do we fix the XSS in search.php as until this is done this script is vulnerable to an XSS exploit and is unsafe to use..

be warned!

31 Apr 26, 2008 at 01:43 by Aleksander Hristov

Actually with XSS u wont be able to do anything , because there are is no “user” harmfull information on this site. For fixing the xss ( which i specificly said its left on purpose ) replace all with in search.php

32 Apr 26, 2008 at 01:44 by Aleksander Hristov

Php code doesnt show , sorry for the last post , look at the howto page

33 Apr 26, 2008 at 03:39 by yay,

yay, even more meta search engines!
i mean…..

i would prefer a put up a torrent site in 2 minutes

34 Apr 26, 2008 at 06:54 by markie

Why is it when I do a search in these websites like PizzaTorrent does the date added say 8 years ago. Are these torrents fake.

35 Apr 27, 2008 at 03:10 by Tino

[quote comment="359136"]The backend will be made public in a few weeks[/quote]
I WROTE THAT CODE, AND YOU STOLE IT. AND THE BACKEND YOU COULDNT STEAL!

36 Apr 27, 2008 at 03:17 by Tino

THIS IS ALL STOLEN FROM

http://www.nowtorrents.com

I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU GUYS POSTED AND HELPED THIS GUY!

37 Apr 27, 2008 at 05:09 by steve4576

[quote comment="360897"]THIS IS ALL STOLEN FROM

http://www.nowtorrents.com

I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU GUYS POSTED AND HELPED THIS GUY![/quote]

witch is all stolen (or copyd) from youtorrents.com.. funny how the world works!!!

38 Apr 27, 2008 at 06:01 by Tino

[quote comment="360973"][quote comment="360897"]THIS IS ALL STOLEN FROM

http://www.nowtorrents.com

I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU GUYS POSTED AND HELPED THIS GUY![/quote]

witch is all stolen (or copyd) from youtorrents.com.. funny how the world works!!![/quote]

No that is not true, im talking about the SOURCE CODE, which was all newly written. Compair and you will see!

39 Apr 27, 2008 at 07:50 by Admin Of Nowtorrents

My revenge is sweet!!!

Try a search ;)

40 Apr 27, 2008 at 11:11 by ReX

[quote comment="361064"]My revenge is sweet!!!

Try a search ;)[/quote]

I try and works…

41 Apr 27, 2008 at 11:15 by zxq4b

Heh, a torrent site (that facilitates “stealing” certain peoples work) complains when someone “steals” their own work is.. slightly ironic..

That aside, the released source-code is basically just an interface to http://youtorrent3.com/get.php

If that site goes down, or changes, it’ll stop working.

There is pretty much *no* code that could have been “stolen” from Newtorrents.. Well, maybe the Javascript?

42 Apr 27, 2008 at 11:37 by fuck

why search not working?

43 Apr 27, 2008 at 12:15 by Admin Of Nowtorrents

[quote comment="361231"][quote comment="361064"]My revenge is sweet!!!

Try a search ;)[/quote]

I try and works…[/quote]
Yes it does now, he found another site to rip his content from.

At least it is not nowtorrents anymore, we banned the fucker.

Although he does use our AJAX, JAVASCRIPT, HTML, IMAGES AND CSS files!

44 Apr 27, 2008 at 23:45 by Wired

TorrentFreak don’t be a bitch, put those links back on! (Not that anyone’s going to have trouble finding them)

http://dev.youtorrent3.com/howto.php

45 Apr 28, 2008 at 03:23 by Radz

WTF??? where is download link… someone post it again please.. I will give you 2$ PayPal..

exclusivezia@yahoo.com

46 Apr 28, 2008 at 08:53 by Almo

How cares? Anyway it’s a copy of a copy of a copy…

47 Apr 28, 2008 at 16:13 by WTorrents Admin

I’m already running my own torrent site. I’m looking to scrape results from other torrent sites and return them as “external results” below my sites results. Will this do the trick?
For example, if someone searches “green eggs” on my site, but my tracker doesn’t have a result…how can I return results from other sites? Anyone know of a plug-in or something?

48 Apr 29, 2008 at 23:04 by dl

Here’s the source dode download:

http://dev.youtorrent3.com/sources/youtorrent3src-0.1.zip

49 Apr 30, 2008 at 05:37 by Anon

WE NEED THE BACKEND……… RELEASE THAT TOO.

50 Jun 12, 2008 at 21:08 by Emil

Downloaded source from #44 and the search wont work…Why?? Someone please help :(

51 Jun 14, 2008 at 07:37 by Sunny

http://onwarez.com
Here Is Mine

52 Jun 21, 2008 at 04:42 by Meddle

There’s another alternative: http://trimboo.com

Fast and clean interface.

53 Jul 16, 2008 at 04:09 by Albert

I installed it but for some reason when I search, no results are brought up. Anyone know why?

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