Last Updated: December 20, 2021, EST
Co-founded by three young Swedes named Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij, The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated TPB, uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to enable users to download files for free with the help of BitTorrent protocol. Because this website goes against most global copyright laws, its founders were found guilty of violation of copyright laws and therefore sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay a fine.
For ease of downloading files, the pirate bay has clearly classified its database, placing every torrent in its category. These torrents come in various forms, including videos, audios, games, applications and many more. Furthermore, there are clearly labeled buttons to guide your navigation.
Even with the continued technological advancement and new internet restrictions, the piratebay has managed to remain strong and operational. Although authorities and internet service providers in different parts of the world continue to restrict this peer-to-peer sharing site, its millions of followers still find ways to evade the restrictions so that they can continue to access it freely and enjoy their favorite TV shows, movies, Apps, games, and other materials.
At the moment, authorities in more than 20 countries have blocked access to tpb. They include the United States, China, Australia, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Russia, Belgium, and others. However, there are many other countries and regions that still allow full access to the site including Switzerland, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico, Belarus, and many others.
Unfortunately, many other torrent sites have ended up shutting down their operations due to constant restrictions and market oversaturation. Surprisingly, the piratebay has gone through the same challenges, but it is still strong. Its ship continues to navigate the turbulent waters of legal restrictions, scrutiny, and heavy fines.
But this website won’t have been able to withstand these challenges without the support of its millions of followers. Through donations by well-wishers and paid adverts, tpb has been able to remain operational in the midst of all the trials. These donations are offered in the form of digital currencies such as Litecoin, Bitcoin, and Monero.
Millions of tpb users have found different ways of circumventing the restrictions to continue enjoying their torrents. For instance, they can use piratebay proxy sites to access files shared on the main pirate bay site. However, it is still not clear how the site’s legal challenges will work out in the future.
If the piratebay is prohibited in your country, you can still be prosecuted, even if you don’t download anything. So, to protect yourself against legal issues, you need to use a virtual private network (VPN) to access TPB.
You also need to understand that every site you visit records cookies (digital traces) of your IP address. Therefore, you will be putting yourself at risk of being prosecuted if the government gets hold of those digital traces that show you visited the pirate bay.
The word "Pirates" refers to the people who use The Pirate Bay. Sometimes it only refers to the people who are registered on the platform and who share magnet links and torrents. Since its development and the subsequent raid by authorities in 2006, the number of users on the pirate bay has grown significantly. According to its owners, the platform now has about 5 million active users.
Finding the best content on pirates bay quickly and safely is an easy task. Here are some useful tips to help you enjoy content on this torrent site.
These are useful tips that will keep you safe and satisfied on the website.
Since your internet service provider has full access to your online activities, they will know when you visit prohibited sites. Furthermore, ISPs are required by law to share this information with the authorities, whether you are engaging in unlawful activities or not. So, because pirate bay is prohibited in many countries, you might be sued for infringement of copyright if the government gets hold of your internet records.
Some governments have also prohibited pirate proxy sites and mirrors. Therefore, you might find yourself on the wrong side of the law if you visit these sites without a VPN. A VPN helps you to hide your identity when browsing TPB by allocating you a different IP address that is based in another region, making it difficult for your ISP to track your online activities. By encrypting your personal data, a VPN allows you to enjoy free content without putting your safety in jeopardy.
Generally, pirate bay offers magnet links to torrent files shared by different users. Therefore, it doesn’t have a way to check the quality of the content being shared. So, the best way to know about the quality of the files you are downloading is to read other people’s comments and reviews. If people like the quality of a file on the website, they will leave a positive comment. So choose files with more positive comments.
Generally, pirate bay offers magnet links to torrent files shared by different users. Therefore, it doesn’t have a way to check the quality of the content being shared. So, the best way to know about the quality of the files you are downloading is to read other people’s comments and reviews. If people like the quality of a file on the website, they will leave a positive comment. So choose files with more positive comments.
It is not possible to know if the files you want to download from the piratebay have malicious content because the website is just a sharing platform. Even the torrent client program you are using to download files doesn’t check the quality. That’s why it is good to install a reliable antivirus program to protect your computer against viruses and other types of malicious content.
Advantages
1. Special Code of Integrity.
Every P2P sharing platform runs under specific codes of conduct, most of which are not written. So, if you are planning to start downloading content from Pirate Bay, a process that is commonly referred to as leeching, you are required to carry yourself with utmost integrity. And if you are uploading content to the site, which is known as seeding, the same level of integrity is expected. This code ensures that whatever you do on The Pirate Bay or any other peer to peer sharing website doesn’t infringe on other people’s rights.
2. Resume Downloading and Uploading Content After Interruption.
Previously, long before the creation of Pirate Bay, downloading files always proved to be a hectic task. Back then, the internet speed was extremely slow. Getting a small file from the internet could take a couple of hours if not days. This made it impossible for people to download anything because there was no way one could keep their machine running for days trying to get a single file. But with the advent of torrent sharing websites like TPB, the experience has really improved since you can easily stop the download and resume the process at a later date. So, you don’t have to worry about interruptions when downloading a file because you will be able to resume the process from where you left off.
3. Easy to Find Files You Want.
With the pirate bay, you are assured of finding the torrent files you want without a hassle. This P2P sharing platform has millions of popular files that are carefully clustered into different categories for easier exploration. For instance, if you are looking for a particular TV show, you simply click on the TV Show category and scroll through the list. Alternatively, you can just key in the title of the file you are searching for in the search bar and click search. You will be provided with everything that has been seeded under the title you’ve typed.
4. Slow Internet Problems Solved.
Compared to traditional methods of downloading files, torrent file sharing methods are exceedingly effective. This has made it very easy for users to find thousands of torrent files on The Pirate Bay, even with a surge in traffic. Therefore, you will be able to search for your favorite files even when your internet is slow.
5. Easily Accessible.
Generally, many peer-to-peer websites are susceptible to censorship by authorities because they are often accused of violating copyright laws. This makes their accessibility very difficult. But with The Pirate Bay, you have a variety of ways through which you can access it. For instance, you can use the primary URL without any restrictions. And if the URL has been blocked by ISPs in your region, you can safely access the site through the best proxy site, just like:
Additionally, you can use a virtual private network (VPN) to access the website while keeping your personal information anonymous.
6. Access Torrents for Free.
One of the main reasons why The Pirate Bay is so popular among seeders and leechers around the world is the fact that it does not charge any fee for either signing up, uploading or downloading files on the website. This allows you to access millions of your favorite movies, games, applications and music videos without spending a dime.
Disadvantages
1. Risk of Downloading Malware.
While Pirate Bay is a perfect source of amazing content, it has also been infiltrated by unscrupulous users, whose main intention is to spread malware to other users. Unfortunately, TPB doesn’t monitor the quality of files being uploaded to the site; the same way it doesn’t monitor the files being downloaded by its users. This means that there is a possibility of users downloading files with harmful malware. Furthermore, you might download copyrighted content that ends up earning you hefty fines or imprisonment.
2. Encrypted Files.
With the ongoing technological advancement, it is becoming harder for users to download or share files on the pirate bay because content creators are now using programs designed to prevent people from sharing files. Most of these programs are directly encoded in the files to disable the copy and paste functionality. In other instances, you may be required to use a product code only applicable to specific regions, stores and users. Consequently, you might spend a lot of time downloading files only to realize that you do not have the right codes to be able to use them. Other files have CD cracks and keygen codes that provide a way around files with this kind of encryption. But you have to use them responsibly.
3. Affects the Internet Speed.
Torrent websites such as Pirate Bay are likely to slow the speed of your internet because whenever you are downloading a file on the site, you are simultaneously uploading a file for other users. The more files you download and upload at the same time, the slower your computer and internet connection will be. Sometimes it is even difficult to open webpages, leave alone stream videos or play games. It’s even worse when you are downloading large files. You may also have to decrypt the downloaded file, which in most cases takes a lot of time.
4. High Risk of Exposing of IP Addresses.
Every time you download or upload anything to the pirate bay, you are revealing your personal information, including IP address, to different users in the network. For instance, if the file you are downloading has three seeders and seven peers, it means that your IP address is exposed to a swarm of ten different users. It also means that your information can be seen by all the users in your network. Fortunately, you can prevent this by installing a virtual private network (VPN) on your computer.
5. Impossible to Review Torrents Before Downloading them.
Although you can assume that what you are downloading from the piratebay.org is safe, there is no guarantee that it is. What’s more, there is no way to review the files before you download them. This means that you run the risk of downloading files containing malware that will damage your PC. Even the quality of video, game, movie or application you are downloading remains unpredictable until the download is complete. Nevertheless, the website offers a comments section where users can leave their feedback regarding their experience with the file. So, you can easily know the quality of the file you wish to download by reading the comments left by other users.
Finding torrents on thepiratebay is easy because files are catalogued into their respective categories, including Applications, Movies, TV shows, Music, Games, etc. these categories are further subdivided into various subcategories so as tom enable you to find the files you are looking for at the click of a button.
For instance, the Applications category is subdivided into several subcategories, including Windows, UNIX, Mac, Android and the handheld iOS for iPhone and iPad. If you are just looking for random content that interests you on Pirate Bay, then you can use the Recent Torrents option to find the newest content. There is also the Top 100 category, which lists the most popular files.
When you are searching for a specific file on pirate bay, you will be provided with a long list of files with the specific name you’ve searched for. The list has two columns: SE and LE. SE stands for seeders while LE stands for leechers. In short, seeders are the people who have the file on their computers and are willing to share it with other people on their network, while leechers are the people looking to download the file.
Therefore, if you want to download the file faster, choose the one that has more seeders and fewer leechers. For instance, if the file shows 400 SE, it means 400 users have it and are willing to share it with others. But if it indicates 400 LE, it means that 400 people want to download the file.
In other words, a 5GB file with 200SE can take less than two hours to transfer to your computer as long as your internet connection is strong. But it will take several days to download the same file that has 200LE.
Understand that the same torrent files on the pirate bay can come in different sizes, especially because of their varied quality. It’s the same as YouTube videos which have different quality options, including 480p, 360p, 240p, and 144p.
Furthermore, some files, like apps, can have additional tools that make them bigger. Some of these additional tools are unnecessary. Therefore, choose smaller files so that you don’t download superfluous tools.
Make sure you go through the comments section of each file before you download it. That way, you will know about the quality of the file and if it contains any malware. TPB allows some users to comment on the files as a way of helping other users to know the quality of files they want to download.
In different parts of the world, skull signs are associated with death. People have been taught to fear this sign and anything related to it. But the skull signs you see on TPB are different.
Pirates have for a long time been using flags and boats with the skull and crossbones sign as their primary trademark. That’s why the website has adopted this sign to represent its most trusted users. Not forgetting that the people who use thepiratebays are commonly referred to as pirates. Therefore, the sign represents respect, not danger.
On pirate bays, trust is a precious commodity, particularly because the content on the site is shared to different devices through magnet links. Therefore, it’s very easy for malicious users to share files that have malware with the intention of damaging other people’s devices and stealing important data.
Since the site is committed to providing high-quality content, it uses the skull sign as a way of identifying trusted files from trusted users. Also, the skull sign on the site is available in two main colors: pink and green. Each of these colors indicates the level of trustworthiness of the user and their content.
A pink skull sign on piratebays means the user can be trusted and they’ve been using the website long enough to gain the trust of other users. Therefore, you can choose their files because they are clean and free of malware. A green skull sign, on the other hand, means the user is a very important person on the site. It also means they have been using the website responsibly for a long time and also have certain privileges that other users don’t have.
There are moderators and admin tabs on the website. These tabs mean that the users have volunteered to manage and moderate the site for free. Any users without the skull sign are quite new to the site and their trustworthiness is yet to be established. Although this doesn’t mean they are sharing any harmful content, you should be careful when downloading anything from them.
Unlike in the past, when The Pirate Bay used to host customary torrent files, the site now offers magnet links only. These links are hyperlinks with all the necessary information required by torrent clients, such as qBittorrent,uTorrent, Deluge and Transmission to be able to download files from the P-2-P site without requiring a third-party application.
Since torrent files are fully unencrypted, it is very easy for your ISP to monitor your downloads and uploads. Furthermore, it is not possible for you to know whether the peers you are connecting to on the site have bad intentions.
Therefore, if you want to download your favorite torrent files from a peer-to-peer site like TPB anonymously, you have to use a paid VPN. You also have to make sure that the VPN you choose doesn’t log your activities. Don’t forget that not every VPN supports P2P traffic and downloading of torrents. Some of the most reliable VPNs that support The Pirate Bay include CyberGhost, IPVanish, Windscribe and NordVPN.
If you use The Pirate Bay, then you need to understand the validity of peer-to-peer sharing. On TPB, you are able to access a massive database of free TV shows, games, movies, applications, music videos, porn and more.
Contrary to what some people may think, torrents are not illegal. In fact, The Pirate Bay permits legitimate P2P sharing. You can only know if whatever you are downloading is illegal by checking its copyright status even if it’s free.
It is illegal to download or stream any content whose copyright protection is global. However, public domain files are an exception to this law. You can freely share with Pirate Bay anything that you have created or holds provable ownership privileges on.
So, only individual users can determine the authenticity of their content. In the past, TBP continuously found itself in legal tussles with content creators, which have led to its censorship in some countries. Its developers have also been taken to court severally on claims of copyright infringement.
Although there are numerous ways of downloading files from the internet, many people seem to prefer to use the pirate bay. Here are some of the reasons why:
Piratebay.org has been blocked in many countries due to conflicting copyright laws. These countries include Argentina, Belgium, Australia, Austria, China, Denmark, Greece, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Iran, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom.
But even if you live in any of these countries, you can still download your favorite torrents from the pirate bay using VPNs or by changing your DNS.
The creators of pirate bay are not responsible for anything uploaded to the website because all content comes from the users.
A pirate bay mirror site is a mockup of the main site, thepiratebay.org. In some cases, mirror sites are created by the owners of the original sites to ease traffic and offer better access speed. But in the case of thepiratebay, replica sites are usually created by people who have nothing to do with the original site.
These mirror sites serve as the pirate bay proxies, allowing you to bypass all restrictions placed on the original site, including the ISP blocks. Although you can bypass these restrictions using a VPN or an all-purpose proxy site, pirate bay mirrors work just fine even when the original domain name is down.
To put it briefly, there isn’t any major difference between a pirate proxy site and a pirate mirror site. So, you can use any of them.
While some countries have banned the original Pirate Bay website as part of their copyright policy, their residents still want to enjoy its content. This has led to the creation of many pirate proxy websites and mirrors, making it easy for residents in countries where the main TPB site is inaccessible to continue enjoying its content.
These are mirror sites that allow you to bypass restrictions to the pirate bay website. Proxy and mirror sites are hosted in different regions under different domain names. So, even if the government has banned the main pirate bay site in your country, the proxy and mirror sites are still accessible.
Furthermore, you are free to develop your own pirate proxy site. However, you have to ensure that the proxy or mirror site you choose is safe and reliable. Some of these sites are full of pop-up ads and malware that might damage your device.
Due to the simple nature of the uploading process, many unscrupulous users are able to upload fake torrents and other dangerous malware with the aim of attacking your computer or stealing your data.
So, before you download any file from Piratebay.org, make sure you have double-checked it properly. Also, always go for torrents that have been uploaded by users that have been verified.
VPNs stands for Virtual Private Networks. These networks are very common among the users of torrent websites, such as Piratebay due to their ability to enable people to download torrents safely by hiding their IPs. VPNs also help people to access blocked websites in their area. With a VPN, it will be very difficult for your internet service providers to monitor your activities on the internet. These private networks make it possible for internet users to browse anonymously.
It is a unique technology that encrypts internet connections and replaces IP addresses with others. VPNs are very widespread in regions and countries where censorship is prevalent and internet surveillance laws are too stringent, like in the US, UK, China and Australia. Some VPNs are free and others are paid for.
If you want to install a VPN in your computer for downloading torrents from Piratebay, start by comparing the various VPNs available. Make sure you go for the one that will improve your experience on TPB. There is a lot of information on different VPNs on Wikipedia, PC Magazine and many other sources.
Once you access The Pirate Bay, you will naturally start to look for the content you want to download on your computer. To do so, you can use the search option made available by the tracker. Conveniently located on the homepage, you can type the keywords for the files you are looking for and get the results within seconds. Next, pick the ones that’s closest to what you were looking for and download it.
Since its inception, The Pirate Bay was not available on mobile devices until 2014 when the founders made the website responsive to smartphones and other mobile devices. Before this development, it was very challenging to access bittorrent. Even the founder of TPB termed the experience as "crap".
But with the responsive version of the website, users can now access content on The Pirate Bay from anywhere. But if you are using iPhone or iPad, you will have to jailbroke it in order to be able to download files from pirate bay.
For Android users, there are numerous torrent app clients on Google Play that they can use. The same case goes for Blackberry users.
Among the most reliable ways of access thepiratebay.org using mobile devices is the use of RSSBay, which provides personalized feeds that enable mobile devices to download files to computers remotely.
The responsive aspect of The Pirate Bay has made it possible for users to access the over 75,000 torrent files that are uploaded by users every month.
The pirate bay can be down for varying durations and for a number of reasons, depending on the area you are in. One of the main reasons for TPB to be down for a long time is government restrictions. If your government has banned torrent sites, you will often experience forced downtime. Some of these restrictions target specific portions of the website, which means the site is not down completely.
Since internet systems have reserved rights to restrict some downloading sites due to copyright infringements, there is no legal recourse for you. The only way to circumvent these restrictions is to install a VPN. You can also try location spoofing, although it works only for a short while.
Alternatively, you can use mirror sites to access the pirate bay. These sites replicate the content available on the main site, allowing you to download torrent files even when you can’t access tpb itself. These pirate bay proxy sites have proved to be quite useful in regions where the main site has been banned. But you should choose your proxy sites carefully because some are already on the radar of authorities. There is a long list of proxies available to choose from.
Server overload also causes tpb to be down occasionally. When there are so many users trying to access the site at the same time, the URL becomes overloaded, resulting in downtime. If this is the case, then you just need to give it a few minutes for the system to be restored.
If you don’t want to share your personal data when accessing the pirate bay, use Invisible Internet Project (I2P). It is an anonymous network layer that utilizes a decentralized system to make peer-to-peer communication and normal browsing safer and more effective. It creates the same browsing environment as Tor.
Some of its unique features include one-way entrance and exit channels, distinctive routes for questions and answers, and the ability to send messages through divergent nodes. Essentially, its traffic is more complicated than Tor. I2P is ideal for accessing Pirate Bay and other sensitive browsing activities. Use this link to access the torrent website.
While its popularity may be lower than some browsers such as Chrome, Tor and Safari, I2P is faster because it has very few users to share its general browsing load.
And even though this anonymous network layer tends to be slow when accessing thepiratebay, it is known to offer better security than the normal browsers. What’s more, it offers the same effective results as Tor.
For the piratebay to remain accessible to the millions of its users around the world, it utilizes Cloudflare as its Content Delivery Network (CDN) whose main function is to improve the site’s loading speed, security, and accessibility. Since Cloudflare has more than 150 data centers across the globe, popular sites like TPB can be readily available in different parts of the world, even during rapid spikes in traffic resulting from DDoS attacks.
This Cloudflare error alert appears on the screen whenever the TCP link to the web server isn’t available. The problem usually occurs when a Cloudflare request to the original web server like The Pirate Bay is blocked.
An Australian developer by the name of Geoffrey Huntley has created a new pirate bay for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Known as The NFT Bay, this platform enables artists to create their favorite works and sell them directly to collectors and fans through Blockchain.
The platform features many NFTs in their original picture forms, as opposed to the usual Blockchain-limited tokens. The Coin desk reports that this platform is already attracting 1.2 million visitors every day. It has also revealed that the site has over a 12.96-terabyte catalog with millions of NFTs.
The platform has several notable aspects, including its layout and logo, which are almost identical to those of the original pirate bay site, thepiratebay.org. Huntley has described the platform as an enlightening art project that will help people understand why they need to invest in NFT art sensibly.
Kickass Torrents.
One of the best alternatives to The Pirate Bay comes from KickassTorrents. Established in 2008, KickAss rapidly became the BitTorrent directory with the most traffic in 2014, shadowing even TPB on its way. However, two years after that, their domain was seized by the U.S government. Luckily, the tight community surrounding KickassTorrents revamped the website after the seizure and it has been a top alternative for thepiratebay.org ever since.
1337x.
The next TPB alternative on our list is 1337x and they seem to be doing all the right things recently. It manages to stay one step ahead of the competition as well as copyright-enforcement authorities through a series of domain names that can be accessed by users. The multi-domain strategy keeps 1337x safe from domain seizure as well and that’s comforting for all the users that access the website for the best music, movies, games, TV shows or apps. Users that want to help the website further on, can donate cryptocurrency on the homepage.
YTS.
Some users may know it as YIFY torrents, while others know this The Pirate Bay alternative as YTS. No matter how you call it, we’re talking about the same P2P release group that focuses on movies at exceptional quality and low disk space requirements. The original YiFY website had its share of trouble with the MPAA that finally shut it down in 2015, however, multiple copies of the torrent website appeared shortly. Out of all those, YTS.AG is the one that enjoys the most success by offering verified torrents only.
You can easily find the titles you need by using the filters and search options available on the site. Genre, quality, or rating are just a few of the search options offered by YTS.AG for users to find the movies and TV-shows they want.
TorLock.
Another valid alternative for Pirate Bay torrents website is presented to you by TorLock. With over 5,3 million verified torrents, TorLock is one of the richest torrent websites out there. Just like with the previous suggestions, you can easily filter the content available here by main categories like movies, games, TV shows, software, ebooks, or even adult. On top of these main categories, the tag cloud helps you quickly identify trending torrents.
Zoogle.
Last but not least, we have Zooqle is the new kid on the block that already enjoys a lot of attention and popularity. Not only that you will gain access to 4 million verified torrents or even more, but with Zooqle you can also enjoy an RSS feed and subscriptions that make it a lot easier to find exactly the content that you are looking for. Zooqle is a Russian website that is available entirely in English and you will enjoy one of the smoothest experiences possible.