Last updated Apr 21, 2021 at 7am ET
5 
ExtraTorrent, the second largest torrent site after The Pirate Bay, best known for its wide index of entertainment, was recently shut down. Mind you; site administrators gave no warning or explanation. Its users were left guessing the cause of the downfall.
This came after the registrar decided to shut down the site and its accompanying domains completely. The once famous torrenting site with impressive user traffic was no more.
Users accessing the ExtraTorrent homepage are welcomed by a simple but clear message, informing its users of this decision and advising them to stay away from expected clones.
Remember to check out our 5 best VPN providers for sharing files anonymously:
- The best VPN for torrenting overall9.6
- P2P-sharing torrent VPN with infinite connections9.4
- Affordable VPN for torrenting with extra security tools9.2
- Torrent VPN with great P2P features8.7
- Private & secure P2P VPN for torrenting8.6
It is a difficult task trying to find an alternative for the once prominent torrent. With the unpredictable shutting down of more sites, you must be wondering what’s left of good torrenting.
Nevertheless, there is no need to panic. This article tries to solve this conundrum by offering the next best ExtraTorrent alternatives. We shall carefully go through each site offering its pros and cons with the aim of hopefully finding the torrent site that best suits you.
To do this, we’re going to divide these ExtraTorrent alternatives into separate categories, including those made specifically for:
These categories include:
- general torrenting
- movie and TV torrenting
- game torrents
Alternatives for general torrenting
These are the best ExtraTorrent alternatives we found in 2018 that will meet your general torrenting needs.
The Pirate Bay
Better known as TPB in short form, this infamous site has a vast data collection.
An ideal ExtraTorrent alternative, TPB presents a wide range of audios, videos, applications and games, among many other things to download. As a bonus, it offers the files and magnet links of each torrent.
The site boasts of healthy traffic, with many users seeding and leeching torrents continuously. For this reason, The Pirate Bay has an excellent seeder-to-leecher ratio and gives us the freedom to download the most preferred torrent from a wide variety.
Unfortunately, The Pirate Bay is blocked in 28 countries including Sweden, Ireland, Australia and the UK, to name a few. If you happen to be located in these countries, consider the other ExtraTorrent alternatives below or use a VPN to bypass the blocks.
RARBG
Founded in 2008, RARBG is a fast-growing movie torrent that offers torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing.
The RARBG website is easy to navigate. You can download movies, games, music, software, TV shows, etc. The feature that sets this site apart from other sites is that it allows the user to watcher the trailer of a movie online and inspect the top 10 torrents of each category.
Compared to the other torrent sites, RARBG offers more accessibility. The UK, Denmark, Ireland, and Portugal are four among only nine countries that have current ISP blocks in place for this site.
1337x
Simple in design, and rich in functionality, 1337X is another perfect alternative to the ExtraTorrent.
Although it’s not the most appealing in this category, this ExtraTorrent alternative site has all the data the ExtraTorrent once provided.
It consists of eight categories namely; movies, television, games, music, applications, anime, documentaries, other and XXX. We can view the seeders, leechers, size and upload age in each file as shown below.
What’s more, 1337X has categorized the files according to popularity and top 100 for every month. Also, the site gives links to other alternative sites where one can find the same file.
1337X has its ISP blocked in only four countries – Australia, Ireland, the UK and Austria.
If you find the main domain blocked, you can try to use the other two domains which are 1337x.la or 1337x.to—for now. The other option is to bypass the blocks by using a VPN.
LimeTorrents
LimeTorrents is an established site that has existed for more than five years.
As an oldie, the site is consistent in offering a broad range of torrents to download. We can also easily access the top and recent torrents from the homepage. The operators of the site also run the torrent cache iTorrents, which are also used by several other torrent search engines.
This ExtraTorrent alternative site allows the user to download movies, TV shows, music, apps, etc. making it all rounded torrent site. For each file, the torrents are listed down according to the day of upload, sizes, seeders, leechers, and health as shown below.
While the site distributes most of its files legally, some of the files contain copyrighted content. Limetorrents doesn’t host files. It has however come under intense legal scrutiny from copyright holders.
You will, therefore, find this site blocked in countries including the UK, Australia, India, and the US. Also, due to its constant problems with domains and hosting it is sometimes difficult to remember the top-level domain needed to get to the site.
Alternatives for movie and TV torrenting
Torrenting is most popular for the movie and TV show niche, and these are the best ExtraTorrent alternatives if that’s what you’re after.
MKVCage
When it comes to movies and TV shows, MKVCage is the ExtraTorrent alternative we need to visit.
MKVCage has a wide variety of Movie and TV shows. They regularly update their sites to ensure the movies or shows available are up to date. Categorization of movies and shows depend on the type of rip (DVDrip, BluRay) and quality (1080p, 720p, 480p) among many other forms.
Once we click on the download button below each file, the site gives you extra details of the file and download links available as shown below.
As the site’s name suggests, formatting of movies and TV show torrent files is in .mkv format. Therefore, before proceeding with the downloads, we have to make sure we have a media player or a Smart TV that supports this format.
YTS
This ExtraTorrent alternative site is known worldwide as the best source for YIFY movie torrent downloads.
The website allows downloads of YIFY torrents in 720p, 1080p, and 3D quality. For those of us who are not familiar with the term YIFY, it is an infamous high-definition movies uploader with smaller file sizes of around 700MB, the size of a compact disc.
YTS features unique and clean website design. After you click on a link, the site immediately downloads a magnet link for immediate downloading on our preferred BitTorrent client. Each file is categorized according to its genre, IMDb score and audience rating as seen below. You can also choose the file size and quality:
The organization of the movie torrents is top notch. We get to see the user comments about a particular movie together with the plot and other details of the file. Despite the renaming of its URL to YTS.AM, the YTS site still offers all the same features like before.
The original owner of the site was exposed as Yiftach by New Zealand authorities leading to the site being block in other countries like the UK, Finland, Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, and other countries.
EZTV
When it comes to an ExtraTorrent alternative that gives that has the latest TV shows both by episode and season, EZTV is just it.
The EZTV website is not as appealing to the eye as other torrent sites categories. It, however, makes up for this with an endless list of TV torrent files available. The torrent files exist in pairs of two or more.
The options available for each TV show are listed down according to size, release time, and seeders as seen below.
The torrent files have an impressive speed as the site is always active. From the latest researches, the banning of the site has occurred in ten countries, including the UK, Australia, Turkey, Norway, and the Netherlands.
Popcorn Time
With a user Interface that rivals iTunes and Netflix, Popcorn Time provides an integrated BitTorrent client and media player.
Far from an ordinary torrenting website, this ExtraTorrent alternative is more of a streaming service making use of P2P protocols to get content from torrenting sites. Available for PC, Mac, and Linux, all users have to do is head to the website and download the latest version.
Popcorn Time boasts of a unique design and a user-friendly interface allowing us to stream movies and TV shows in HD and SD quality with no buffering or delays. The steps are clearly explained in the site as shown below.
For years, several governments have attempted to bring down the site. This has led to the blocking of this site in many countries. However, you can still bypass the ISP blocks and gain access by using a Popcorn Time VPN.
With all the pros, its only con is there is no downloading option available yet you need to download the Popcorn Time client to stream content.
Alternatives for game torrents
If you’re looking specifically to scratch your gaming itch, then these gaming torrent sites are great ExtraTorrent alternatives.
CroTorrents
CroTorrents is an ExtraTorrent alternative site for downloading free PC game torrents.
From the CroTorrents website, you can get the latest game updates, features and specifications. The site has a user-friendly and straightforward interface that offers a wide selection of free games to download.
The categorization of games depends on the genre for ease of search. What’s more, the CroTorrents site has an FAQ option to help us better understand how to navigate through the site.
Once we click on a game of choice, the site gives specific game instructions that the user has to go through before clicking the torrent download button as shown below.
GazelleGames
This ExtraTorrent alternative is, simply put, a private torrent tracker for games.
The only catch is we have to undergo a registration process before gaining access to all the games. Once that happens, there is no going back. GazelleGames site boasts of more than 60,000 game torrents carefully grouped into different genres.
Navigating the site proves to be tasking at first, but once we get accustomed to it, it’s like child’s play. The wide array of games is listed down with the size, seeders, leechers and upload time of each game displayed to the right as shown below.
Download Game Torrents
When it comes to accomplishing our gaming cravings, Download Game Torrents is the answer.
This ExtraTorrent alternative site allows us to play online games instantly on different devices. If we’re looking for a particular game, we can click on the search button and type the game. Otherwise, there is a wide variety of games to select.
Once you click on the movie of choice, a new page opens with a brief overview of the game, short footage of the game and a ‘download now’ button at the bottom of the page.
Right from its name, Download Games Torrents is a straightforward and incredibly user-friendly site allowing for user comments and reviews. Besides, you do not need to register an account to access the games as is the case with GazelleGames.
PC Games Downloads
PC Games Downloads, as clearly displayed in its homepage, is the A-Z of movies.
As the name suggests, this site focuses specifically on PC game torrents. Interestingly, we can download the desired gaming torrent files hassle-free. This ExtraTorrent alternative is a blessing in disguise effortlessly fulfilling the gaming needs of torrent users.
With this site, we can download and install various games in no time. The user interface is as appealing as ever and easy to navigate. Once we click on a selected game, a drop-down guide of the upload and game info together with some game screenshots and download links appears.
A significant advantage of this site: All links are interchangeable, meaning you can take different parts from different hosts and start downloading them at the same time.
The rise and fall of ExtraTorrent
Founded in 2006, at a time when sites like Mininova and TorrentSpy were dominating the torrent scene, ExtraTorrent climbed up the charts to become the second largest torrent site, trailing only behind The Pirate Bay.
ExtraTorrent was ever determined to develop an audience of its own. However, its rise in popularity came with regular pressures from domain name services and hosting companies to take action. This was the beginning of the end.
November 2015, ExtraTorrent lost all three of its domains (extratorrent.cc, extratorrent.one and extra.to) it used for mirrors. The administrators, however, ended up replacing them with new ones and the site was back in operation.
March 2017 was the last straw when the site’s domain name was shut down by its registrar most speculations pointing to legal pressure as the major cause of its demise. ExtraTorrent has now joined other fallen BitTorrent giants like KickassTorrents and TorrentHound.
All ExtraTorrent’s domains redirect to the same message: “ExtraTorrent has shut down completely” and advising users to stay away from fake ExtraTorrent websites. Despite the constant rumors, there is no sign of the site making a return.
In addition to being shut down, its main release group, ETRG, is also done. Ettv and Ethd, on the other hand, rely on donor handouts to sustain the expenses.
Safety while using torrents
Before climbing aboard the torrenting bandwagon, it is wise first to understand the risks involved with downloading torrents. The potential dangers include legal troubles, and spyware, vulnerability and jeopardized data safety.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a connection method that creates a safe and encrypted connection to private and public networks. For a user addicted to the effectiveness of torrenting, you will need a VPN to allow secure access to the torrent sites.
Most VPNs boost security but slow down speed. Personal and Hide My IP VPNs are however exceptions to this fact. The two have download speeds of 125.58 and 81.61 Mbps respectively which is are fairly strong server speeds.
Of all the ExtraTorrent alternatives discussed, the GazelleGames site is the most secure owing to its privacy feature.
GazelleGames is our top ExtraTorrent alternatives pick because it’s the most secure.
Registering an account helps keep your details safe. The best all-around VPN for torrenting is ExpressVPN with its strong encryption and a broad range of VPN protocols.
So, which of these ExtraTorrent alternatives listed here today are you using in 2024? Are there any major ones that we’ve missed?
Recommended reads:
Chief Editor
Jan is the captain at the helm of VPNpro. He ensures that every crew member is practicing perfect digital hygiene and spreading only accurate pro tips about technology. Besides that, he is a frequent contributor on many renowned publications, such as Forbes, ComputerWeekly, PC Mag, TechRadar, and ZDNet.
YTS is pretty good! You can just use PirateBay too, but I enjoy YTS as an alternative. The big sites end up disappearing not just because of copyright and legality, but also because torrenting is not as huge as it used to be. It’s far easier to obtain things legally these days, so some of these sites just don’t get as much traction as they might have ten years ago.
Magnet links are the best. And you can find most nice downloads on TPB. If not, there are countless others that do a good job of it. It’s just a matter of finding a site you like. When I don’t find something on TPB I just go to RARBG or LimeTorrents and I can usually find what I’m looking for. Other good places and alternatives to extratorrent are: torrentdownloads.me (which is not so know but it is a nice one to check from time to time), YTS.AM ot ZOOQLE. All good choices with some better than others depending on what you’re looking for.
It’s sad that so many torrenting websites close down all the time. But, luckily, more of them keep popping out. Though it’s hard to know which websites are legit, this guide really helped.
Amazing! I am always thrilled to be at the position that I have options. This is exactly what makes extratorrent alternatives a great idea for me. I hope you won’t mind if I reveal these 12 best extratorrent alternatives to some of my friends and brothers?
It’s discouraging how many of these big sites just disappear right as you get used to using them. Thanks for giving so many options to turn to!