Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the torrenting world or have just started out, you could have heard: The United States government has taken control of the well-known torrenting website Kickass Torrents.
Kickass.to and Kat.cr, two of their most prominent domains, have been taken down and replaced with a big notice of seizure. KAT, short for Kat.cr, used to be the most visited torrenting website in the world.
After domain seizures by the United States government, however, Kat.cr and all KAT mirror sites were taken down permanently. Website owner Artem Vaulin was arrested in Poland and battled extradition to the United States before disappearing while out on bail.
Best Alternatives of KickAss
These are, in order of popularity, the top 20 alternatives to Kickass Torrents, as determined by our study. Finding torrent links and files is the primary function of each of these websites.
Here, we’ll delve a bit more into each of these locations. Please be aware that we make no guarantees about the content found on these sites; as usual, be sure you are not breaking copyright laws when torrenting.
1. Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is the undisputed king of torrenting websites, attracting tens of millions of unique visitors every month thanks to its vast collection of content, lightning-quick download speeds, and intuitive layout.
The Pirate Bay is unique because of the extensive community checking out any possibly harmful downloads. And there’s no need to go through the irate responses. Torrents that have been marked as malicious by the community are visually marked on the site.
When looking for an alternative to Kickass Torrents, The Pirate Bay is a fantastic choice. As a matter of fact, it excels in many more. The Pirate Bay and its mirror sites are illegal in several regions, thus its users must find substitutes.
Using a virtual private network (VPN) to switch your location and access the Pirate Bay from inside your country is one way to circumvent censorship.
2. RARBG
Similar to the other major torrent sites, RARBG is a strong challenger. Since its launch in 2008, this website has averaged over 40,000,000 monthly users. The RARBG interface may be more cumbersome than that of The Pirate Bay, and the site may be less attractive overall, but it makes up for this by providing a more tailored experience.
Here at RARBG, you can view the most popular torrents across a variety of genres, as well as read up on the latest developments involving well-known pieces of digital technology. The advertisements on RARBG, however, are really distracting.
Such an annoyance that many people will simply not even consider it an option. We found it to be a passable substitute for Kickass Torrents. Make sure an ad blocker is running before using RARBG.
3. 1337X
Unlike The Pirate Bay and RARBG, 1337X is not a massive site. Despite this, it nevertheless attracts about 50 million unique visitors every month thanks to its emphasis on entertainment media.
As 1337X lets you search for content based on nominations, it’s the go-to site for many users looking for this type of amusement. In addition, there are no annoying adverts on the site, and the download speed is satisfactory at around 3–4 MB/s.
Conversely, the 1337X library is much smaller. However, there is a lot of content that is copyrighted, so don’t dive in until you’ve researched the file-sharing rules in your country.
4. Torrentz2
Torrentz2’s focus is narrower than that of 1337x, as it is limited to music torrents alone. While many of the torrents hosted on the site are likely unlawful because they contain copyrighted material, the site does boast the largest music collection of any torrenting site.
However, Torrentz2’s advertisements can be quite irritating. In addition, download speeds are limited, and sophisticated filtering options are unavailable. If they can’t find their desired album or music anywhere else, most individuals turn to Torrentz2.
5. YTS
When it comes to torrenting, YTS is your best bet. Around 75 million unique users visit YTS every month, and the site’s 3–4 MB/s download speed and faultless design make it the top choice for movie torrents.
The library that YTS showcases is as stunning as its fantastic user interface. It hosts millions of torrents, some of which are quite ancient and obscure movies in high definition.
The files you download from the site are compressed, so even if your bandwidth is limited, you should be able to do so without any problems. Yet, as with the other sites on this list, it provides access to many pirated versions of commercially released films via BitTorrent.
Conclusion
After accusing its owner Artem Vaulin with several charges of copyright infringement, the United States authorities shut down Kickass Torrents (KAT). Since then, other knockoff websites have sprung up, including one managed by some of the original KAT developers: katcr.co.
Many of these sites, however, either have limited selections or include potentially malicious torrent files and links. I’ve tried over 40 different torrent sites and have narrowed it down to these 10 that are both secure and provide a wide variety of high-quality downloads.
The fact is that your anonymity may be compromised on any torrenting network. Furthermore, if your Internet service provider detects torrent activities, they may reduce your bandwidth and transfer rates. If you want to keep your P2P file sharing secure and fast, you should use a VPN.
