Captain's Log

Good Torrent Sites Revisited

So Bittorrent has taken off in a big way since I posted about it last year. I get a ton of search hits for torrent sites, even though I don't have a very good list, so I thought I'd at least make a new post with the torrent sites I use most.

Before we get to the sites, here are some of the things that I think make a good torrent site:

1. Traffic - More people coming to the site = more torrents, longer lasting torrents, less chance of a torrent with no seed. More is better, unless you have too many...
2. Stability - In the early days of the torrent world, sites went up and down or changed appearance and functionality very often. Also trackers which have capacity or DNS problems can kill otherwise thriving torrents. It's important for a site to supply enough hardware/software support to handle the load they expect.
3. Tracker info - I think it's important to be able to tell what the seed/leech ratio is like and what the file size is before you download the torrent. This is a strike, in my opinion, against forum based torrent sites.
4. Responsible users - Some torrent sites enforce ratios, which is a positive thing in my opinion. Even if the majority of people at least put back as much as they take, then the burden of supporting the leechers falls upon the seeders. Enforcing ratios leads to better torrenting for all who participate.

So here are the sites that I frequent:

• Suprnova is probably one of the best, largest sites. It has a wide variety of stuff, high traffic, decent stability. It has a decent mirror system which helps to cope with traffic levels that have brought many other torrent sites down.
• For new TV releases you can go to the website for #tvtorrents or #BT. Both have up-to-date TV releases, and have always been reliable for me.
• Phoenix Torrents is a forum based site with a very strong community. Requests actually get filled, and there is some enforcement of decent ratios. It has a wide variety of content and a large number of torrents.
• TorrentBits is a registration site with lots of restrictions. The have limited their user base to 75000 users, but that is still a decent number. They have pretty strict rules on how long torrents live, ratios, uploading, etc. They have quality stuff, and since so many of the users have good ratios, there's often a problem where torrents have too many seeds and noth enough leechers to build up your ratio. Which I think is a welcome problem. This is my favorite site at the moment, because I can build up my ratio by seeding, and then download as necessary later.
• TvTorrents.com is a registration required site which focuses on TV shows. It keeps track of your net upload minus download, which it calls credits. A pretty good number of torrents and a decent community
• I don't use TorrentReactor much, because I can usually find what I need on the sites above. And if I can't find it, then it likely isn't here either. It's still a decent site, with a crisp look.

Some time in the future I'll have to sort out the mess that is all the different torrent clients. If I left off one of your favorites, just post a comment.