Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Torrenthistory – an open and legal torrent indexer

torrenthistory.org

1–10 of 31 posts

Re: Show HN: Torrenthistory – an open and legal torrent indexer

#2
There have been quite a lot of torrent indexers already, but most of them are sooner or later closed. So, I decided to create one more, simple enough (so it can work on its own on a relatively cheap VPS) and legal (so it would be much more difficult to close it). Most of the site data can be freely downloaded. Is there something you think any decent torrent indexer should have?

Re: Show HN: Torrenthistory – an open and legal torrent indexer

#4
post #3

not sure what definition of "legal" they are using. I clicked Catalog, then 70, then 80, and found lots of "interesting" titles

> This site and all information on it is legal. There are no:

>

> - files

> - links to files

> - torrent files / info hashes

> - magnet links

>

> You cannot find them anywhere - neither on the site, nor in its source code, nor in the database backups, which are published here.

>

> You cannot download anything from here (really). There are just folder names, file names and their sizes (+some other metadata).

(HN's formatting is seriously bad)

Re: Show HN: Torrenthistory – an open and legal torrent indexer

#5
post #4
post #3

not sure what definition of "legal" they are using. I clicked Catalog, then 70, then 80, and found lots of "interesting" titles

> This site and all information on it is legal. There are no: > > - files > - links to files > - torrent files / info hashes > - magnet links > > You cannot find them anywhere - neither on the site, nor in its source code, nor in the database backups, which are published here. > > You cannot download anything from here (really). There are just folder names, file names and their sizes (+some other metadata). (HN's for…

That's right, you can see torrent names and file names, your can search through them, but you cannot download anything. There are neither torrent files or infohashes there.

Re: Show HN: Torrenthistory – an open and legal torrent indexer

#7
post #6

What is this useful for? Genuine question.

1. Checking if some torrent exists in principle (by searching for words in a name) 2. Searching for the same files in other torrents (when you click on the file size on some torrent page, it will show all other torrents, which contain files of the same size, it is pretty good method of searching for larger files) 3. Just as an open dataset, which contains a lot of torrent metadata and which you can use in your torrent related projects.

Re: Show HN: Torrenthistory – an open and legal torrent indexer

#8
post #7
post #6

What is this useful for? Genuine question.

1. Checking if some torrent exists in principle (by searching for words in a name) 2. Searching for the same files in other torrents (when you click on the file size on some torrent page, it will show all other torrents, which contain files of the same size, it is pretty good method of searching for larger files) 3. Just as an open dataset, which contains a lot of torrent metadata and which you can use in your torren…

Also, just to have a torrent indexer, which will be there forever. Other large indexers had almost 40-50 mln torrents, when they were closed, all that information disappeared almost overnight. In my case, the cost of running is very small, the legal threats shouldn't be the problem either (come on, it is really not possible to download anything from there). And even if something happens to me - others can continue where I left, since almost all site data is open, anyone can create a similar site in a month or so.

Re: Show HN: Torrenthistory – an open and legal torrent indexer

#10
post #2

There have been quite a lot of torrent indexers already, but most of them are sooner or later closed. So, I decided to create one more, simple enough (so it can work on its own on a relatively cheap VPS) and legal (so it would be much more difficult to close it). Most of the site data can be freely downloaded. Is there something you think any decent torrent indexer should have?

Could the data be retained on something like IPFS so that cloning of the tracker could happen independent of its existence?
Post reply on HN