Meta-search engine, Torrentz, has ceased operations this morning without notice. The popular site disabled its search bar function after 13 years, leaving a farewell message to users who attempt to log in. The shutdown signifies another major loss for torrent seekers as it followed Kickass’ closure two weeks ago.
Torrentz leaves a final message to its users
“Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining a dozen of search engines,” reads a text in the website that has now deleted all of its links today. Also, users who log in will get the following message: “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell.”
Founded on 2003, the search engine was a favorite among torrent downloaders for providing result links to different sites like The Pirate Bay and IsoHunt. But today marks the end of the site as it stopped providing its services to millions of frequent users.
However, in its 13 years of service, the search engine encountered few legal problems. The site’s shutdown adds up to numerous torrent domains ceasing their operations.
Torrent portals are crumbling to pressure
Torrentz’s shutdown motives remain unclear. The site has been reported to U.S. by The RIAA and the MPAA on various occasions without doing any permanent damage, but this seems to mark a definite end to the oldest torrent search engine.
The U.S. government is seizing torrent domains
Sixteen days ago the web was shocked when the U.S. government arrested Kickass owner, Artem Vaulin. The 30-year-old Ukranian was charged with copyright infringement and money laundering and could serve up to 20 years in prison. In the days that followed, some major torrent-based websites have been pressured to go offline.
The list includes portals like TorrentSpy, BTjunkie, Mininova and even the popular movie site, Solarmovie. These recent events have fired some speculation during the day about the possible reasons for Torrentz to stop working, suggesting auto-censorship to avoid any law punishment as the primary cause.
Has Torrentz.eu permanently shutdown? #torrentz #piracy https://t.co/bf2vNtrV3i pic.twitter.com/eEBSRpL4Rf
— Digit (@digitindia) August 5, 2016
But despite some efforts by the media, Torrentz’s owner has refused to comment on the situation and the reasons for the closing of the oldest meta-search engine.
For now, the main domain torrentz.eu and its backup portals are sending the same farewell message.
Source: TorrentFreak
