In the small world of illegal downloading, The Pirate Bay or TPB is one of the institutions. Launched in 2003 in Sweden, the Torrent site is still a reference 17 years later.
Direct download or torrent and magnet link? Each fan of illegal downloading has their favorite philosophy. If Zone-Download is the reference in France for the first, it is The Pirate Bay which is a global institution , for the other two. A website based on a philosophy, which has survived where MegaUpload fell victim to the authorities.
What is The Pirate Bay?
The Pirate Bay was founded in Sweden in 2003. It is, as it described itself in the year of its creation, ” the largest torrent server on the web “. At the time, it already attracted a million visitors a day, numbers that have continued to climb over the years. There is a real directory of Magnets links, containing all types of files : films, series, music, books, software … More than 16 years after its creation, the platform seems more flourishing than ever, while the site is currently available in 35 different languages.
The Pirate Bay philosophy
If Kim Dotcom’s MegaUpload was a site that had a real economic impact for its creator, The Pirate Bay has positioned itself since its creation at the antipodes of this philosophy . Self-financed by donations and a little publicity, it is above all part of the spirit of a “free” culture. The ambition is therefore to make a wealth of diverse and varied information accessible to everyone in just a few clicks. Over the years, The, the site created by three Swedes, Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, has simply become the benchmark for the peer-to-peer system . A goal that has of course not gone without facing some blockages over the years.https://ff05c85390a6c6d5050255f5737e21d7.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
We can easily consider that The Pirate Bay is the real pet peeve of rights holders , whether we are talking about the majors of the record industry or Hollywood studios. They have therefore tried to use all the legislative arsenal at their disposal over the years to successfully shut down the site and prevent it from distributing protected content. Thus, the platform is the subject of blockages in many countries such as France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, India, Iran and of course the States -United. Yet since its launch, the ” most resilient BitTorrent site in the galaxy “, as it defines itself, has only been offline for a few days .
The transition to magnet links
The first four operators of the website were sentenced to one year in prison in April 2009 and a fine of 2.7 million euros. A case that was not enough to put an end to the activity of the website . This one however underwent an update in 2012, passing from .torrent to .magnet links. In 2014, the site once again had trouble with the authorities. Swedish police confiscated the servers at The Pirate Bay. But, less than two months later, the site was already making a comeback .
The Secret of The Pirate Bay Resistance
How to explain such a capacity of resistance vis-a-vis the authorities? Well, pirate bay played the adaptation card like no other site before it , or even since. Over the years, the platform has multiplied the addresses, closing with one domain name to reopen with another. If the .com and the .fr were for example used, others, less known, also had their hour of glory. We can thus think of .org, .gl or even.se and .is. In March 2020, the torrent site faced one of its biggest cuts, but it’s now back . The Pirate Bay seems more or less eternal. At the time, it was also a technical problem that was involved and not censorship or copyright issues.
How does this Torrent platform work?
In France, Hadopi always watches over people who wish to download files illegally by sending a never very pleasant warning. It is therefore necessary to find safer alternatives. The Pirate Bay is one of them. But how to use it easily? Like other torrent directories, it is indeed the subject of very special attention . The High Security Authority responsible for copyright and the fight against illegal downloading on the Internet does not hesitate to infiltrate users to find their IP addresses. It is therefore advisable to use a VPN.
What is the oldest torrent in The Pirate Bay?
Over the years, The Pirate Bay has of course seen an incredible amount of files go through. But these only survive if they continue to be shared by users. So which is the oldest on the platform? It would be an episode of a Swedish comedy series that you have probably never seen: “High Chaparral” . The episode was uploaded on March 25, 2004. Among other torrent files dating from the same period, we find “Revolution OS” or an album by the Swedish group Gyllene Tider.
No record however
Useful clarification, however, this is not the oldest torrent currently found on the Internet. This record is held by Fanimatrix and dates from… September 2003, a little less than a year before. 100 people still exchange content.
Go through a BitTorrent client to use “TPB”
To use the Torrent download site, you will then need to install a BitTorrent client. Among the best known are Vuze, Limewire or uTorrent . When the software is installed, just go to The Pirate Bay and search for the torrent file that interests you. Identify the file shared by the most “seeds”, that is, people who submit it, to ensure faster file downloads. Also check the document file to verify the language, quality or subtitles. Green or red thumbs are also size information. Click on the download button and accept it in your BitTorrent client. Then all you have to do is wait.https://ff05c85390a6c6d5050255f5737e21d7.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
We also remind you that it is completely legal to download a torrent from The Pirate Bay if you have the original one . We then speak of the right to private copying.
New url of The Pirate Bay
Over time, the site url has changed to escape justice.
The new official URL for The Pirate Bay is: https://thepiratebay.org/index.html
What if you used a proxy to access The Pirate Bay?
If The Pirate Bay is the most famous in the world, it is also the haunt of rights holders and many governments. He is therefore regularly forced to change addresses on the Internet or finds himself blocked by an ISP. Fortunately, solutions exist if you still want to access this gigantic directory of torrent files .
A simple alternative is to have access to a proxy. That is, a website that copies The Pirate Bay, but using a different location, a different IP address. Don’t know where to look? It’s easy. There is simply a website that lists all the proxy servers using the original: https://proxybay.github.io/ . It is a list that evolves regularly, according to the actions of the police. This is to regularly avoid censorship of the main site.
These proxy site systems are completely free . They are found all over the world. In France, but also in the United States or in England. Be careful, however, you may have to tolerate the display of advertisements that will pay for accommodation.
How to access The Pirate Bay through a VPN?
You can easily unblock access to the site using a virtual private network (also called VPN). The editorial advises you to use the Surfshark VPN which has a very good quality / price ratio . Once your virtual private network has been chosen and installed, all you have to do is choose one of the following countries: Switzerland, Mexico, Canada, Poland or Brazil.
How about using Tor to access The Pirate Bay?
Another alternative exists for those who are not necessarily comfortable with using a VPN. Then just use Tor . It is an Internet connection system that guarantees your anonymity on the Internet. The site goes through a multitude of proxies, nodes on the Internet so that you cannot be identified. Once the software is installed on your computer, it comes in the form of a new browser. You can use it on Windows and Linux, but not on Mac.
Mirror sites of The Pirate Bay
The main site of The Pirate Bay is not accessible to you? Good news, you have a relatively easy alternative if you don’t want to connect to Tor or a VPN. Indeed, you just have to connect to mirror torrent sites , which you will have found on a proxy. These versions are copies of The Pirate Bay which are hosted in countries where there is no internet censorship or control. You can therefore freely consult The Pirate Bay and find all your usual torrents without restriction.
This is a major difference with many websites which are sometimes copies of your streaming or download sites. All the content is not necessarily included. In a mirror site, this is not a problem. You can for example connect to https://pirate-bays.net/torrent-search . Be careful, however, you will undoubtedly have to accept the display of sometimes unwanted advertisements.
Tor site address
Once it’s open, you just have to use the encrypted url of The Pirate Bay on Tor: http://piratebayztemzmv.onion/ . Be careful, this system is also much slower. Note that you can also bypass the DNS set up by your ISP (Internet service provider). For example, you can use those from the Google search engine or those from Open DNS in the United States. You can find our dedicated article to understand how to bypass DNS depending on your network. Note, however, that Tor has a bad reputation. This is indeed the system that provides access to the Dark Web and all of its contents.
