ExtraTorrent

ExtraTorrent

ExtraTorrent logo, as of November 2016
Type of site	p2p
Available in	English
Revenue	Advertisements, donations
URL	extratorrent.cc
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Optional, free
Launched	2006
Current status	Closed as of May 17, 2017;8 years ago (2017-05-17)

ExtraTorrent (commonly abbreviated ET) was an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Until its shut down it was among the top 5 BitTorrent indexes in the world, where visitors could search, download and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.

History

ExtraTorrent was founded in 2006 by the administrator who acted under the alias "SaM". ^[1]

In November 2016, the website celebrated its 10-year anniversary. The website briefly changed their logo with a celebratory theme and launched a contest for users to guess the most downloaded movies on the site in exchange for prizes. ^[2]

Shutdown

ExtraTorrent shutdown message on website

On 17 May 2017, ExtraTorrent voluntarily ceased operations out of the blue. The entire website was replaced with a message from the administrator, stating that the website was to shut down permanently (as well as all mirror domains), and wipe all data relating to the website and its content. ^[3] The website was already down for days due to an emergency maintenance situation, just two days before the website shut down permanently. ^[4]

At the time of its shutdown, ExtraTorrent's primary domain name was the 291st most viewed website globally, according to statistics from Alexa Internet. ^[5]

Clones

Shortly after the shutdown of the official ExtraTorrent website, multiple clones and imitations appeared online. ^[6] Initially, the most popular one of these clones was located at extratorrent.cd. While this was at first speculated to be an official rehosting, ^[7] it was later discovered to be a re-skin of The Pirate Bay, serving exact information from their database, under an ExtraTorrent interface. ^{[8] [9]} Despite this however, the website still quickly gained a large userbase, reaching two million unique visitors in May 2017. ^[10] To date, there are no new "official" ExtraTorrent mirrors as the database for the original was wiped during its shutdown in 2017. ^[11] The site was blocked in Spain in 2019, with the blocking of other similar websites such as Lime Torrents and 1337x. ^[12]

References

1. "ExtraTorrent website shuts down". The Asian Age. 2017-05-19. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
2. "Torrent Icon ExtraTorrent Turns Ten Years old Today". TorrentFreak. 2016-11-15. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
3. "ExtraTorrent Shuts Down For Good". TorrentFreak. 2017-05-17. Archived from the original on 2020-10-29. Retrieved 2020-10-29.
4. "ExtraTorrent Suffers Extended Downtime (Updated)". TorrentFreak. 2017-05-15. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
5. "Extratorrent.cc Traffic, Demographics and Competitors - Alexa". 2017-05-17. Archived from the original on 2017-05-17. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
6. Brown, Aaron (2017-05-31). "ExtraTorrent is BACK, but you might not want to trust the return of this torrent site". Express.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
7. "A Week After Its Death, Extratorrent Is Back Online (Updated)". Digital Music News. 2017-05-22. Archived from the original on 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
8. "'Resurrected' Extratorrent Site Turns Out to Be a Scam..." Digital Music News. 2017-05-25. Archived from the original on 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
9. Tiwari, Aditya (2017-05-24). "Extratorrent Is Still Dead — Don't Fall For Copycats And The Pirate Bay Mirrors Like Extratorrent.cd". Fossbytes. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
10. "Extratorrent Clone Extratorrent.cd Is Approaching 10 Million Visitors". Digital Music News. 2017-06-06. Archived from the original on 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
11. "No, ExtraTorrent Has Not Been Resurrected". TorrentFreak. 2017-05-24. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.
12. "Court Orders 1337x, LimeTorrents, and More Blocked in Spain". TorrentFreak. 2019-01-31. Archived from the original on 2019-06-01. Retrieved 2019-06-01.