Torrent’Em, a Flashy BitTorrent Search Engine

Written by Ernesto on January 25, 2008 

Torrent’Em is a unique BitTorrent meta-search engine because it is coded entirely in Flash, something i’ve never seen before. The site indexes several public BitTorrent sites and the search results are presented in a clean and flashy way.

torrentemTorrent’Em provides pretty much everything you expect from a meta-search engine. All the result columns are sortable, which is certainly a feature that every BitTorrent site should have. It also gives suggestions if you misspell a word.

The site is currently indexing 13 of the most popular BitTorrent sites - mininova.org, thepiratebay.org, mybittorrent.com, fenopy.com, newtorrents.info, seedpeer.com, btmon.com, torrentreactor.com, torrentportal.com, bitTorrent.am, extratorrent.com, monova.org and sumotorrent.com. More sites will be added to the list soon, says Carlos, the developer of Torrent’Em.

Torrent’Em has no ads at the moment, and the user interface looks pretty good. By default the search results are sorted by the number of seeds and peers, which is informative. More detailed information, and direct links to the source, are available when you click on one of the results form the list. “The idea is to have a fast, clean, easy to use website” Carlos told TorrentFreak.

There are also some downsides of course. Links open in a pop-up at the moment, which I find extremely annoying. The site also appears to be a bit slow, but that is mostly because of the “flashy” loading effects. Carlos told TorrentFreak that he’s working on a solution for these, and other problems, he said: “I am working on a settings panel where you can choose how to open the torrent link (self, or blank). Also, in the same panel you will be able to choose the type of animation you want and how fast you want it to be.”

Perhaps there’s even a more serious concern here, not specifically related to this meta-search engine, but to all of them. It seems that more and more sites are moving away from hosting .torrent files, let alone operate a BitTorrent tracker. Most torrents come from 2 or 3 of the bigger sites, and almost 75% of all .torrent files are tracked by The Pirate Bay.

BitTorrent meta-search engines can be really useful, but they are useless if all the sites they index host the same .torrent files. A bit more diversity might be a good idea, especially in the long term.

Previously: Virus Threatened to Kill File-Sharers, Creator Arrested for Copyright Infringement

Next: Another Year, Another Pile of Misleading Statistics From the Recording Industry

50 Responses

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1 Jan 25, 2008 at 20:31 by pazna

yeah, because flash it so great for getting things done

2 Jan 25, 2008 at 20:48 by 5000

neat.

3 Jan 25, 2008 at 20:53 by TonInter

Nice. :D

4 Jan 25, 2008 at 21:35 by HBS

an attractive site, with the refining that Carlos is working on it will be a fresh alternative!

But its very true about the lack of diversity - for all the innovative designing, without other torrent sites we will see the same torrents.. and the same fakes..

5 Jan 25, 2008 at 21:36 by n3l87

I actually agree with you Ernesto… We need more trackers, and less searches. I think it’s high time the private tracker bunch get over themselves, and switch over to a public system. It’s been shown that when it comes to private VS public trackers, neither are safe. If the suits want you, they’ll get you.

6 Jan 25, 2008 at 21:37 by n3l87

Addendum:

Forgot to mention that, with all that said, Torrent’Em is a very nice looking site.

7 Jan 25, 2008 at 21:51 by heddy

Ah, Chinchilla the SEO slut strikes again.

8 Jan 25, 2008 at 21:52 by tdot

quite flashY! i like it

9 Jan 25, 2008 at 22:18 by logos

[quote comment="272148"]I actually agree with you Ernesto… We need more trackers, and less searches. I think it’s high time the private tracker bunch get over themselves, and switch over to a public system. It’s been shown that when it comes to private VS public trackers, neither are safe. If the suits want you, they’ll get you.[/quote]

the main reason for private trackers is speed and few fakes not safety…

10 Jan 25, 2008 at 22:25 by Anonymous

[quote comment="272170"][quote comment="272148"]I actually agree with you Ernesto… We need more trackers, and less searches. I think it’s high time the private tracker bunch get over themselves, and switch over to a public system. It’s been shown that when it comes to private VS public trackers, neither are safe. If the suits want you, they’ll get you.[/quote]

the main reason for private trackers is speed and few fakes not safety…[/quote]

That’s true, but when it comes to availability, I still find a whole lot on public sites. That’s where people share because they want to, not because they have to.

11 Jan 25, 2008 at 22:29 by a/s/l

public trackers are only good for the casual torrenter and i only use them if i can’t find the file elsewhere. public torrent sites don’t encourage people to share. which is why i always hit and run on tpb, cos i get no benefit from sharing.

12 Jan 25, 2008 at 22:43 by zarathustra

*cough*bullshit*cough*

Fuck elitist ‘private’ trackers.

I totally agree with all n3l87 has to say on the matter (#5 & #10)

kthxbai

13 Jan 25, 2008 at 22:46 by shobra

It doesn’t work with Opera.. :(

14 Jan 25, 2008 at 22:50 by The_Sinister_Mastermind

a/s/l ~ That just basically means you’re a selfish user. Public trackers are used much more then simply by the ‘casual user’. Since the demise of OiNK the private trackers that have sprung up in it’s place have been, well not to put too finer point on it, fucking shit. Whereas there are still quite a few decent public sites around.

15 Jan 25, 2008 at 23:10 by Anon

They could have done this more SEO friendly more Cleaner and non flash with javascript. But i like it

16 Jan 25, 2008 at 23:57 by Viking

I’m tired of these many lame meta-search engines, and sites that just indexes from other sites.

They don’t host their own tracker, or torrents, is mostly filled with ads.
many of these sites is probably set up to earn some money.

17 Jan 26, 2008 at 00:07 by x0r

Nice stuff.

TORRENTFREAK! PLEASE MAKE THE NEXT TAB SELECT THE “RESPOND” BUTTON. Highly annoying.

See? Now i did it again…. Right up all the way to the “find” field, and then enter.

18 Jan 26, 2008 at 00:14 by beatlehead

Tested it against sites like btjunkie & isohunt, they returned many more matches! He musts not index the sites well.

19 Jan 26, 2008 at 00:34 by system

Instead of whining about how private trackers should “get over themselves”, why not start your own tracker?

At least we’re doing something. It’s not like we have 75% of private torrents tracked by a single site.

20 Jan 26, 2008 at 01:03 by On-Hold

Is it a good idea to host stuff like this in the USA?

21 Jan 26, 2008 at 01:10 by l0l

Packet to “Media Temple, Inc, Bittorrent fakes, avla2007.ca…” ( 64.13.233.5 ) blocked. [protocol: TCP - src: 1264 / dst: 80]

22 Jan 26, 2008 at 01:24 by asy

flash = proprietary = closed = unsupported on linux (64bit) = crap.

23 Jan 26, 2008 at 02:00 by Crynsos

A quite nice site, but the loading could really get a little speed boost… might be my main torrent search machine now, as most others I know only index 1-4 sites at once… and not really popular ones either…

Well, the argument about vanishing torrent sites and trackers is of course bad…
I really hope this will change back to “for every one taken down, two new ones will rise”

24 Jan 26, 2008 at 02:14 by Calvin

This is basically torrentz, or youtorrent made into a flash website. It’s also slower.

25 Jan 26, 2008 at 03:07 by forealmofo

[quote comment="272181"]i always hit and run on tpb, cos i get no benefit from sharing.[/quote]

Then you’re just the sort of leeching fuckwit #10 is talking about. I agree that public tracker seeds share becuase they want to, not because they have to, That makes them better p2p’ers than those who do it for no other reason than showing off, which is about the only reason losers migrate to private sites. If they realy wanted faster, they’d get a usenet account, and if they cant avoid fakes, then they are retards and should give up on p2p. Showing everyone you’re a ratio whore basicaly lets everyone know what a dickhead you are, while the real filesharers just stfu and get on with it.

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