HttpTorrents: Download Torrents Without BitTorrent
Written by Ernesto on November 14, 2009Launched in early 2009, KickassTorrents is one of the fastest growing torrent sites on the Internet. The site has already conquered the hearts of many BitTorrent fans thanks to its user-friendliness, and just recently it partnered with httpTorrents to offer the option to download files over http.
KickassTorrents is without doubt one of the most innovative torrent sites around. It is the only torrent search engine we know of that corrects spelling mistakes and also allows users to fully customize the look of the site’s homepage.
Those who take a few minutes to browse through the site will discover all kinds of other neat features. One of the latest additions to the site is the option to download files directly, through partner site httpTorrents.
The integration with httpTorrents gives users the option to download the files directly without having to use a BitTorrent client. Music tracks can also be streamed directly from the site itself. The service works in a similar way to most other files hosting services such as Rapidshare, but only works with torrents and doesn’t allow users to upload files themselves.
The owner of the site told TorrentFreak that direct http downloads may be useful to users who have restricted access to BitTorrent, such as those whose ISP or firewall blocks or slows down transfers. There are currently 4000 files available as a direct download, but this number is growing rapidly.
Direct downloads and music streaming.
KickassTorrents’ users can submit a request for files that are not yet available as direct downloads. “If someone clicks on the http download button at KickassTorrents and the file is not available yet, it places it in the request queue at httpTorrents. Only popular torrents are downloaded during the beta stage,” TorrentFreak was told by the site’s owner.
“KickassTorrents and httpTorrents are not directly connected. However we use their API to get hashes of the torrents available for the direct download,” the owner said, adding that if the beta tests are successful this API will also be available to other torrent sites.
Everyone can use httpTorrents, but in the future the download speed and number of simultaneous downloads will be limited for free users. Those who want to use it more than occasionally will have the option to sign up for a premium account without restrictions.
Since the service is actually hosting files (on an external CDN) it might run into complaints from copyright holders. The owner of the site told TorrentFreak that he’s not too worried about the legal implications, and hopes that a takedown policy will prevent the site from running into trouble.
It will be interesting to see how the service develops in the future, and we will definitely be keeping a close eye on it. Although direct downloads may be preferred in some cases, for those looking for (free) high speed downloads, BitTorrent probably remains the best solution.
Previously: Swedish Internet Traffic Recovers After Initial IPRED Scare
Next: Leaked Documents Reveal Anti-Piracy Cash Operation
75 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Kickass innovation ;)
Lily Allen HEHEHE
no, it isn’t an innovation
downloading things by ftp is around 7 thousand years old faggot
Well this won’t be ending well…
How can this site get in trouble when rapidshare doesn’t?
agreed .httpTorrents is just looking for trouble . i predict the site will stay alive for 3 months or 6 months the most.
@5 Rapidshare doesn’t advertise sharing warez. These guys are blatantly open about it.
Wait.. who was that other blatantly open group of pirates that recently got their asses handed to them? Oh right, TPB.
At least have the common sense to pretend you’re legal. Like all good huge multinational corporations do, despite being evil incarnate.
I don’t like freeloaders on torrent networks. I don’t mind seeding 20 times of what I’m d’loading but free loaders. grrr… the whole idea that you can use leach only client or use features like httptorrents etc is anti-community.
If you love one way transfer only, go get it from rapidshare, but don’t pollute torrent networks.
And I think Kickass torrents looks cool, but they are just looking for trouble. They have content on their own servers, they know what the content is because they are cataloging it nicely. And they have their server is US.
Think I’ll wait for httpsTorrents. ;)
@3 your anti-gay hate speech is quite original, however.
I think it’s a good idea. Rapidshare hosts so much illegal content and gets away with it, I don’t know why these people can’t just because they are hosting torrent uploads on their server. It seems like httpstorrents just downloads the file then hosts it. It’s no different than rapidshare really, as I’ve seen many users make their downloads available on rapidshare the same time the torrent is put up.
@7: The article says
“The owner of the site told TorrentFreak that he’s not too worried about the legal implications, and hopes that a takedown policy will prevent the site from running into trouble.”
Which is what rapidshare is using, same tactic. So it should also get away with it.
(obviously we all know the corruption, that they have much better chances to intimidate this small site compared to suing the rapidshare company, because they would never win the latter case)
What’s with using Lily Allen as a demo? I thought her name was mud around here?
It’s good that PeerBlock blocks out the site, as coming from Hollywood Interactive, Inc (calpop.com, inc).
/sarcasm
“If you are getting too hard with torrents – httpTorrents will make it easy for you!”
WAT
Also their search is broken, returns no results for anything.
OH. Torrent hash, my bad.
“The owner of the site told TorrentFreak that he’s not too worried about the legal implications, and hopes that a takedown policy will prevent the site from running into trouble.”
Especially when they offer a premium account – pay so that you can download more illegal content. Yeh, right…Trackers that offer illegal content and at the same time require some payment for that from the users get in trouble much faster than those, who do this entirely for free – that is profit comes from advertisement only.
The idea of http torrents sounds nice. One can use web proxy to download things. And web proxies don’t recuire any configuration of your applications.
Thanks, I loaded up about 15 torrents. I hope the program shares while it downloads/shares at least a 1-1 ratio.
@redbaron: rapidshare has a premium account too which you need to pay. It has the exact same model, except that this one uploads from torrents instead of directly.
@14: maybe it’s a honeypot :o
I have me pg running wit up 2 date list @ site is not blocked.
<—@ 20 Nov 14, 2009 at 22:52 by Reasoned Brain & @14
my peerblock is blocking kickasstorrents.com as “Hollywood Interactive, Inc.”
sup?
Seriously, read this article, checked out kickasstorrents which is a beautiful torrent site, got peerblock, now I can’t use kickasstorrents… anyone have an answer?
SHIT, MAYBE IT’S A HONEYPOT? hmm…
@22 MAFIAA trap?
zomg lookit all the fakes, nononononono
Why would anyone use httptorrents when there are already a ton of file hosting sites out there?
Sometimes I am looking for something and I can’t find it on any torrent sites, but later end up finding http links hosted on one of those many file hosting sites.
Whats the 8th songs name on the pic ? :)
Downloading several files with resume support, direct download atm. Way to go! Look forward to using it with other sites in the future.
This is basically a seedbox/proxy. I do not think that Kickasstorrents would put their users in a honeypot. I also trust torrentfreak to not put its users there either. Since this is a beta, try it out to see what it does & it works. If you don’t like it or it doesn’t work well for you, you don’t have to use it.
The http://www.emule-project.net is still in beta. :-)
i feel dirty now
@ 15
Why would people use direct download sites?
Ok the mafia has various tactics for removing files. They love to remove files from indexing sites & places such as these help out storing files. Sometimes its the only source for the file. Of course when you download it you can share it with others making it move avalble.
Also the way these services work as they are on a high speed connection which downloads/uploads @ a superfast rate (usually over 100 mbits or more) providing more than what most home connections will. So everyone benefits from this. The initial swarm has more uploaded from this person & the file is backed up in various places which is ok to download from. Since it is max speed usually for the paid version, you always get alot for your bandwidth. YOu give more too. Everyone benefits.
I have better things to do than upload/download all day long. I would rather upload alot and download alot (I prefer a 1. download per 4.2 upload for me) at the shortest amount of time.
Also when I leave, I would like to help others download/upload the file so that’s where the retention comes in.
> It is the only torrent search engine we know of that corrects spelling mistakes
Obviously TF knows wrong. We’ve been doing fuzzy searching from day one (and we happen to have the very best one). :)
http://bitsnoop.com/search/a/ubnutu/c/d/1/
I really like this. Every time I download a file, I become my own ftp server. Yeah!
for those using those ip blockers, when I used pg, it said to disable it when browsing b/c it blocks many legitimate sites.
didnt work I tried this one
8c606161265562fa5905b4e2ad5e164821ce47ba
but yeah nice try. I think it needs some more time…
The torrent sites are full of annoying ads you need a good ad blocker like:
Adblock Plus
http://adblockplus.org/en/ – this one works only with firefox
Ad Muncher
http://shop.admuncher.com/ – this one is the best and it works with all browsers
yeah I haven’t seen an add yet, thanks ad block plus for firefox. I have so far downloaded about 100 (perhapse more) torrent files from http://www.httptorrent.com Works great thanks.
http://www.httptorrents.com wrong site above sry
http://geotool.flagfox.net/?ip=216.240.131.133&host=www.httptorrents.com – location rosedale cemetery, los angles!
Wow if you really want direct downloads without a risk of a honey pot or paying just use irc……
I have talked to a few seed box sites like this one (similar) as for they only download/upload the files that you want & that are located in the US of http://www.Mafia.org . I was told by different ones that as long as they comply with dmca, they are legal and should have no problems. I know if my torrents start disseminating though, I’m out.
Also in the case I was to get into trouble or anyone, (hopefully won’t though) is that we were told in the news about the site and its strapped on some torrent sites to use which makes it look better/more apt to use. Kind of like if it wasn’t meant to be used, it wouldn’t be in the news and on a torrent site as direct download instead. Basically its the same as a seedbox though although I imagine that the only way to see your ratio in the future is to pay which if the payment is reasonable (I seen something like $9.95 )
http://mafiaa.org correct link (above something else)
Music And Film Industry Association of America™ (MAFIAA™)
April 1, 2006 – Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) chairman Dan Glickman and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) president Cary Sherman today announced the historic merger of the two organizations. The newly-created entity is being called the Music And Film Industry Association of America™, Inc.
You mean dead people can’t host a web site?
yay another Rapidshare that forces you to use torrents… Um, who’s calling that innovation again?
Posting comments too quickly! Try taking a speed reading course!
#41 did you check the date of your press release?
@ 43 Nov 15, 2009 at 06:36 by knux
yay another Rapidshare that forces you to use torrents… Um, who’s calling that innovation again?
Like there are too many around lol. I think this is great. What they also need though is some server things like bittorrent has for ed2k/kad. It would help out alot. http://www.sharereactor.com
Nothing like opening the front door as well as the back to let the parasites get to you quicker. Wouldn’t touch this at all. Too vulnerable to Mafiaa tracking, media measurement evil, and scum in general.
Erm, is it just me or is this a blatant push for a subscription site? (also chocker with ads).
Ok, it was still interesting to learn about these sites (I didn’t know of them).
But people like R@pidshare are in the game to make money. So, it seems, are these two sites.
While you may not be happy with the location of the servers, (neither am I), its still just a service provider. The business is legit.
@ 46 Nov 15, 2009 at 09:08 by Redbeard
Nothing like opening the front door as well as the back to let the parasites get to you quicker. Wouldn’t touch this at all. Too vulnerable to Mafiaa tracking, media measurement evil, and scum in general.
It is actually better to get on a file and get your seeding/sharing done (do more with less time also provided you have bigger pipes) faster than staying on it for days and days and perhaps weeks. I would rather get my download @ max speed with little work for my processor to do than run lots of big files downloading on my own at the same time. Just queue em up with
free download manager or xy download fast and have 2 or 3 start and max out till done, then it changes to your next file. Your upload is being done on a server giving you faster pipes.
I would rather be on a file for 3 hours than for 9 days just to download. Lets not forget about uploading—–> With that 3 hours I have uploaded what would have taken me over 54 days to do at my house. Think smarter, use tools. Also when I downloaded the file, I have preserved another copy for others in addition to just sharing/taking. Not everyone has fast pipes at their house so tech is great. TGF seedboxes.
Also remember: The MAFIAA can read sites like this too!
And we know that they do!
So maybe these sites were free of their snooping before, but after this – perhaps they’ll try to monitor it.
Kickasstorents doesn’t work atm
500 internal server error.
R.I.P!
RAPIDSHARE4EVER! Torrent4NEVEAH!
Lily Allen sucks!
Somehow, I jsut simply cant imagine life wiffout BitTorrent. No way
Sounds pretty weird to me. I just like BitTorrent myself.
Jimbo
ultimate-privacy.cz.tc
Being blocked by PeerBlock as “Hollywood Interactive, Inc. (CALPOP.COM, INC.)”.
-1 since it warps the concept of BitTorrenting. It’s supposed to be about sharing. And seeing the Hollywood Interactive, Inc. references worries me.
internal error
hollywood honeypots?
http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/11/12/do-music-artists-do-better-in-a-world-with-illegal-file-sharing/
this needs to be featured in an article
sorry for being off topic
Too bad httptorrents returns a 500, now. So much for a good idea.
Please stop promoting any site on your blog or you will be losing your readers like me.
The whole idea of bittorrent is to share to distribute the download traffic. The website you r promoting is going against this rule and it is using direct download and http protocol instead of bit torrent protocol. This is not innovation. It is stupid.
Your article indicates you either lost you mind or you have no idea of tech.
If you keep on promoting these nonsense, you will loss my vote for sure.
It would be possible to build a torrent application that would actually use http for all traffic between peers. That was what I thought of the title, but it wasn’t that this time then.
Would that be any good, that I don’t know.
if your isp bottlenecks bittorrent traffic during the day, use port 80 in the day as this is what your web will be.
oh and furk.net done this http thing first
Torrelay.com or imageshack was the first one out with a torrent over http service. Btaccel.com (twitter100 works as invite code) offers up to 100GB transfer for free during alpha test, furk.net is good as well but limits free users to 0.1GB per file.
Blocked by PeerBlock. Hollywood Interactive >:(
Furk.net has a competitor!
They should host these in Spain and other countries where distribution of copyrighted content isn’t illegal.
oh boy, looks like they dug themselves a grave.
httpTorrent fails the whole point of the bittorrent protocol. The whole point of a torrent is that they don’t host the stuff and the material is served from someoneelse.
Now they can get sued for hosting and serving content.
both sites return a 500 – Internal Server Error.
500 – Internal Server Error
nice one
only serves popular torrents…so i guess im not their target audience.
oh well it all sounds neat and nice but i cant get anything good as its all ”mainstream” torrents like…fuck you lily allen
Whatever. I’ll be a pay-service sooner than you think.
i would much rather download a torrent at 5KB/s than COPY AND PASTE HASH NUMBERS ALL DAY LONG and hope something “hits”…
good concept…WRONG EXECUTION…
I can’t understand the problem. You pan participate in usual sharing through Kickasstorrents.com or download the torrent that you are interested in from httptorrents
The choice is yours!
there playing with fire
@49
You’re exactly right. I really don’t see how TF is a service to anyone but the big companies when they report stuff like this on a daily basis.
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