Whois & Analysis for torrents.io

The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated to TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software, founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, where visitors can search, download and contribute magnet links and torrent files, which facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing among users of the BitTorrent protocol.

A BitTorrent tracker is a special type of server, one that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol.

In peer-to-peer file sharing, a software client on an end-user PC requests a file, and portions of the requested file residing on peer machines are sent to the client, and then reassembled into a full copy of the requested file.

The "tracker" server keeps track of where file copies reside on peer machines, which ones are available at time of the client request, and helps coordinate efficient transmission and reassembly of the copied file.

Clients that have already begun downloading a file communicate with the tracker periodically to negotiate faster file transfer with new peers, and provide network performance statistics; however, after the initial peer-to-peer file download is started, peer-to-peer communication can continue without the connection to a tracker.

Since the creation of the distributed hash table (DHT) method for "Trackerless" torrents, BitTorrent trackers have largely become redundant, however, they are still often included with torrents to improve the speed of peer discovery.

In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms.

A torrent file does not contain the content to be distributed; it only contains information about those files, such as their names, sizes, folder structure, and cryptographic hash values for verifying file integrity.

Depending on context, a torrent may be the torrent file or the referenced content.

BitTorrent is a communications protocol of peer-to-peer file sharing ("P2P") which is used to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet.

BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, such as digital video files containing TV shows or video clips or digital audio files containing songs.

Peer-to-peer networks have been estimated to collectively account for approximately 43% to 70% of all Internet traffic (depending on location).

In November 2004, BitTorrent was responsible for 25% of all Internet traffic.

As of February 2013, BitTorrent was responsible for 3.35% of all worldwide bandwidth, more than half of the 6% of total bandwidth dedicated to file sharing.

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application) that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers.

A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server and the proxy server evaluates the request as a way to simplify and control its complexity.

Proxies were invented to add structure and encapsulation to distributed systems.

Today, most proxies are web proxies, facilitating access to content on the World Wide Web, providing anonymity and may be used to bypass IP address blocking.