ExtraTorrent was one of the largest torrent website that ever existed. The site was popular thanks to its enormous and frequently updated library of movies, TV shows, e-books, video games and much more.
ExtraTorrent doesn’t exist anymore. But there are a lot of P2P torrent sites that make great ExtraTorrent alternatives. Torrent websites such as:
- The Pirate Bay: Best overall torrent site
- 1337x.to: Best for software, movies, and TV Shows
- RARBG: Best site for HD content
- YTS: Best for movies
- Limetorrents: Best for the latest torrents
- Nyaa.si: Best for anime
- EZTV: Best for TV shows
- Torlock: Big library with good seeds
- Torrentz2: Largest torrent search engine
- TorrentFunk: Large database of torrents
Since many countries block torrent sites altogether, it’s a wise idea to use a VPN. Apart from unblocking torrents, VPNs also secure your information and encrypt your data, providing better security overall.
In the article below, we dive into each of these ExtraTorrent alternatives and review them.
ExtraTorrent was shut down in May 2017, and though it’s been quite a while since then, many are still looking for reliable alternatives to the torrenting platform.
It spawned a bunch of alternatives, especially popular ones like extratorrents.cc, though they were mostly used for malicious activity, such as for phishing or for spreading malware.
We tested a host of torrent sites to find the best ExtraTorrent alternatives that aren’t harmful and have been around for a while. In this article, we’ll talk about the 10 best ExtraTorrent alternatives that are active and running in 2023.
Are ExtraTorrent Alternatives Safe?
When ExtraTorrent shut down in 2017, it wiped its database clean and took down its official mirror sites. As a result, copycat websites and mirror sites cropped up to take advantage.
It’s important to beware of clones or copycats pretending to be ExtraTorrent. Before the site went down in 2017, they even sent out a message asking users to avoid fakes before the site was shut down.
We firmly recommend that you avoid any sites that are using a similar domain name to ExtraTorrent and instead rely on the safe ExtraTorrent alternatives that we’ve highlighted.
Note: While torrenting is allowed in most countries, downloading and distributing copyrighted material is illegal. We strongly recommend that you check the rules and regulations in your country before you begin torrenting.
The 10 Best ExtraTorrent Alternatives
ExtraTorrent was popular due to its enormous and frequently updated library, reliability, and ease of use. After researching dozens of torrent sites, we rounded up the 10 best alternatives to Extratorrent based on those criteria.
1. The Pirate Bay: Best overall torrent site
The Pirate Bay is popularly known as the king of torrent sites. It boasts a massive library of music, books, movies, TV shows, software, videos, and everything in between.
The site is easy to use and navigate due to its search feature and filtering options. For example, you can filter content on the site by “Top 100,” which is useful to see what everyone is into, and you can also browse torrents by categories such as movies.
The Pirate Bay distinguishes itself among prominent ExtraTorrent alternatives because it makes it easy to find safe torrent downloads. Each file has a color-coded skull assigned. A green skull means trusted, while a purple skull means VIP, indicating the torrent is verified and safe to download.
Unfortunately, The Pirate Bay is still blocked in over 20 countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Belgium, and Italy. If you can’t access the website, you can use a VPN to do so. NordVPN can help you change your IP address and virtual location and access The Pirate Bay easily.
- Fast and large worldwide network of VPN servers
- Perfect for privacy and streaming
- Trusted by many, with over 14 million users
2. 1337x.to: Best for software and TV shows
1337x.to has a long history of controversy, as does any peer-to-peer torrent service that has survived the test of time. From being banned by search engines like Google to being infected with malware, 1337x.to has had its fair share of issues. So why is it on our Extratorrent alternatives list?
In October 2016, the site took a new turn, it was redesigned with a fresh look and feel, and all malware was removed. Today, the torrent site features a user-friendly interface, no advertisements, and a large library of updated content. This P2P torrent site is particularly well-known for the latest releases.
Although, unlike Pirate Bay, it doesn’t have a direct identifier for safe torrents. But you can still identify genuine uploaders by clicking on their username and checking their upload history.
The longer the upload history, the more authentic their uploads will likely be. So with a little care when you download torrent files, you should have no problems using 1337x.
3. RARBG: Large library with updated torrents
RARBG is a P2P file-sharing network that was founded in Bulgaria but has since expanded internationally due to its popularity. The popular torrent site is well known for its high-quality movies and TV shows but also contains other media such as books and video games.
The peer network’s layout is similar to that of ExtraTorrent and other torrent sites, making it simple to browse popular downloads across multiple categories at once. It also has a high seed/peer ratio for new movies and television shows, allowing users to download them quickly.
Several countries, including India, Portugal, and Turkey, have banned RARBG. To access the torrent site from any one of these countries, you’ll need a VPN for torrents to bypass any geo-restrictions.
4. YTS: One of the best Extratorrent alternatives for movies
YTS is the simplest and most user-friendly torrent website. It’s simple because it focuses on movies alone. That’s right, no TV series, no video games, just movies.
You can browse the latest movies right on the homepage, filter by 4K, or click on “browse movies” for more recommendations. The torrent files are available in 720p, 1080p, 2160p, and 4K resolutions. YTS became incredibly popular as it offered top releases in relatively small file sizes — drastically reducing download times.
The torrent website is also invaluable for timeless classics such as Casablanca, which you can download in HD. Despite the site itself not hosting ads, it instead opens them in a new tab when you click a movie title.
But remember that downloading copyrighted material for free such as those hosted on YTS is illegal. And, depending on your location, this can result in substantial fines or jail time. We advise against downloading any unsanctioned copyrighted material.
5. Limetorrents: Best for the latest torrents
Limetorrents has an intuitive and easy-to-navigate user interface. Once you land on the site, the homepage features a large search box to help you quickly locate what you’re looking for. If you’re not looking for something specific, there are categories such as games, movies, anime, and apps below the search box you can click on to view the various items in that category.
The site also has a colossal database mainly because it does not host its own torrents but instead links to torrents on other websites. It prides itself on being a family-safe site and does not host adult material. Limetorrents is fantastic for downloading the latest torrents, however owing to a lack of a decent seed/peer ratio, it is unreliable for older torrents.
6. Nyaa.si: Best for anime
Anime fans, we got you! Nyaa is one of the most popular anime-related torrent websites on the internet. It has a large anime library that is frequently updated for its 46 million monthly visitors. Due to a high seeds/peer ratio, download rates are fast.
The anime episodes are categorized into four sections by colors:
- Red for English-translated
- Grey for anime-raw
- Brown for live-action, English-translated
- Green for non-English translated episodes
As you’ve already guessed from the name, the website is east-Asian-based, hence predominantly serving torrents that appeal to the region. But unfortunately, anime is usually copyright protected, so there’s a large amount of illegal content on the site. Proceed with care, and only download what your country’s law allows.
7. EZTV: Best for TV shows
While the Pirate Bay is the overall king of torrents, EZTV is the king of TV shows. The user interface is similar to that of ExtraTorrents, but more cluttered. It does, however, organize its content in a unique and useful way. For example, on the homepage, the TV shows are categorized as: the latest added, full season packs, and 20 most seeded torrents, allowing you to find what you’re looking for or something new quickly.
The torrent website is famous for uploading episodes immediately after being aired. Not to mention, the download speeds are pretty good. Just don’t forget to use a VPN for ExtraTorrents alternatives, especially if EZTV is blocked in your region.
8. Torlock: Large library of different torrents
Torlock prides itself on being a no-fakes torrent site. One way it upholds this claim is by paying users to report malware found on the site. It has over 9 million torrents with thousands added daily. New torrents show up on the first page, and you can also browse files by different categories, or top 100 rankings.
The site is relatively fast, and most torrent categories are easy to find on the home page. Unfortunately, it had a recent update that made the ads on the site really annoying. If this doesn’t change soon, we’ll consider replacing it with other alternatives to ExtraTorrents.
9. Torrentz2: Largest torrent search engine alternative for ExtraTorrents
Torrentz2 is a reincarnation of the popular torrent search engine Torrentz, which first came out in 2003. It’s also one of the best Extratorrent alternatives. It indexes over 31 million active torrents from over 125 million pages on 50 domains making it one of the largest torrent search engines.
The site has a simple user interface, with a search box similar to Google. It’s a quick way to find what you’re looking for because it pulls results from different sources and takes you directly to the download page for the site.
The downside is that search results are sometimes unreliable and inconsistent with what you are searching for. Because of this, the site is used in combination with other Extratorrent sites.
10. Torrentfunk: Large database of torrents
Torrentfunk displays torrents in an elegant, detailed, lime-green user interface. The torrent site marks safe torrents as “verified” and rates files as either good or bad. This is helpful because it makes sure users download safe files only.
Torrentfunk has a vast category of movies, TV shows, books, video games, and much more each with good health and lots of seeds. The site has reliable search functionality that lets you find what you want quickly.
Also, the torrents are categorized by date added, size, seeds, uploader, and health. This makes it easy to find the best file to download as a direct download or magnet link.
Is Torrenting Illegal?
It’s worth noting that torrents are not illegal to download. Torrenting is simply a way of sharing files. However, it is illegal to share copyrighted material such as your favorite movies, TV shows, music, and books.
And as you might know, that happens often. In fact, Illegal downloading of copyright-protected files takes up as much as 24% of the world’s bandwidth.
Because most torrent files are copyrighted, countries prefer to outright ban torrent websites. For example, if you are caught downloading torrents in the US, UK, Japan, and some other countries, you may be fined. So, despite your overwhelming desire to download the latest MCU movie, we strongly advise against it. This applies to the best Extratorrent alternatives as well.
To stay safe, make sure you look up your country’s laws on the matter. A lot of people don’t, considering that most visits to piracy websites come from the US.
We further recommend using a good VPN such as NordVPN which has servers specifically geared for torrenting. Because of potential malware infections, we also recommend you use a trusted antivirus such as Norton to scan your torrents and prevent infections.
- Fast and large worldwide network of VPN servers
- Perfect for privacy and streaming
- Trusted by many, with over 14 million users
How to stay safe when using ExtraTorrent alternatives
Even if you’re not doing anything illegal, torrent sites are still risky places to visit. They may contain malware, viruses, or annoying adware that’ll ruin your experience. So if you want to do all of this safely and anonymously, follow these steps:
- Use a good VPN.
- Use good antivirus software.
- Download from reputable torrent sites.
- Download verified torrents only.
- Download torrents with a high number of seeds.
- Check comments to see what others are saying about the torrent.
A good VPN app is crucial when visiting any torrent website. It masks your IP address and changes the location you appear to be in. It also encrypts your data so no one can track your online activities, including your ISP. Good VPNs also have high speeds to ensure consistent and fast downloads for huge files like HD movies, TV shows, and video games.
Here’s a list of the best VPNs that you can choose from. For the very best experience, we recommend you go with NordVPN. Each subscription is covered by a 30-day money-back guarantee too.
- Fast and large worldwide network of VPN servers
- Perfect for privacy and streaming
- Trusted by many, with over 14 million users
Cybercriminals use torrent sites to spread malicious software such as keyloggers that steal your data when you download files. To prevent this, we again recommend using a modern antivirus such as Norton that stays abreast with new malware (zero-day) threats and offers multi-layered malware protection thus cementing your security.
Final Thoughts: Best ExtraTorrent Alternatives
Despite ExtraTorrent being shut down forever, there are alternatives that work great today. Alternatives such as Pirate Bay which is a great overall torrent site, 1337x which offers safe torrent files, and TorrentFunk. These are all easy to navigate and boast large libraries in different categories with good seed/peer ratios.
With that said, don’t get carried away with the infinite possibilities of free downloads. Your average torrent file probably contains copyrighted content that is illegal to download. It may even be used by cybercriminals to transmit malware. Stay safe by using a good VPN and antivirus.
Have any questions? Here are some frequently asked questions about the different ExtraTorrent alternatives that work right now, and our answers.
There are numerous torrent sites that exist today that make for good alternatives to ExtraTorrent. Torrent websites such as The Pirate Bay, 1337x.to, and Torlock are common choices.
It depends with what you download as a torrent. Torrents in themselves are legal. They’re just a medium for sharing files with one another. But it is illegal to download copyrighted materials, such as movies, music, and books.
ExtraTorrent was permanently shut down in 2017. But, there are a number of top ExtraTorrent alternatives that you can choose from.
