Kickass torrents is a torrent meta search engine founded in 2008. It is the 2nd most popular torrent site after thepiratebay in 2014 according to TorrentFreak. Due to domain seizure possibilities they have moved from multiple domains and finally settling in .to domain. They have more than 10 million torrents and more added daily. They also provide an api to download all data from their website. All torrents are categorized into 9 main categories and numerous subcategories. A user based voting system along with very active user community give the major advantage to this website over other torrent sites which act just as an Index. Users can also submit requests for new torrents and achievements of users are highlighted on the achievement page encouraging more participation. The website is also available in around 45 Languages making it easy for non english readers to access the content. Their .so domain is suspended so they have moved to .to TLD. They provide api to get list of all torrents on the website. Opensearch is also supported to easily add them to your search engine list. Users can give new ideas or feedback on the service in a section of the website called idea box, where other users can upvote the feature they find interesting.
KickassTorrents is a BitTorrent indexing site which launched in 2008. The site is one of the most popular BitTorrent sites, benefitting from an increasing number of visitors when ThePirateBay was offline for 2 months. The site currently has a global Alexa ranking of 75, and is ranked 29 in India and 98 in the US. SimilarWeb data shows nearly 400 million sites visits a month with 27% of that traffic coming from the US.
In July 2015, it was reported that Google Chrome had started blocking access to the site due to the site containing “harmful programs.”
During the course of 2014 and 2015, the site has moved domain names a number of times. In November 2014, the site moved to Kickass.so. However, the domain was seized by the Somalian registry and the site subsequently hopped to Kickass.im for a 24 hour period. Following action taken by the Isle of Man domain registry to withdraw the domain name, the site moved to its current domain of Kat.cr.
The site derives revenue from advertising and affiliate agreements, some with companies that produce software designed to hide users of BitTorrent from detection by ISPs and monitoring companies.
As with the other sites, no details are provided on the site as to the identity of those controlling the service or where it is physically located, so rights holders have had to seek alternative remedies. In 2012, right holders in Italy, through cooperation with the fiscal police (GDF), were successful in getting the site blocked by all local ISPs. In March 2013, major ISPs in the UK were ordered to block the site. In August 2013, Belgian ISPs started blocking the site and in January 2014, Irish ISPs similarly commenced blocking access to the site. Most recently, in March 2015 Danish ISPs were required to start blocking access to the site.
Kat.cr is currently operating on multiple different IP addresses indicating that is using a form of content delivery network.
Update Kickass torrents has been shutdown and its founder is arrested. Current up to date mirror is kat.how
Kickass Torrents Proxy, Mirror, and Platform Options
In August 2015, Kickass Torrents was receiving over 1 million visitors per day. Founded in 2008, it would eventually overcome the traffic levels of The Pirate Bay in 2014 to become the most-visited torrent site in the world.
That success would last until the summer of 2016 when the U.S. government decided to seize its domain. Kickass Torrents went offline on July 20, 2016, with the proxy servers being shut down simultaneously by the platform’s admins.
By December, the former staff members of Kickass Torrents that were not being charged with criminal activities completed their work in reviving the community. They re-established the appearance and features which had made it such a popular destination earlier in the year.
You can still access the revived platform at katcr.co.
List of the Best Kickass Torrents Proxy and Mirror Options
Several different options are available to you if your browser is unable to access the revived Kickass Torrents community. The best alternative that you could access with a virtual private network or a similar security feature is found at KickassTorrents.to. Although you are taken directly to the movies page with this option, you can also use the search query at the top of the page to find something specific.
You will also find the most popular search options that are under review by users like you at the top of the page. Then a list of the available torrents which are featured on the platform is possible with current seed and leech data.
If you prefer to use a Kickass Torrents proxy to access the content that you want, then there are several additional options for you to consider today.
It is important to note that the final two links in this list of Kickass Torrents proxy and mirror options use the secure HTTPS protocol.
Choosing one of these options should grant you access to the KAT platform when you want to do some torrenting, even if there are ISP blockages which are active in your area or on your IP address.
Why Choose Kickass Torrents for Downloads?
When you browse through the dozens of torrenting platforms that are available on the Internet today, then you will see that most tend to ignore copyright warnings or other legal concerns that may revolve around the content offered to consumers. It is not that they don’t understand that the content receives specific protections. The ownership typically doesn’t care or believes that the laws are unjustified.
Kickass Torrents takes a different approach, which gives it an extra element of user protection to consider if torrenting is something that you like to do. As part of the terms and conditions of the site, there is an entire section on content removal regulations that follow the current DMCA and general international copyright laws.
“We want you to know that we do not have any copyrighted or illegal content on Kickass Torrents. The torrent information we host does not have files that can be copyrighted. We are in correspondence with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and general international copyright laws.”
After this section of the text, the platform then offers a 7-step solution for content owners to follow when requesting a takedown. Although some other platforms are also adopting this approach, Kickass Torrents was the first to make it a reality.
Censorship of Kickass Torrents
The U.S. government has often worked to seize the significant torrent sites that are available on the Internet. Because of this concern, some platforms that are associated with KAT decided to move to new domains as early as 2011 as a way to avoid legal matters.
One of those is the KAT.ph domain, which is still active and one of the top ways to access the content that you want.
Numerous countries have ordered ISPs to block access to Kickass Torrents, including in the United Kingdom where Judge Richard Arnold ruled that the site contributed to copyright infringement. Even WHOIS and Google have blocked and banned various iterations of this torrenting platform. Even messages referring to Kickass Torrents were blocked on Steam chat or flagged as being potentially malicious content.
The country of Portugal took a unique approach, bypassing the legal system to create a voluntary blockage of the platform with an agreement made by rightsholders, the Ministry of Culture, and ISPs to block Kickass Torrents and other similar sites.
The U.S. government announced in July 2016 that they had arrested Artem Vaulin, a 30-year-old man from Ukraine as being the owner of the site, which is what eventually led to the domain, proxies, and mirrors being voluntarily taken down.
These issues are why this platform more than any other typically requires an excellent VPN to access the content you wish to see.
Will You Join the Kickass Torrents Community?
Any torrenting site can produce content that becomes available for download with just a click. Although every website provides a risk that the information you access may not be 100% authentic, what makes Kickass Torrents unique is the fact that it is a close-knit group of users who work hard to support one another.
If the content is not of authentic quality, then it is typically removed as quickly as possible. Copyright holders even have the option to take down items that they feel are a violation of their rights through the terms and conditions of the site.
You should not download any torrents before securely accessing them. Even using Tor is a better option than choosing a standard browser. It isn’t just because of ISP tracking that you should consider these choices. There is a chance that your personal information could be exposed to someone who would use it for nefarious means when torrenting using Chrome, IE, or Firefox.
Kickass Torrents continues to be a thriving community of like-minded users who enjoy sharing content with one another. Explore the platform today to see if it offers the variety you want when torrenting.
