(I forgot so this post is a day late).

TorrentFreak…

It was supposed to be a site where I would share some file-sharing related news items and some tips on how to get the most out of BitTorrent.

The first week a few dozen people stumbled upon the site and within a month TorrentFreak had a few hundred readers a day.

It was the start of an addiction for me, one that is still alive and kicking.

Over time TorrentFreak transformed into what it is today. Unique news coupled with a few opinion pieces here and there.

Lots of credit goes out to all the people who sent in tips and comments, and all the people who otherwise contributed to the site (including all the regular authors and guest writers).

Enigmax in particular has been a true companion, one who’s just as dedicated to TorrentFreak as I am, and someone who helped turn the site into what it is today.

Oh, and our ‘sysadmin,’ my hero since early 2006…

Thanks.

It’s been a great ride, one that’s hopefully just starting.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

With help from the excellent designer Ryan we are now ready to present our new look. It’s totally different from our previous theme, but hopefully recognizable enough for regular readers to feel at home.

In the process we implemented a few changes that will eventually liven up things a bit here. Below are two of the most significant.

1. We now support comment replies.

2. We have a “news bits” section where we will post links to things we’re not covering ourselves. You might even find some of our random musings here, so keep checking back.

We hope that the news bits section will be a useful collection of links, and a good place to discuss topics that are not featured in full TorrentFreak articles. The news bits are excluded from our main RSS feed but you can subscribe to these links through this feed.

We always welcome tips from readers and if you’re a real BitTorrent/P2P/copyright news addict who can contribute on a regular basis, feel free to get in touch with us.

Also, we realize that there might be a few bugs here and there, so please let us know if you spot one, preferably in a descriptive email.

Update: Here’s some stuff we’ll address in the coming days, aside from a few small bugs we will fix soon.

* Next / previous article links will return
* Header will be a bit smaller
* RSS feed should exclude news bits

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

So instead we decided to go for the articles that our readers found interesting enough to discuss in volume; the most commented articles of 2010.

Below are the 25 most discussed articles of the year. It’s been an exciting ride, with many ups and downs, and we’d like to thank everyone who read and contributed for your support. Do you have a favorite that didn’t make the list? Feel free, as always, to comment below.

Happy New Year… We’ll report for duty in the morning.

1. U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More (November)

2. U.S. Authorities Shut Down WordPress Host With 73,000 Blogs (July)

3. OiNK Admin Found Not Guilty, Walks Free (January)

4. ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Law Firm Torn Apart By Leaked Emails (September)

5. The Pirate Bay Goes Down Following Legal Pressure (May)

6. Digital Economy Bill Passes, File-Sharing Ends Soon (June)

7. Leaked Emails Reveal Profits of Anti-Piracy Cash Scheme (September)

8. BitTorrent Based DNS To Counter US Domain Seizures (November)

9. Senate Committee Passes Bill To Quash Pirate Websites (November)

10. ‘Piracy Is Theft, Clean and Simple’ US Vice President Says (June)

11. The Pirate Bay Appeal Verdict: Guilty Again (November)

12. 4chan DDoS Takes Down MPAA and Anti-Piracy Websites (September)

13. The Mysterious And Scary BitTorrent Monitoring Site (April)

14. LimeWire Shuts Down After Losing Court Battle With The RIAA (October)

15. 4chan to DDoS RIAA Next – Is This the Protest of the Future? (September)

16. LimeWire Resurrected By Secret Dev Team (November)

17. The Pirate Party Becomes The Pirate Bay’s New Host (May)

18. World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden (July)

19. Police in File-Sharing Raids Across Europe, WikiLeaks Host Targeted (September)

20. IP-Addresses of First Hurt Locker Victims Revealed (June)

21. Mulve – The Nightmare-Scenario Music Downloading Tool (September)

22. Demonoid Faces Major Downtime Once Again (April))

23. Rapidshare Terminates Accounts of Copyright Infringers (March)

24. US Lawmakers Want to Quash Pirate Websites (September)

25. RIAA Wins Big Against File-Sharer, $1.5M for 24 Songs (November)

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Although we would love to, it would be impossible to mention everyone who has contributed to TorrentFreak. Over the years we’ve had several guest writers and received tens of thousands of tips from readers – they have all contributed to the site in some way or another.

Writing for TorrentFreak has been a a great endeavor thus far, most of all thanks to you, our readers. We’re here to stay, and hope the next five years will be as much fun as the first.

Thanks!

Update: Thanks for all the wonderful comments. It may sound silly but it does mean a lot.

pic credit

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

TorrentFreak has had pretty much the same look since January 2007 when our friend Rosano completed the current design. In the two and a half years that have since passed we’ve had some great times with the current theme, but we think the time has come to move on. Since we’re no design gurus ourselves, we need some professional help.

What we want:

We’re looking for a new pinkish WordPress theme loosely based on the current design.

Who we want:

A creative designer with WordPress experience and a decent size portfolio.

What you’ll get:

Cash, and the option to promote yourself in the footer of the wonderful site you will create.

(comments disabled)

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Last year we reported that the RIAA’s website had suffered an XSS attack and just a couple of days ago we revealed how the MPAA site was vulnerable to an XSS attack too, one which left it embarrassingly displaying torrents from The Pirate Bay.

Now it is the RIAA’s turn (again) to suffer the same fate. Vektor, who also discovered the MPAA site exploit, told TorrentFreak that he had managed to find a security hole in RIAA.com too. He demonstrated this by using an iframe – an HTML element which makes it possible to embed an HTML document inside another HTML document – TorrentFreak for example.

As with the MPAA site exploit, Vektor explains that his work on the RIAA site is a proof of concept and should be taken as a joke.

We’re sure the RIAA and MPAA coders will be laughing heartily as they try to plug these holes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

An iTunes feed is available here, and a regular RSS feed here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As always, we’re looking forward to your commentary.

For questions or suggestions, feel free to contact the crew at tv@torrentfreak.com. We encourage contributions from viewers!

An iTunes feed is available here, and a regular RSS feed here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

We welcome Stacia as our new host.

For questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to contact the crew at tv@torrentfreak.com. We encourage contributions from viewers!

An iTunes feed is available here, and a regular RSS feed here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Ernesto

It is hard to pick one article out of the hundreds of posts we have done. The BuckCherry article is definitely one of the most enjoyable articles of 2008. The band issued a press-release complaining about the early leak of their album, but with a little bit of research we found out that it was actually the manager of the band who had uploaded it onto various BitTorrent sites.

Enigmax

When Ernesto’s Top 10 Most Pirated Games 2008 article went mainstream, culminating in the BBC using TorrentFreak as a source, it was a proud moment. But i’d like to say a special thanks to international megapopstar entrepreneur extraordinaire and established anti-piracy writer Indiana Gregg, for her contribution to TorrentFreak. Unintentionally the best laugh of the year, with heaps of good old fashioned Interwebs drama on top.

Ben

My favorite story of the year has to be the near bankruptcy of MediaDefender, a year after we reported on the release of their emails. Shoddy enforcement techniques, and a spot of DDoSing have put their share price in the toilet. To paraphrase MediaDefender’s Randy Saaf, “They’re f*cked”.

TorrentFreak’s Most-Read Articles of 2008

Below are the 10 most read articles. The ‘RIAA’ hack leads with well over 300,000 views, followed by the Pirates of the Amazon add-on article we posted only a few weeks ago. We’d love to hear what your favorite article was of course, so feel free to drop a comment.

1. RIAA Website Wiped Clean by “Hackers”

2. Firefox Pirates Take Over Amazon

3. The BitTorrent Legend Returns: I Am aXXo

4. Top 10 Most Pirated Games of 2008

5. Test: Does Your ISP Slow Down BitTorrent Traffic?

6. Spore: Most Pirated Game Ever Thanks to DRM

7. Don’t Humiliate Yourself Complaining to The Pirate Bay

8. Pirated by iTunes, Artist Turns to BitTorrent

9. How a BitTorrent Tracker Owner Hides from the MPAA/RIAA

10. The Pirate Bay Interrogations

That’s it for 2008. Happy 2009 to you all!

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.