ArenaBG

Introduction

There are average, normal torrent trackers … and then there are sites like Arena BG that go beyond what we have previously conceived a torrent tracker could be. Arena BG is so many things – and torrent tracker is just one in a long list. It is also a news site. It is also a collection of forums. It is also an index of free indie movies and TV series. It is also a video streaming site. The list goes on and on.

If you are looking for a torrent tracker that can also double as a massive online portal to all of your indie interests, Arena BG may be just the site you need. Here, you can download torrents, stream free indie movies, read the news, watch free indie videos, and make some good online buddies all in one place. This is the kind of site that you could spend hours on and not even notice the passing time.

Arena BG is notorious already in its homeland of Bulgaria. But it wasn’t until relatively recently that the site was finally made accessible to the rest of the world. And I think that many of you will be overjoyed to have found your new home page in Arena BG. A site with so much to offer deserves to be enjoyed by all!

History

A rather rebellious (and ingenious) torrent tracker – In June of 2007, a new version of Arena BG was launched, offering improved functionality, a much smoother interface, and English menus. Although the old website was scheduled to be erased in July of that same year, it appears to still be fully functional. Old user accounts, though, are not compatible with the new site. However, registration takes a matter of seconds.

Design

The site, honestly, looks, at first glance, more like a gaming site than anything else. Or maybe it looks like a news site. Or a social networking site. It looks like many things at once, because, well it is many things at once. This background image is offset to the left-hand side of the page and provides that somewhat gamer aesthetic I spoke of.

Home page – Instead of the typical layout of a torrent tracker, Arena BG’s home page acts more as a portal to everything that Arena BG offers … and it is not entirely dedicated just to searching and browsing torrents. You will find a site menu bar that allows you to browse everything that the site has to offer at the top of the page. Here, you can choose between Home, Arena Play, Torrents, Catalog, Forum, or Upload.

Below the site menu bar, Arena BG begins to look more like a news or video streaming site of sorts. Enjoy browsing articles from either Web Café, Life Café, or Sports Café by checking out some of the featured pieces. Or scroll down a little further in order to find some of Arena BG’s featured videos of the day. This is all great and fun to kill some time with as you wait for your torrents to download, but let’s get down to business and check out the torrent section, shall we?

Torrents – The torrents section of the website is a little more data heavy than I would prefer when it comes to a resource for browsing torrents. There are no thumbnail images associated with the torrent files, which is a bit of a bummer. However, hovering your cursor over a torrent file name will trigger the appearance of an image, so, it’s not quite as hard to browse or discover new files here as it is on other torrent trackers.

Underneath the top 10 torrent list, you’ll find an advanced search with plenty of filtering options, allowing you to search by category, as well as a few other parameters. Simply click on your torrent file of choice to access more information and additional media surrounding it.

Content and Features

As I mentioned before, Arena BG has a lot to offer. In addition to allowing you to download torrents from just about any category, Arena BG offers tons of social features, articles, a forum, and more.

Arena Play – One of the most unique aspects of Arena BG is that it offers a downloadable free indie movie and TV series streaming program. With Arena Play, you can stream free indie content without ever having to download a single torrent. If you have been looking for the best torrent site that doubles as a streaming site, look no further.

I truly believe that users would be very hard-pressed to grow bored on this site, thanks to the myriad features and tons of torrents that this site has to offer. This is so much more than just a torrent tracker.

Mobile and Desktop Experience

The site does appear to be decently optimized for mobile devices, too. The layout is adjusted so that content is more easily accessible on phone or tablet screens, allowing you to make use of this enormous site, no matter how small your mobile device may be. That being said, there are some downsides, experientially, for us to consider

Ads – Arena BG has a lot of annoying popup ads that redirect your browser, often through opening new tabs. This occurs both on mobile and desktop devices. Although it only happens on your first few clicks through the site, it is still annoying and, in my opinion, completely unacceptable. It would be one thing if users could, say, donate money to the site in order to get rid of ads … but that does not appear to be an option either. So, unfortunately, you just have to put up with them.

Suggestions that I have for Arena BG

My first main suggestion would be, given the sheer size of this site and all of the features that it offers, I think Arena BG needs to develop an app. This would be the best way to streamline all this site’s many features and also make it as responsive and intuitive to browse. If each section could be given its own tab on an app, I think Arena BG’s potential could truly be tapped into (pun not intended).

Other than that, though, it would truly be a shame if Arena BG never finds a way to at least calm down a bit with their advertising. This sort of aggressive advertising can be a huge turn off. To the point where, as much as I want to love this site, I may never visit again (unless they do throttle or cancel their current advertising campaign). There are other more creative ways to generate revenue, and I urge Arena BG to consider them in the months and years to come.