After the shutdown of top BitTorrent site BTjunkie, seizure of Megaupload and legal troubles for ThePirateBay, it’s really becoming a menace for the ‘pirates’ to continue their sailing. Or, at least that’s what the authorities think. But, as is always the case when one BitTorrent tracker site shuts down, there’s still plenty of more ready and willing to take its place.

I have compiled a list 5 free and better torrent search engines and trackers that are still pretty popular and running smoothly.

Note: The information provided is for educational purposes only. Piracy is still illegal and I will not be accountable for anything wrong that you do.

1. Demonoid.me

Demonoid is a pretty old and popular semi-private torrent tracker and search engine with a built-in forum. Access to site is restricted to registered members only.

2. 1337x

Just like TPB, 1337x doesn’t host any torrents on it’s servers, and provides only magnet links. According to the founders,

1337x was started to fill an apparent void where it seemed there was a lack of quality conscience ad free torrent sites with public trackers.

3. Mininova

Mininova used to be one of the most visited and most used torrent trackers on the web a couple of years ago (3 to be precise). Due to a court notice, the website deleted all of it’s torrent files. Only torrents uploaded by approved partners in its legal distribution network will continue to be allowed. At the time of writing, Mininova had over 10 billion downloads across 17 thousand torrents. Still, pretty much credible.

4. Vertor

VERTOR (VERified TORrents) is the new generation torrent site that provides users with links to verified torrent files. All the torrents collected here were checked for viruses, passwords, DRM protection and more. Music files were cut to give users the option of preview, screenshots for video files were made. All the files here are 100% verified and safe to download!

As of today, VerTor has processed 2.75 million torrents with an average of 3000 torrents per day!

5. Torrentzap

Torrentzap is a big torrent search engine and directory. Visitors of Torrentzap can anonymously upload torrents to this website, tracked by any BitTorrent tracker. Scrape data (amount of seeds/leechers) is collected a few times a day.

Bonus: EZTV

EZTV is a torrent distribution and tracking site dedicated exclusively to television series and programs.

So, which one of these torrent sites do you use? Or do you know of any other alternatives? Let us know is the comments below.