Searching for Torrents (Popular Torrent Search Sites)

There is a great deal of content available in bittorrent (see What is Bittorrent?) and finding it is getting easier as the number of torrent search sites has been growing.  The first steps are getting a bittorrent client and setting it up properly (Best Free Bittorrent Client).  The next step is finding the content you want, which this article hopes to help with.

First a brief explanation of the bittorrent protocol and torrents.  Bittorrent is a file sharing protocol within the group known as peer to peer (P2P) distribution.  This means that the transfer of the content is done by the users as opposed to a dedicated server.  In bittorrent a small file called a .torrent file is downloaded and then opened with a bittorrent client.  This torrent file sets up communications by the bittorrent client with other people active on the torrent and allows for the download of the content.

The .torrent file contains metadata about the files to be shared and about the tracker(s), which coordinate communications between the bittorrent clients for the distribution of the files.  The important thing is that the content of the files cannot be altered as the .torrent will reject the altered content.  This means that malware cannot be added to a torrent.  So, to avoid malware, it is important to check comments or ratings on a torrent before downloading it.  The popular public sites listed below have these features.

There is also a large, and growing, number of private torrent sites.  Private sites have the advantage of keeping fake or malware infested torrents from being posted.  Also, because of the enforcement of ratio (uploading back what has been downloaded) at these private sites, there is almost always a good seed to peer ratio and fast download speeds.  Most torrents listed at private sites are only available to members of the site.  Since there are so many private sites and because there is no way of knowing how good they are without being a member, they are not discussed here.

Another question that often comes up, is how do I know which torrent will be the fastest.  There is no way to know for certain which torrent is faster as the download speed depends on the upload cpacity off the other users.  The best indicator is the seed to peer ratio on the torrent.  The higher that ratio, the more likely it is that the torrent will be faster.  For more info on this, see Good Torrents.

Popular Torrent Search Sites These public sites are the most visited torrent search sites.
Warning:  Although each of these sites has legally distributable content, they also contain a good deal of copyrighted content which is not legally distributable.  While bittorrent file sharing technology is legal, the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content is not.  Obtaining copyrighted content through bittorrent may result in civil and/or criminal legal actions.  This may result in fines of many thousands of dollars per download.

MiniNova.org is the most popular torrent search site, with over two million unique visitors daily.  MiniNova has a good reutation for weeding out fake and malware infected torrents.  MiniNova has comments and thanks sections, which help in picking a clean torrent.  These are well used at MiniNova and are very helpful.  The amount of comments/thanks on a given torrent is listed int the search results.  Torrents can be sorted by number of seeds or leechers (peers) and comments, size, date added or category. 
MiniNova also has a section devoted to legally distributable torrents, which are referred to as Featured Torrents and are indicated by a red star.  These torrents are also supported by MiniNova's servers, so downloadspeeds are almost always high. 
This is a site that I use regularly.

ThePirateBay.org is the second most popular torrent search site.  PirateBay has comments and quality ratings.  However, I find that these are not of much use as they are not properly completed by users.  Mostly they complain of lack of speed, while giving no information on the torrent contents.  PirateBay does allow sorting of the torrents by seeds, leechers, name, size and time added.
This is not a site that I use, but given its popularity others may like it.

isoHunt.com is tied for the third most popular site.  isoHunt is a comprehensive torrent search site and lists over one million torrents from its own trackers and other trackers.  isoHunt has comments and ratings which are well used.  The amount of comments/ratings is listed in the search results.  For those torrents without either, they have a function to search for comments elsewhere.  Torrents can be sorted by seeds, leechers, age, size and name.
isoHunt has a large amount of legally distributable content searchable under CreativeCommons and PublicDomain.  Most of the creative commons torrents (over 20,000) are audio from Jamendo (see below).  The public domain torrents (over 1500) are mostly public domain movies.
This is a site that I use regularly and I strongly suggest it.

torrentz.com lists torrents available from a variety of sites and therefore have a large listing.  They do have comments, but they are not well used.  They do indicate torrents that have been "verified" as clean, real and password free, indicated by a green check mark.  The results are sortable by name, date,size and peers (seeds/leechers combined).
This is a site that I use on occasion.

btjunkie.org is another comprehensive search engine that lists over 1.5 million torrents from its own trackers and other trackers.  It also lists torrents from a large number of private trackers, which can be good or bad.  The private torrents are indicated by a lock image on the search results.  They have comments and ratings, which are well used and the amount of them is indicated on the search results.  The search results can be sorted by seeds, leeches, health, size, date, name and age. 
This is a site that I use frequently.

Between these five sites, one should be able to find just about any content wanted.  For the hard to find items a meta search site like pizzatorrent.com will be helpful.  They cull results from fifteen torrent search sites (including all of the above except torrentz).

These are the most popular torrent search sites, but there are a great number of such sites and your personal preferences may lead you to another.  This is intended as a guide to help those new to bittorrent, as a starting point for searches.

Related Articles:

• Finding Legal (and Free) Torrents.
• Best Free Bittorrent Client
• What is Bittorrent?

If you have any questions, comments or additional sites, please feel free to post here or in our Bittorrent Client forums.