The popular BitTorrent site mininova has been down for a few hours due to hardware issues. It is expected that the downtime will continue for several hours, which puts other BitTorrent sites under pressure.
New BitTorrent sites are launched every day, but only a few stand out or have something new to offer. YouTorrent is such a new site; feature-wise it’s just a meta-search engine, but the design and user interface make it one of the best I’ve seen.
BitLet, the web-based BitTorrent client has received a significant update. A new feature makes it possible to create .torrent files online - ready configured for popular open trackers - and then automatically upload them to Mininova and other sites for maximum exposure.
The popular hosting company HostGator effectively bans its customers from storing .torrent files on their servers. They want you to store podcasts or other media files on their server instead of saving bandwidth and resources by offering it as a .torrent download.
Last week we reported that Comcast is making it impossible for its customers to seed files on BitTorrent. Not surprisingly, Comcast’s PR department does all it can to deny there allegations, but we - and with us some of the leading BitTorrent developers - know better.
The Portuguese counterparts of the RIAA, BSA and MPAA sent the Swedish police a letter in which they demanded “swift enforcement of the law” in The Pirate Bay case. They argue that the Pirate Bay is responsible for several BitTorrent related court cases in Portugal and is affecting right holders worldwide.
Google has been filtering its search results for years. That’s proven very useful for the Chinese government, and of course content owner representatives like the MPAA and RIAA. According to Google, the filtering of torrents from the search results is a response to the DMCA complaints they receive.
The popularity of BitTorrent also has its downsides. Over the past months we reported about fake torrents, torrents that force you to download malware, and torrents that spy on your download behavior. TorrentSpam is a new service that allows you to report such scams, and clean up BitTorrent sites, bit by bit.
BitLet is a cute web-based Java applet that allows you to download .torrent files on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed. Very useful if you want to share a torrent with your BitTorrent illiterate friends, or if you’re on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed.
