Torrents are a popular system for peer-to-peer file sharing. It was surrounded by controversy a while ago, when some torrents websites were closed down, so we just wanted to make it clear – torrent files are not illegal, downloading a copyrighted material is. Hence downloading torrent files that contain non-copyrighted material is fine, it does not violate any laws.
What does one need to download torrents? A torrent website and a torrent software search engine. How do you usually search for torrents? Most people go online and start googling for ‘free downloads no subscription’. Sorry to disappoint you but this way you are likely to end up at some dubious sites swarming with malware that will risk your computer’s safety. What you need is a good app torrent search engine for Mac.
Best torrent search engine Mac user can choose from:
1. Try Folx as great solution to search for torrent files safely
Folx
Requirements: OS X 10.9+.
33.51MB free space.
Version 5.20.13946. (9 Jun, 2020).
4.8
Rank based on 889+ users, Reviews(858)
Category: UtilitiesApplication
There are quite a few torrent search engine utilities Mac owners could make use of, but I personally would recommend the one called Folx. Not only it searches popular torrent sites, it also helps you download your search results, so the app is basically your two-in-one solution. Folx can download torrents via magnet links and save videos from YouTube.
This torrent search engine tool for Mac searches the following websites:
★ 1337x
★ Bittorrentz
★ Limetorrents
★ Nyaatorrents
★ Seedpeer
★ Thepiratbay
★ Torlock
★ Torrentdownloads
★ Torrentfunk
★Yourbittorrent
★ Anidex
★ EZTV
★ RARBG
★ Rutor
Please note that this list keeps expanding, thanks to the developer’s effort to deliver the best results.
Apart from powerful integral torrent finder, Folx provides abundance of other options necessary for day-to-day downloading like catching magnet links which most browsers fail to recognize. Also, Folx supports direct HTTP downloads via Proxy servers, guaranteeing privacy. Folx can be set to automatically intercept links in browsers, being fully compatible with Safari, Firefox, Opera and Chrome.
With Folx one can easily save online videos hosted by media sites like YouTube, including age-restricted videos. You can set video format and quality or extract only MP3 sound in case you don’t need the entire video.
Folx perfectly fits for convenient downloading. Unique tagging technology ensures comprehensive storage of downloads in folders according to the assigned tags. Additionally, Spotlight integration makes it super easy to jump directly to the downloaded files even without having to start Folx. One can turn on Apple Music (former iTunes) integration for a particular tag to automatically add the downloaded media to Music library.
Don’t let low speeds drive you crazy! With Folx, you can boost downloads to a large extent by splitting them in multiple concurrent threads, up to 20 ones. To free up network resources for other Internet tasks, Folx provides smart speed control which automatically adjusts download/upload speeds.
One more awesome Folx feature you definitely should know about is task scheduler with which you can smartly set up the time to start the download (say, at night when network is not jammed) and then to decide whether to shut Folx down, switch to sleeping mode or quit the app once finished. You don't have to worry about interrupted connection as broken downloads are autoresumed, so you don't have to manually restart them.
To sum up, its integrated Mac torrent search tool and exceptional management options combined with fast performance make Folx tailor-made for advanced downloading experience.
Here is your step-by-step guide on how to use Folx:
Download the application, install and launch it.
To search for torrents, you need to activate Folx PRO version. To purchase it, place an order, you can do it here.
Activate PRO edition.
Type in your search query and click Enter.
Folx will list the searching results that match your request. Choose the torrent you need and press button.
Check out your Downloads folder and find the downloaded file there.
That’s it – Folx does a really good job, and it’s absolutely safe to use the application.
2. More torrent finder apps
Let's have a look at some other search torrent tools that can trawl for the required torrents on the Internet for you:
qBittorrent
qBittorrent is a free and open-source app that has got shedloads of essential features as well as advanced ones. Listed among best torrent search engine clients, qBittorrent provides embedded torrents search functionality that can greatly speed up getting the valid search results directly through the app’s interface. Besides, several filtering and sorting options are available. However, the torrents search function is limited only to the major torrent websites for which official plugins are available. To get the search results from the websites that are not supported by default, the users have to install unofficial Python-based plugins which can be a real nuisance.
Among other leading features of qBittorrent one can name automatic loading of metadata from magnet links and embedded tracker used to create torrents to share with others.
Though abundant with prolific features, like sequential downloading which lets the users stream the media, IP filtering, web seeding and super-seeding, qBittorrent still cannot be named the best torrent client. The web version is somewhat bulky and heavy. Besides, multiple issues like interrupted downloads and broken files can totally spoil the downloading process.
FrostWire
FrostWire is a free open-source peer-to-peer file sharing platform. The software is a combination of a BitTorrent client, in-app torrents search utility and a media player. The torrents searcher runs through a few sources like YouTube, SoundCloud, Archive.org and PirateBay.org with the filter applicable to the search results.
Though providing some additional features like audio and video players and easy library management to create and share playlists, FrostWire still cannot be named among best torrent search utilities. FrostWire doesn’t always show the most advantageous results, proposing promoted or even illegal downloads. Besides, it won’t let you add your favorite torrent websites to the list so you'll have to be contented with the results from the limited number of sources.
Whereas FrostWire won’t install any viruses or spyware itself, it is still dangerous and risky as any peer-to-peer system, so always make sure the anti-virus software installed on your Mac is of the latest version. Moreover, VPN service usage is recommended to shield your Internet search activity.
Taking into consideration the high risks of malware installation together with poor torrent search results, we cannot list FrostWire among perfect torrent search engines.
BitLord
BitLord is a free, though not open-source, software which features an embedded torrent finder. A browser inside the application shows the torrents available for download according to the search query with a variety of sorting options. Besides the integrated torrents search engine, there’s a built-in player with the streaming option. The users don't need to wait until the video is completely downloaded and can start streaming it right away while the download is still in progress.
The app’s options are far from rudimental and cover all the essentials like bandwidth usage limitation, magnet links support, torrents reallocation, torrents prioritization and lots more.
But in spite of plenty of gorgeous options available, including in-app torrents search engine browsing through multiple Mac torrenting sites, BitLord cannot overwhelmingly defeat other Mac clients with torrent search feature. The app’s interface at a first glance may seem confusing for the inexperienced users. Besides, the installation procedure is not smooth and straightforward at all. Be careful during the setup process since you can accidentally agree to pre-install crapware on your Mac or change the browser homepage. All in all, this can hardly be considered a positive torrenting experience.
3. How does a torrent search engine work?
When searching for a torrent file, an experienced torrent user will never turn to conventional search engines likes Google since they often display untrustworthy results and can redirect you to a site containing malware. There are specially designed websites, like Nyaa, hosting P2P files and providing embedded search.
However, there’s even a better option allowing you to survey dozens of torrent websites for Mac simultaneously. Yes, we are speaking about torrent search engines. They are usually reasonably structured and obvious to use, so it will take you a few clicks to find the best file available. But how exactly do they retrieve the torrents from the other torrent websites for Mac?
Well, torrent search engines use particular algorithms to crawl other websites and return the most relevant search results to you. As you know, an uploader makes a file available through a BitTorrent node, but it is indeed the link to this node which a person makes available to the torrent site. Now a torrents search engine comes into play. But still, the method of torrent search engines cannot be explained in a few words as they are divided into two categories basing on the torrent listings type: intra-website and inter-website listing sites.
Intra-website listing search engines list the node links which were individually submitted by users and therefore implement a standard keyword-based search. The examples of this particular type can be 1337x or the Pirate's Bay.
Inter-website listing sites are those applying either inter-site or selective search. Meta-search engines aggregate data from multiple Mac torrenting sites (torrentz.eu, e.g.). Selective search engines, in their turn, give back the results after going through a particular set of the websites, which is significantly more efficient.
Now that you know how exactly search engines work, we will give you a list of the best torrent search engines Mac owners might be interested in.
4. Best torrent search engine websites to start from:
In this section we will give you a list of best torrent client search engine Mac owners might be interested in:
https://torrentz.eu/ Torrentz has been around since 2003, and it is known for its powerful meta-search engine that scouts about 25 torrent resources.
http://torrent-finder.info/ Torrent-Finder.info searches more than 126 sites for you so it is likely you will find what you are looking for. To make things easier you can either specify what torrent websites to search or select their category – Private Torrent Sites, Anime Torrent Sites and non-English Torrent sites. Enter a keyword, select torrent sites or a category and click < Search >.
https://torrents.me/ Torrents.Me employs Google custom search and displays the top torrent site among the search results.
http://www.toorgle.com/ This site uses Google mechanism to look up bittorent sites on more than 450 sites.
http://veoble.com/torrent/ Veoble is powered by Google Custom Search. The service has a cool interface with black background.
Please note that none of these services guarantee that it is safe to download their search results. They might contain malware detrimental for your computer’s health. Compared to them Folx, the Mac app torrent search engine we mentioned above, returns much safer results.
5. Most popular Torrent sites
And here is a special treat for you – a list of 5 most-visited torrent websites. We have prepared it based on various traffic reports.
Torrentdownloads
TorrentDownloads is one of the oldest torrent sites. Last time it was included in the top 10 torrent sites in 2011 to make a comeback only this year. Every month the site is visited by millions of users.
The pirate bay
The Pirate Bay is inevitably associated with, well, piracy. The site is surrounded by a lot of controversies and it was closed down a couple of times. However it seems that the scandalous reputation only adds to the site’s popularity. The site offers plenty of resources from various web addresses.
RARBG RARBG started operating as a torrent tracker in Bulgaria. It first made appearance in Top 10 torrent websites some years ago and is going strong since then. The site was blocked by UK ISPs last year, which seems to be a not-so-big-deal for most sites in this list.
1337X 1337x is one of those sites built around the torrents community. It has been pretty active till recently, but now a lot of community members, moderators and administrators are staying away from the site due to security issues. There are concerns about the future of the site, but as of now it is still striving and attracts a decent number of visitors.
If for any reason your favourite torrent site is not working, you can use torrent proxy or mirror sites instead.
Well, that should be enough for you to start. Hope Mac owners will find useful this information about torrent clients and search engines. If you still have doubts or questions, do not hesitate to get in touch with me.
A torrent tracker is a server which helps to transfer files between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. First, a peer informs the tracker about its interest in a torrent. The tracker keeps record of the number of seeds, peers, etc. So it responds in its turn with a list of other peers available. Once you’ve downloaded a .torrent file from any Mac torrent tracker and added it into your torrent client, the latter will send requests to other peers to get portions of that file. Trackers can be public, or open, and private ones, which require authorization.
BitTorrent file sharing protocol allows partitioned files to be downloaded from multiple peers. Torrenting is simply finding file fragments to finally form a whole one. Using a torrent client itself isn’t illegal, but surely there are certain nuances. You can freely download any files which are not subjected to copyright or distribution laws, like open-source software. On the contrary, torrenting copyrighted content breaches legislation and you can end up entering muddy waters.
The general recommendation would be to seed until you reach at least the 1:1 ratio to give back what you have taken. The BitTorrent network uses a kind of fairness system. In fact, you don't download from the Mac torrent server, but from other users, so we should seed to be fair with them. Moreover, the users uploading more to other users are rewarded to a certain extent. The higher seeding ratio you have, the faster download speeds you'll get. Private torrent trackers can even ban you from downloading if your upload ratio is insufficient. All in all, unwillingness to seed degrades the quality of torrenting. Nobody likes seeing unseeded torrents on the site or experiencing slow downloads.
When choosing among diverse torrent search engines, remember that a decent torrent finder should be comprehensive and reliable at the same time. Our recommendation is to rely on a standalone desktop application which combines a torrents search engine and a torrent client to download the valid search results on the spot. Moreover, downloading files should be quick, but not monopolizing all the system resources. It would be ideally to set up downloads in the background while you continue browsing the Internet.
Bearing in mind all the criteria mentioned above, Folx can be considered a Mac torrent finder which possesses all the listed options. Its elegant user interface together with the enhanced usability ensures quick torrent search through various torrent websites for Mac and unobtrusive fast performance.
