TorrentBox Merges with isoHunt

[SlyckTom]

<a href=http://www.torrentbox.com target=_blank>TorrentBox.com</a> has long been a reliable source of information existing on the BitTorrent network. Its pleasant interface and large community made this tracker a comfortable home for approximately 50,000 registered users. However, TorrentBox administrator Hohead has released in a statement that he will no longer administer the site and will relinquish ownership.

Although things may appear shaky on the surface, TorrentBox will continue to exist. As pointed out in Hohead's statement, instead of the site being sold off randomly, it will be given to the capable hands of <a href=http://www.isohunt.com target=_blank>isoHunt.com's</a> administrator, Gary. This move will allow the two sites to integrate while still maintaining a degree of their independent identities. HoHead explains:

"As earlier stated, because of personal reasons I am removing myself from any connections with TorrentBox. Instead of selling it for a few extra bucks to someone who's only interest is ad revenue and money, I am instead giving it to our good friend who runs isoHunt. This transfer will be taking place over the next few weeks."

"isoHunt's ownership will allow the site to be maintained much better and will offer the greatest good for the bittorrent community."

isoHUNT is in position to become one of the largest Torrent communities on the Internet after this merger. While it already has a tremendous amount of indexed Torrents, the growth of its userbase should create an even more resourceful environment.

[Psycho Ced]

Interesting, thanx 4 tha heads up ST!

BTW; Is someone looking to enter the avatar contest?

[LxBeast]

Better to have 2 torrent sites merge, along with their respective communities, than to have 1 torrent site shutdown and lose another community altogether.

Some new milestone stats:
- Active torrents database now at 160,000 torrents, containing 3 million files and 100 TB worth of data. In other words, this is 4x the torrents available from Suprnova at its peak.
- Site registrations now break 200,000 members

Great read, thanks for the info ST.
Good luck to those involved with the merger, I'm sure it'll lead to great things :wink:

[Allied]

isoHunt doesn't even make the top 5 bitTorrent sites here on Slyck. Will the merger give them TorrentBox's spot?

[SlyckTom]

Admittedly, I have to reorganize that top torrent site box. I am going to start a poll and get the community's input on that one (unless someone else wants to (make sure you use all the sites listed there.))

[Skel]

better then it dissapeering... now isohunt going to be very large

[ccardoso]

Do you really think that it will exist for long?
In the future more and more trackers will be shutdown: the future is I2P, Nodezilla, Tor and other anonymous networks, not the trackers avaiable on regular http sites.

[red duck]

you are right that is future, but we are living in present and for quite a while we will be living in present.

bit torrent is the biggest beast in p2p world, even if wounded (few months ago several sites/trackers were taken down) it won't die soon nor it will die without fighting.

[bean999]

I think it's certainly better than selling off to some random commercial interest, and better than the site disappearing. There is a debate tho about the undercurrent towards consolidation in the bittorrent community, which this torrentbox move is part of. Prolly a benign development - torrent sites are springing up all the time - slyck's top 5 could easily be a top 10 for example - fact there isn't room on any site's front pg to reflect how awesome & varied the bittorrent community is becoming.

[Isaac@Isaac]

This sounds great but what if isoHUNT gets huge and the **AA's decide thats their next target? That would be a enormous blow to the BT community.

[SlyckChuck]

Looks like you have some good ideas Tom. Seeing BT sites starting to merge seems like a logical move to me. That trend I can see repeating itself.

[jarrad]

One of the strengths of anything to do with p2p is the sheer numbers. To state the obvious, merging only makes it easier to kill 2 birds with the same stone. I guess this is still a win albeit a short term one, but it is certainly not a 'logical' move.

[Xanthus]

A poll would be a good idea to let the users vote on the top sites. Alexa.com also gives a general idea of how big a site is compared to another.

Heres a sample using slyck's top 4 list + isohunt.

Top 4 Bittorrent on Alexa

It's between isohunt / torrentspy it looks like. I think you should let a poll decide who gets top slot.

[SlyckTom]

Alexa.com is the WORST gauge of a web site's popularity. It is a deceitful service that misrepresents a website's traffic.

Do a search on Google for "Alexa inaccurate" to see what I mean...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=alexa+inaccurate

[Xanthus]

Alexa.com is the WORST gauge of a web site's popularity.

I understand that it's not a good tool for measuring a website's traffic. I'm saying that it can give a decent picture of popularity when compared against several other websites in the same market and demographic. The ratio of Alexa Toolbar users to normal users should be similar across the board for the torrent websites. Unless a website has been "promoting" the use of the alexa toolbar, it's most likely that the ratio isnt skewed.

The fact of the matter is that the two major players are isohunt and torrentspy. Both websites have lasted through worst of times that fractured much of the bittorrent community. Both websites are complaint with the DMCA and do take down material if requested--possibly the reason for staying online so long?

Anyways, it's up to the community to decide.

[LANjackal]

The only thing ISOhunt ever gave me was popups and a Trojan. I'll stick to other sites instead.

[eclectica]

All the lamers have the Alexa toolbar installed, so scoring high on the Alexa rating is a mark of shame for a site's owners, because it means their site has the most lamers visiting.

[Xanthus]

All the lamers have the Alexa toolbar installed, so scoring high on the Alexa rating is a mark of shame for a site's owners, because it means their site has the most lamers visiting.

Thats nonesense. The major torrent sites are used by hundreds of thousands of people every day. You expect these sites to be used entirally by the so-called elite? Torrent sites need large communities to fuel torrents and keep torrent sharing alive.

heh.. People still use the word lamer? I thought that died out in the 90's with BBS's.

[muaddib]

ok, so we take one spyware/adware filled site (isohunt.com) and one almost dead ripoff site (torrentbox.com) and merge them to get what?

a spyware filled ripoff site?

heres a tidbit of info for you, look at the registration date for torrentbox.com (Creation date: 15 Nov 2003 20:47:34) then look at the creation date for the first torrent on boxtorrents.com http://www.boxtorrents.com/details.php?id=1

hell for the first few months after torrentbox ripped off boxtorrents site name they used the exact same layout.

it just like with ebay.com and eaby.com you use a common mispelling of a vastly more popular sites name so you can leach off of their traffic.

[bean999]

Hi muaddib - did you mean to have that the other way around?

torrentbox.com
Registration date: 15 Nov 2003
Snapshot Dec 05 2003

boxtorrents.com
Registration date: 17 Jan 2004
Snapshot Jan 30 2004

...they don't look the same .

Internet Archive
WHOIS

Re isohunt ads or unfriendly scripting, I see it's mentioned earlier in the thread as well, but apart from the site being (usually) rather slow, and one pop-up (which my host file nukes) I'm not personally aware of any problems with isohunt (?)

[muaddib]

boxtorrents was on crackrock til january because the hosting was free.

[parispete]

Re isohunt ads or unfriendly scripting, I see it's mentioned earlier in the thread as well, but apart from the site being (usually) rather slow, and one pop-up (which my host file nukes) I'm not personally aware of any problems with isohunt (?)

You really must be joking . Isohunt launches (at random) at least two popups plus several trojans . Worse still although Norton catches them they ofetn have to be removed manually. For this reason I avoid Isohunt like the plague. If TorrentBox goes the same modus operandi, it will be a great loss .

[Draken]

IsoHunt works great for me. Dunno whats the matter use firefox or some simpel popupblocker. If you do not im sorry for you. Not.

Draken

[Lurking]

I love isohunt. In the wake of all the sites going down, it is nice to see this one still around. Though it is only my top choice for older things, it is still an appreciated addittion to the torrent site lists.
In the case of the merger, it will consolidate resources which will not help anything, but in the long run it should be good since isohunt does have a long track history for a torrent site.
For anyone that hates isohutn because they get popups/adware/viruses....I must openly call you people stupid. Half of you claim to be 'elite' or whatever yet you are using Internet Explorer withOUT a popup blocker. Evolve - get Firefox and a decent antivirus.

[IH]

I love isohunt. In the wake of all the sites going down, it is nice to see this one still around. Though it is only my top choice for older things, it is still an appreciated addittion to the torrent site lists.
In the case of the merger, it will consolidate resources which will not help anything, but in the long run it should be good since isohunt does have a long track history for a torrent site.
For anyone that hates isohutn because they get popups/adware/viruses....I must openly call you people stupid. Half of you claim to be 'elite' or whatever yet you are using Internet Explorer withOUT a popup blocker. Evolve - get Firefox and a decent antivirus.

Thank you. My post on reported spyware on Broadbandreports: http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/62384#13141923

My stance on popups is that if you get popups, it means you don't care. I don't use popups you can't easily block. No popups = no spyware. I'm aware of certain spyware (Media Motor) in ads and we are trying to hunt down its source in the many ad networks, but it's a problem that plagues the networks and many sites, not just isoHunt. It's amazing anyways that people are 'leet' enough to use peerguardian and spyware scanners, but still use MS crapware.

If you do care about popups and possible spyware, you can:
- Install Google toolbar which blocks popups on IE
- Use other, better browsers like Firefox and Opera (highly recommended)

As for the merger, it's not really a merge. I'm working on migrating Torrentbox to isoHunt's servers, but Tbox will remain as a separate site with more or less the same current interface. While it's true that there's no benefit in consolidating BitTorrent management and I've said in interview before that BT's strength is in the numbers, I would think it's better than the alternaive link farms. And Tbox should have better uptime and speed than before, with additional functionality like isoHunt's search and BTHub.

Cheers