Founded in 2003, Torrentz has been a stable factor in the torrent community for over 13 years.
With millions of visitors per day the site grew out to become one of the most visited torrent sites, but today this reign ends, as the popular meta-search engine has announced its shutdown.
A few hours ago and without warning, Torrentz disabled its search functionality. At first sight the main page looks normal but those who try to find links to torrents will notice that they’re no longer there.
Instead, the site is now referring to itself in the past tense, suggesting that after more than a decade the end has arrived.
“Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines,” the text reads.
The site’s user are no longer able to login either. Instead, they see the following message: “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.”
TorrentFreak was contacted by one of the operators of Torrentz earlier today, who prefers not to comment at the moment. It’s clear, however, that another major torrent site is shutting down, leaving a gaping hole.
Torrentz itself never hosted any torrent files but did have a takedown procedure in place, allowing copyright holders to take down infringing links.
Not all rightsholders were happy with the site though. Both RIAA and MPAA have reported the site to the U.S. Government in recent years, which repeatedly placed it in its annual “Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets.”
With Torrentz.eu and KickassTorrents both shutting down, the torrent comunity lost two of the largest sites in a period of three weeks. This means that millions of users will have to find new homes.
Founded a few weeks before The Pirate Bay, Torrentz was one of the oldest torrent sites still around. When Torrentz first came online the site was hosting torrent files, but it swiftly reinvented itself as a meta-search engine, the biggest of its kind.
Breaking story, more updates will follow
