Download Torrentless Torrents From Torrentz with Firefox
Written by Ernesto on November 09, 2009Torrentz.com is the largest BitTorrent search engine that doesn’t actually host any torrent files. This means that its millions of users still depend on third party sites in order to download .torrent files. That said, all that changes if they have the Firefox web browser installed along with the new Magnetiser add-on.
Most popular BitTorrent clients including uTorrent and Vuze support magnet links, although only a handful of people are actually using them. With magnet links BitTorrent can fire up a download without even having to download a .torrent file.
The link uses the torrent hash and DHT to download content and allows for additional trackers to be added. Thus far, most BitTorrent users have ignored this alternative download method, but thanks to the Magnetiser Firefox add-on, this might change.
The idea behind the add-on is simple. It allows users of meta-search engines, such as Torrentz.com, to download a torrent’s magnet link without having to go to an external site where the torrent is hosted.
“I’ve recently written an add-on for Firefox that generates magnet links for torrent pseudo-indexers that don’t host torrents but does list them by their hashes. So far it supports Torrentz and isoHunt, but the code is simple and could be extended to any searchable indexer that shows the info hash either in the URL, or on the torrent page,” the coder of the add-on told TorrentFreak.
Once the add-on is installed, users can click the ‘magnetise’ link at the bottom right of their Firefox window when they are on a torrent detail page on Torrentz. This will launch a new window that will prompt you to pick the torrent client of your choice.
We have to say that this usage of magnet links is a great idea, and it works like a charm. Not only does it save time, it also comes in handy when a torrent is no longer available on the external site. The only downside is that the title of the download as it appears in your client will not be very descriptive.
The add-on is not available on Firefox’s add-on section just yet, but those who want to try it can download this xpi file and drag it into the Firefox browser window. After it’s installed users can add additional trackers, but since it includes the most-used trackers by default, this is not really needed.
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56 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Sounds cool^^
Gj.
So what happened to the .torrent files? Did they kill them ={
Uh… “Torrentless torrents”? Don’t you mean “Trackerless torrents”? lmfao
NO! Torrentless as in you don’t have to dwonload the torrent files.
Very cool idea!
More and more innovation… more and more sleepless nights for big content… i love it!
/me checks for phone-homes
“This means that its millions of users still depend on third party sites in order to download .torrent file”
Heh… I would say that Torrentz.com is the real “third party” in this situation. :P
/me sees none and and approves
Firefox doesn’t know how to open this address, because the protocol (magnet) isn’t associated with any program.
I think this is a step in the wrong direction. Aggregators usually don’t store the actual torrents because it limits their own liability. If they start hosting a magnet link instead, it’s (legally) the same as hosting the torrent. I thought we were moving towards a more modular bittorent after TPB lawsuit; this just increases the liability of a single entity (the aggregator).
@11 can’t get it to work either.
Magnet URLs are cool. Demonoid and some other trackers had the wits to make a duplicate torrent file as a txt, so that stupid ISP who don’t allow their customers to download torrent files don’t have a chance. :P This is a very nice alternative.
df, try a torrent-client that supports magnet URLs like uTorrent, Vuze etc.
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Soon the MAFIAA will lobby to ban all hashes, links, binaries and text from the internet :P
Tried uTorrent and still no luck
I got it to work no prob, but I really dont see the point/benefit at all..
.torrent files are very small and I have no issues with being allowed to DL…*shrugz*
LoL…/disabled…. Although some of you that like to collect obscure software/add-ons should grab it while the grabbing is good, it will be interesting to see if Mozilla approves it…
@13 & 17
Real simple, open the page of the torrent you want to dl, click on the magnatize link in the bottom of firefox choose your client, really cant be easier…
It’s available from Mozilla Add-Ons, and the link to it is right there on the forum post you linked to.
Aaaa, the joys of Firefox.
@20, Dont see the link, perhaps my ABP is working really well, LoL..
At any rate…Cool!
@19 Nope
I have used the magnet links and find them to be a bit easier to use then torrents but at the same time the main tracker stated on these magnets are public access information. so basically its like fishing in a bowl of water, easy pickings IMO.
and with said technology it becomes 100% easier to screw users , drop virii and do other nasty stuff to you
HOOOORAY for DHT which as we all at private sites know is EVIL CAPITAL EVIL
@23..
Wtf???
LoL, pardon me, but..perhaps you should tell us *exactly how you are trying to initialize the add-on…
It really does work, better than TPB site does right now, LoL
This add-on wont work on all sites, only sites that show the info hash either in the URL, or on the torrent page…
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For those who are curious, the specification is in BEP 0009: http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0009.html
Basically the client gets the metadata dictionary from peers.
It’s not on wiki.theory.org so I actually had to search for it!
I understand that magnet links aren’t supported by default on a lot of systems, check out http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=414215 for getting them to work – well worth the effort if you tend to frequent meta-indexers moreso than other torrent sites
you can add 1 tracker or more to the magnet link. So it doesnt have to be trackerless :)
Can anti p2p people do anything with magnet links? :D They can ask to remove the torrents but a hash value? lol
Here is a how to: in utorrent, click “open url” and paste the magnet link. Also you can associate magnet links with utorrent by goint to settings, general, and associate with magnet links. I hope it helped.
So I get something like this:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:e21994e7c91a4b610187b34254fc2af1959ca50f&tr=http://tracker.openbittorrent.com/announce&tr=http://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce&tr=http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
and uTorrent say invalid url.
Is the syntax wrong?
After I figure out magnet links ther is another question: how to make a web seed?
geez, sorry for the typos, I’m not allowed to edit.
Doesn’t work with transmission :( http://trac.transmissionbt.com/ticket/2096
When using magnet uri’s in uTorrent it neither shows the torrent’s content nor how much has been downloaded. Its very inconvenient to use this. And most times (6/9 times I tried) it doesnt work :(
I don’t see what the big deal is about this. I used to see em. ed2k supports em. I don’t use them as for I did in the past but I didn’t like my files being named something like 42342427502luuldeluf.ex in the download folder. How is someone supposed to index that without changing the file name or just by hash value only. Plain title is better such as file.avi or whatever. I prefer to use http://www.emule-project.net instead.
If anyone has ever used anatomic p2p client (bt protocol), it displayed in the download folder by p2p hash value as tile. This was years ago. The client was also good because it didn’t recognize the flag as for private or public torrent. I don’t really know if its applicable or not as for every client I have used since then almost has had no problem with passwords on torrents. I know from what I can tell my seedbox for bt doesn’t have any problems.
I am thinking about getting a ed2k seedbox and maybe it will support kad (I dunno atm) from http://forum.seedboxsales.co.uk/index.php?topic=10 Anyone got any ideas? T
It’s funny to see a lot of bt fanboy excited for something that emule has since ages. roftl
By the way, we do Magnet links too.
Your friends at http://bitsnoop.com/
Does this extension also add magnet links to TPB pages? It seems so to me.
Scam alert!
Do not EVER use “direct high-speed download blah-blah” on Torrentz – it will redirect you to Yottacash “subscribe” page, which is a recognized scam site. They will charge your card (and keep charging it) to download Limewire etc.
Kinda sad to see such high-profile site affiliated with scammers.
I seem to be having the same problem as 33. Any help?
I tried installing Magnetiser 0.4 and it doesn’t seem to work. I go to Torrentz.com and do a search. From the torrent detail page, I click on the Magnetiser icon and I open up uTorrent. I get an error message everytime.
It reads:
Unable to load (filename)
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
HOW TO MAKE TORRENTS LEGAL!!
The existence of a tracker address in the torrent is what facilitates a link to copyright-infringing material.
Remove this address (let people figure out to add open trackers themselves.) and the torrent file becomes merely file-validation data and no longer acts as a link to anything or anyone.
As torrents have NO resemblence to the copyright-infringing content itself and cannot be used on their own to create/render/reproduce copyright-infringing content, this leaves them with almost no legitimate point of attack for litigation.
Removing this link means they can only claim we’ve encouraged/incited copyright infringement which an intelligent torrent hoster can avoid with a thoughtful EULA and Disclaimer (and after that is in place… keeping their mouths shut!)
Nice. That’s basically how opentracker works. It gives a shiet to what you are sharing, it just registers the hash and connect you to people with that same hash. Awesome =)
Nice to know about that add on, thanks TF!
YO DAWG! We heard you like torrents! So we put a magnet on your torrent so you can torrent while you download!
Word?
Actually magnet links are really good. For a highly seeded torrent. Because you can always post the magnet links as straight text…so screw takedowns. I’ve used it a while back from some site that removed the torrent, but the page still had a link to a magnet.
A descriptive title can be added by using the “dn” parameter in the magnet URI. Example:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:E2U2N3SOBKR63IG5AUPTZDVALNVAIDEM&dn=EnterTitleHere
Until some of the other main BitTorrent clients (Transmission, I’m looking at you here) support Magnet URIs, they will not become totally mainstream.
We only recently got mainline DHT and PEX over here on the Mac side of things, but at least our interface looks cool and torrents get up to full speed almost instantly.
Nice idea! =D
this is one cool feature, i like it
http://www.likemyscreenshot.com
Commentless comment.
I was doing it wrong, I was trying to paste the link in the url list. It does work in uTorrent.
I see TPB now has magnet links. Nice!
I’d rather open a link and check the comments there for quality so thanks but no thanks for this.
What’s all the fuzz about ?
All you need is the info-hash..
“Files>Open torrent-file>add URL” paste the info-hash and there you go .. It’s always been like that, people are just to lazy to read the documentation ..
#4=FAIL!
xDDDD!
We’re talking about Magnet Links here, not DHT NOR .torrent files.
Basically its a line of gibberish that somehow tells the client what to download and where from.
Very different from a 14KB (min as far as I’ve seen) file….
All that is needed now, is a compatible magnet link implementation in Azureus/Vuze. They are working on it, but it is only out in beta code so far.
http://forum.vuze.com/thread.jspa?messageID=211029&tstart=0
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