Jun 11, 2008
Following Mininova and The Pirate Bay, isoHunt is now the third BitTorrent site to enter the list of top 100 most visited websites on the Internet. Together the three sites generate more than a billion pageviews a month and they continue to grow.
Most recently, isoHunt managed to get a spot among the 100 120 most visited domains on the Internet, according to Alexa’s new and improved statistics.
Isohunt - the third largest BitTorrent site with 350.000 pageviews a month - is one of the older BitTorrent sites and predates both The Pirate Bay and Mininova. The site started in January 2003, and added support for torrents by the end of that year just a few months after the BitTorrent protocol went public.
At the time, ... Read More
Jun 11, 2008
TV shows are by far the most wanted files via BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s fast becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading? Let’s find out, and take a look at this weeks “Most pirated TV-episodes” chart.
The data is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.
At the end of the year we will publish a list of most downloaded TV-shows for the entire year, like we did last December.
TV-shows such as “Lost” and “Heroes” can get up to 10 million downloads per episode, in only a week.
Top Downloads June 01 - June 08
Ranking
TV-show
1
(2)
Battlestar Galactica
2
(3)
The Daily Show
3
(4)
The Colbert Report
4
(new)
Doctor Who
5
(7)
The Tudors
6
(5)
Fear Itself
7
(5)
So You Think You Can Dance
8
(10)
Greek
9
(new)
MTV ... Read More
Jun 10, 2008
There are many devices available today that are technically able to run BitTorrent, but the manufacturers choose to limit the usability of their devices. TorrentFreak chats to the developer of TorrentRelay, a service that allows you to download torrents on the PS3, iPhone and many other web-enabled devices.
So you have a brand new, super-powerful, web-enabled device that could easily run 3rd party software - if only the manufacturer hadn’t spent millions locking the device down so it can’t. Luckily, there are third party services that make it possible to put these gadgets to further use.
TorrentFreak spoke with Kevin Kowalewski of TorrentRelay, which is designed to bring BitTorrent functionality to platforms that don’t support a native torrent client, such as the PlayStation 3, Wii or iPhone.
As we had an iPhone ... Read More
Jun 10, 2008
The Pirate Bay likes to get involved in Swedish politics every now and then, to stand up for their rights and those of others. Today they take a stand against a new law proposal that would make it possible for the government to track phone calls, emails and everything else people do on the Internet.
Yesterday we reported that the Swedish Left Party voted in favor of a motion that would legalize the uploading and downloading of copyrighted material for personal use, as long as it is not done for commercial purposes. This is a clear indication that at least some politicians are still in touch with reality.
Next week, the Swedish parliament will vote on a new “wiretapping” law that may severely invade the privacy of Swedish citizens. If the new law is passed, all email, ... Read More
Jun 9, 2008
This Sunday, the Swedish Left Party voted in favor of a motion calling for the legalization of sharing copyrighted files for personal use. The party, which currently holds 22 seats in the Swedish parliament, sees piracy as something positive, much like public libraries.
At the party’s congress this weekend, party members had to vote on a motion that would legalize the uploading and downloading of copyrighted material for personal use, as long as it is not for commercial purposes.
“To many of us in the Left Party, file sharing is something positive in the same obvious way that public libraries are,” the motion read, going on to describe the general opinion on file sharing in Sweden.
In addition, the motion stated that the various measures ... Read More
Jun 9, 2008
The top 10 most downloaded DVDrips on BitTorrent, “The Spiderwick Chronicles” tops the chart this week.
We do not link to actual torrent files because linking to files that link to files that may be copyrighted is something that might get us in trouble.
The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.
As of June 9, 2008…
Ranking
(last week)
Movie
Rating / Trailer
1
(new)
The Spiderwick Chronicles
7.1 / trailer
2
(new)
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs
9.4 / trailer
3
(new)
Be Kind Rewind
7.2 / trailer
4
(new)
Definitely, Maybe
7.5 / trailer
5
(new)
Chaos Theory
8.5 / trailer
6
(1)
Fool’s Gold
5.1 / trailer
7
(new)
The Onion ... Read More
Jun 8, 2008
A security researcher has found a vulnerability in the TorrentTrader tracker software which can be exploited to leak the contents of a site’s IP database. This database can then be used to gain unauthorized access to a site’s tracker. The vendor has been informed and a fix is available.
Security researcher Charles Vaughn graduated with a software engineering degree from University of Texas at Arlington, and he now ‘pays his bills’ with general Unix application server stuff. Recently, Vaughn decided to take a look at the frequently used BitTorrent tracker TorrentTrader.
“My passion is security, and I decided to get my hands dirty by auditing a code base. I picked Torrent Trader because it powers a website I use day to day, and the source is freely available,” Charles told us.
His ... Read More
Jun 7, 2008
When Nine Inch Nails decided to give away their latest album for free, the news soon spread all over the Internet. However, NiN was not the first, nor will they be the last. Tens and thousands of artists share their music on Demonoid, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and other BitTorrent sites. We got in touch with one of them to find out why.
Xihilisk is one of the many artist who use BitTorrent as one of their main distribution platforms, and for a good reason. BitTorrent makes it possible to reach millions of people at once, at zero cost.
Being a dedicated user of Demonoid, Xihilisk is used to sharing his (and probably others) music. His previous 10 albums are all available for free on BitTorrent. However, he decided to release his latest album “EPTwo Special Edition”, exclusively on the popular BitTorrent tracker Demonoid.
This move ... Read More
Jun 6, 2008
A new file-sharing service called Rhever is using an interesting tactic to get customers. It appears to be trying to scare users away from BitTorrent and LimeWire, and onto its service. Their promo videos are entertaining, I admit that, but are you scared enough dump torrents and try it? I don’t think I am.
I mean, come on. Who needs BitTorrent when the Rhever network has over 20 Million files, 300 TB’s of downloadable content, with another 2 TB’s of information added daily? Also, Rhever has some great (Mac vs. PC inspired) promo videos (we’ll see them below) poking fun at LimeWire, KaZaA and (gasp) even Bram Cohen! And it gets even better.
No more slow downloads, viruses, or adware/spyware required to find the files you are looking for. The Rhever application has a built in easy-to-use ... Read More
Jun 6, 2008
The British Phonographic Industry and UK ISP Virgin Media have done a deal which will see thousands of file-sharers getting warnings. The BPI will use its resources to track file sharers and will then hand the information to Virgin who will send out their own warnings to the customer along with a letter from the BPI.
In 2008, the ‘three-strikes-and-you’re-out’ concept has been gathering pace around the globe. Get caught uploading three times, and the anti-piracy groups would like your internet connection, disconnected. Unsurprisingly, most people aren’t that keen on this plan and ISPs who have been revealed to be considering such systems have received lots of bad press.
In the UK and at the forefront of this controversy has been Virgin Media. Various reports suggested that Virgin would implement the 3-strikes policy with the BPI but this proved ... Read More
