ExtraTorrent

History

Extra Torrent was founded in 2006 by an administrator under the username “SaM.” In celebration of the site’s 10-year anniversary, in 2016, Extra Torrent briefly changed their logo to look more celebratory – along with the quick makeover, the site also put into motion a contest in which users could guess the most downloaded movies on the site in order to win prizes. This is yet another example of the unprecedented community engagement on this site.

Lights out – All seemed to be going well and people loved the site. However, on May 17, 2017, Extra Torrent mysteriously ceased all operations out of the blue. The website was taken down altogether and replaced by a message from SaM, which stated that Extra Torrent (alongside all of its mirror domains) would be wiping the entirety of its content and data from existence. To this day, nobody knows why Extra Torrent voluntarily wiped itself off the map like that.

Shortly after the shutdown occurred, though, several clone websites began to pop up around the web. One of the most popular clones lived at the domain of extratorrent.cd. This clone was so good, in fact, that people began to speculate that it might have been an official rehosting. However, later on it was discobvered that extratorrent.cd was nothing but a reskinned proxy site of The Pirate Bay, which provided precisely the data from The Pirate Bay, under the branding of Extra Torrent.

Resurrection – It has taken quite a bit of time, but it appears as if a true working clone of Extra Torrent has finally surfaced, in the form of Extratorrent.si. Not only does this site have everything that Extra Torrent ever had on it, but it also is constantly growing and allowing new members to register. Extra Torrent has risen from the grave, it seems, and is picking up right where it left off.

Design

Extra Torrent still has the same iconic layout and design that it had when it originally reigned over the torrenting kingdom. Users of this site can expect a white and blue theme that is crisp, clean, organized, and easy to navigate.

Home page – Extra Torrent offers up a great deal of information and text on its home page. But not in a way that is too overwhelming or cluttered. This is due to the fact that everything on the page is clearly separated and organized. Once you learn the format, it becomes second nature quickly.

In the center, you’ll find a list of the site’s most popular torrents, separated by category. They appear in an index, just like just about every other torrent tracker out there. To the left of this index, though, you will find a collection of the site’s latest articles, most searched torrents, and news (not that this is updated ever). The news section, too, I should note, appears to be now defunct.

Towards the top of the page, you will also find a site menu bar. Here, you can browse Extra Torrent by clicking on any of the following options: Browse Torrents, Search Cloud, Site Stats, Community, and FAQ.

Inner pages – The torrent info and download pages are pretty par for the course as far as torrent trackers are concerned in general. In fact, if you have spent any time on The Pirate Bay, then the format will be familiar. Find all of the torrent info in a chart at the top of the page, description about halfway down (along with any accompanying media if the user included it, such as screenshots and the like), and a comments section at the very bottom. It gets the job done, even if perhaps there are more interactive ways to do it

Free Indie Content and Features

As is often the case with clone sites such as this one, you cannot really expect a whole lot in the way of currently active features. What this site is going to be best for is simply to be used as a means of downloading tons of torrents. It is little more than an index, in other words, and many of the original Extra Torrent features are no longer applicable. That being said, it is one of the largest torrent indexes in the world.

A great deal of the items in the site menu bar, for instance, simply bring you back to the site’s home page. Clicking “Forum,” for example, does this. As does trying to view articles, search cloud, and FAQ. The Browse Torrents section, though, still works, offering up a handy way to browse the site’s massive collection of files by category.

Mobile and Desktop Experience

As far as mobile-friendly torrent trackers are concerned, you will probably be able to find much better ones than Extra Torrent. However, you will definitely be able to find worse as well. The site is not fully optimized for mobile devices, but it does load and is usable, nonetheless. You’ll just find yourself doing a lot of zooming in to read file names and whatnot.

On the other hand, though, it’s not nearly as ad infested as other torrent trackers, so, that’s a plus.