OpenBitTorrent (commonly abbreviated OBT) is an open
BitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a special type of server 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 ...
project for the
BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...
protocol.
Description
OpenBitTorrent's initiative to provide a free, stable service with no ties to indexing sites or even hosting
torrent file
In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file or meta-info 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 ...
s has been a public success and it has spawned several copies with almost identical services.
OpenBitTorrent has been suspected of being a part of, or a side project of,
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a free searchable online index of Film, movies, music, video games, Pornographic film, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank , The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection ...
, because it was observed early on that both sites used the same
trackers. The OpenBitTorrent project has countered by stating that the sites merely shared a tracker cluster operated by DCP Networks and
Fredrik Neij during a startup period (February through August 2009).
On 22 May 2010, the OpenBitTorrent tracker was shut down.
This was a result of a case against
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a free searchable online index of Film, movies, music, video games, Pornographic film, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank , The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection ...
by many major Hollywood studios. Later the tracker came back online.
OpenBitTorrent is powered by the
opentracker software. The Pirate Bay also used the opentracker software, before they shut down their own tracker.
From 16 July to 2 August 2012, OpenBitTorrent went offline protesting the lack of adoption of a protocol improvement by the makers of uTorrent, that was proposed by
Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a free searchable online index of Film, movies, music, video games, Pornographic film, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank , The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection ...
co-founder
Fredrik Neij. As a result of the protest, many people had trouble downloading files on BitTorrent.
From 5 December to 30 December 2014, the OpenBitTorrent website and tracker was unreachable, this may have been linked to the arrest of
Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a free searchable online index of Film, movies, music, video games, Pornographic film, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank , The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection ...
co-founder
Fredrik Neij.
On 5 May 2015, the OpenBitTorrent tracker was back online although the website still did not display the tracker address.
The website was shut down again in July 2017, but came back online for a while in late 2018
Openbittorrent.com
Alexa and was unresponsive again in late 2019.
In 2020, the website was redirecting to Opentracker, another torrent tracker. However a year later in January 2021, OpenBitTorrent came back online again with its own tracker and website.
See also
* Comparison of BitTorrent sites
References
External links
*
BitTorrent websites
Notorious markets
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