Popular torrent site The Pirate Bay is reportedly back in operation after suffering two suspicious outages over the past two weeks, which had previously led to speculation that the site may be on its last legs. This news has been met with the rejoice of netizens who frequently download from the site, but TechWorm reports that other piracy sites haven’t been this lucky .
A handful of other torrent sites have reportedly been bombarded with issues. Popcorn Time has shutdown entirely and YTS (or YIFY as popularly named by users) is still offline after a series of issues. Meanwhile, Kickass is falling apart with numerous malware issues and site outages. In fact, both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox have flagged Kickass a handful of times over its use of malware-infested advertisements . In other words, users of the two most popular internet browsers are now unable to access the popular torrent site. This means that The Pirate Bay remains the strongest link, so-to-speak.
Kickass Torrents Is Infected With So Much Malware It’s Starting To Look Like The Pirate Bay https://t.co/ckDG1tGDrF
— Robert Allen (@shalaman) October 26, 2015
Popcorn Time Shuts Down, YTS ( YIFY) Remains Offline, Kickass suffers continued malware warnings,Pirate Bay seems to having its own problems — Andrés Ignacio (@Ainfranco) October 26, 2015
Thanks Pirate Bay. I was so amped to know there was a “Hot Latino MILF” just down the road waiting for me. Exactly what I needed tonight :’/
— Shan Smith (@Shanster11210) October 26, 2015
The Pirate Bay Is ‘Last Man Standing’ As Popcorn Time Officially Shuts Down, YTS (aka YIFY)… https://t.co/F8v8wD9AI9 pic.twitter.com/GiR66H5AVZ
— moomblr (@moomblr) October 26, 2015
Even though The Pirate Bay remains the most widely used torrent-sharing site on the internet, there are still folks who prefer some of the other sites, which are now crippled due to Chrome and Firefox malware filters. Nonetheless, social media is still blowing up with rejoice about the return of the long-standing favorite.
While The Pirate Bay may have seemingly bounced-back from its recent outages, there still remains multiple campaigns pushing to have torrent sites blocked from the internet. It was previously reported by the Inquisitr that TPB’s internet service provider is being sued for refusing to deny service to the popular torrent site, but the court has yet to decide on this case. Meanwhile, Portugal has become one of the latest countries to completely block torrent sites — as well as streaming sites — from their internet users altogether. Torrent Freak reports that more than 50 domain names have been blocked by ISPs in Portugal, and hundreds of websites are expected to follow in being blocked in the European country.
The decision to block these types of sites in Portugal was also a reportedly voluntary process — meaning that no legal action has been taken to lead to the decision. However, a formalized agreement has been entered between Portugal’s Ministry of Culture and the Association of Telecommunication Operators. The first wave of site closures took place over the weekend.
Torrent Freak also reports that YIFY/YTS may be “gone for good.” It’s been approximately a week since the site went offline. What’s more, their operations associated with the release of movies has also ceased publishing new films. There is also a reported lack of communication on the part of YTS, which has led numerous netizens to believe that they may never come back online. The site had once generated more than 1 Million pageviews per day, but now appears to be a digital ghost town, to the disappointment of its users. It’s being speculated that the site could have fallen victim to a well-coordinated DDoS attack, but nothing can be confirmed (or ruled out).
[Photo: Screenshot of The Pirate Bay homepage]