Emma Collins · October 24, 2024 · 7 min read Torrent sites and underground search engines offer an alternative to the otherwise dull search engines that people have got accustomed to.
However, most of these sites are dangerous due to privacy risks and having your devices infected with viruses or spyware in exchange for cheap or free downloads of files that aren’t readily available over the regular web. Use at your own risk!
How To Find an Underground Torrent Website or Search Engine?
The average user knows only one type of internet—the kind usually used for regular browsing. But unknown to many, you must understand the different layers of the internet to get a complete picture of how they work.
1. Surface Web: Sites have web pages that can be indexed by standard search engines like Google or Bing and are accessible to everyone.
2. Deep Web: Sites have password-protected web pages and therefore cannot be indexed by a “normal” search engine. This protection may be in the form of various security measures, such as passwords—for example, the online platforms of private companies or educational websites.
3. Dark Web: A hidden network of sites and the location for underground torrent websites. Average users can’t access them by using a standard browser. The dark web is on a particular type of network known as TOR or The Onion Routing. The websites here use an appended “.onion” instead of “.com” — which surface web domains typically use.
It’s difficult for a beginner to set up the TOR browser or search the dark web with it. This is where underground search engines come in. Most of them use torrents to share files and are more easily accessible to the average user through a torrent client.
Underground Torrent Sites and Search Engines: Are They Safe and Legal?
When you download files from a torrent site to your device, these files can be stored or transmitted for other people (called peers) to download via seeding. This helps everyone download premium software and other files for free or a minimal fee.
These underground torrent sites, however, aren’t regulated by governments.
Some are even closed or declared illegal not only because of copyright infringement but also due to the security risks for both users and enterprises.
Underground Torrent Sites and Search Engines To Get Cheap Stuff
Before you access these torrent sites, do note that your ISP can either block or throttle torrent speeds. That’s why we advise that you use a VPN when browsing these underground sites for speed and safety.
1. Limetorrents
Established in 2009, Limetorrents has over 24 million users. It is one of the most popular underground search engines, with a vast library of around 10 million torrents.
Limetorrents has movies, games, apps, TV shows, and more. It provides an updated list of the recently added and most frequently downloaded torrents. This website has many useful files like e-books and other manuals that you can’t find on other sites.
2. The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay (TPB) started its operations in 2013. It is known as the ultimate platform for providing premium stuff for free.
TPB has a huge database of torrents from various categories, including games, movies, TV shows, music, free software, etc. Aptly dubbed as the king of P2P (peer-to-peer) file-sharing sites, this site has an interface that even beginner users will find easy to navigate.
It also provides multiple mirror links and magnets, which makes the downloading of files easier. However, take note that TPB is not available in all countries. Thus, using a reliable VPN is a workaround.
3. Torlock
Torlock is famous for high-quality anime, movies, TV series, and e-books. It has approximately 4.8 million files available.
The top 100 most popular torrents are listed so that users will find it easy to search for the site’s best content. It also has a library of music torrents. Moreover, its interface looks neat and intuitive.
4. TorrentDownloads.me
Torrentdownloads has a huge database of free movies, games, music, software, TV shows, and other torrents. It is recognized as one of the most active torrent sites on the web for its updated selection of content. This torrent site is accessible globally except in countries like the UK.
5. YTS
YTS is the best torrent site for high-quality movies. It has a vast library of old and new movies of different genres. Moreover, it has 75 million users around the world and contains 30,000 movies with subtitles.
YTS has a straightforward interface. It provides the synopsis, specs, and IMDb ratings of the film and a list of similar movies and film pictures. The site, however, has also been sued recently for copyright infringement.
Although the ads have already been reduced over the years, there are still pop-ups that can compromise your privacy. It may also share your data with authorities in adherence to anti-piracy laws. Again, using VPN is advised to protect your privacy.
6. Zoogle
Zoogle has a good reputation for having the best video games and HD movies. It’s known for having a library of the best and warranted video game torrents. Moreover, it has a download speed of 1 to 2 mb/s per second and over 5 million visitors a month.
Its interface is relatively simple and user-friendly. Subscribers to the various video game categories or titles get a feed of new torrents. The one concern that users might have is the annoying number of pop-ups and ads that appear for just about every click you make.
7. AIO Search
AIO Search is a meta-search engine dedicated to torrent files. It has a clean interface, and it’s easy to use.
This site indexes torrent files from other meta-search engines, making it easier to find what you are looking for. It also supports searching through magnet links, torrent file uploads, .torrent file downloads, and trackers.
AIO Search is a complete meta-search engine that allows you to find the content you want through P2P networks. Like other torrent search engines, this site also filters by quality and size.
Tips for Choosing a Good Torrent Search Engine
When downloading a torrent file, it’s essential to use a torrent search engine that provides an easy-to-navigate website with a clean design. It should also have good download speeds. Using VPN services while using torrents will keep your web browsing safe, secure, and anonymous. Here are some useful tips you may consider:
- Site age and reputation. A long-running P2P site with a good track record of not serving malware or experiencing lengthy and slow downtime should be one of the criteria. Make sure to do some online research on any P2P site before using it.
- Health of Torrent Files. A healthy torrent file contains more seeders (users who upload and share the file/s) than leechers (people who download file/s from a link given by the seeders), which allows you to download the files as quickly as possible. In other words, you should look for torrent sites that many people frequently visit. Having a website with millions of torrents isn’t worth much if the health of those torrents is poor.
- The Site’s Content. Torrent sites today offer a wide range of files. This means you can rely on them to download software, movies, music, and other content. However, if you’re looking for more specialized content such as anime or a particular software, a niche torrent site is a better option.
- Check The Ads. Underground search engines earn money by serving advertisements. No wonder most of them have ads served in multiple formats, to our annoyance. However, this compilation of torrent sites has been shown to serve safe ads rather than malicious ones.
Opt for Safe and Affordable Downloading
You might not think that downloading copyrighted material is illegal, but you can get sued for it. Some torrenting sites are safe. However, users are still advised to use VPN for safe browsing, hide their IP address, and have a “kill switch” when downloading or uploading files.
