FileBase

Introduction

Who doesn’t want access to all of their favorite free indie movies, free indie TV shows, free indie music, open-source software, free indie video games, free indie documentaries, and free indie eBooks instantly? That’s something everyone can get behind, right? (Well, almost everyone, anyway…). At any rate, if you are looking for tons of torrent downloads of your favorite free indie content, you have definitely come to the right place. Torrent Sites is here to make it possible! It doesn’t matter what kind of free indie content you want, choose any site from my list of the best torrent search engines and get downloading today.

That being said, though, not every torrent site is created equal. Some are infinitely better than others, as is the case with any kind of website. The list of torrent search engines out there is already massive – and there are new sites being launched all the time. It can be downright overwhelming to try and figure out which one is the best torrent search engine for you. But fear not! After today, you, too, will be a torrenting expert. All it takes is knowing what to look for!

The first thing to look for when evaluating whether a torrent search engine is worth your time is how loaded with files it is. It may seem basic, but much of what makes a torrent site great is its versatility. You don’t want to rely on a search engine that frequently does not have what you are looking for, right? That’s why people use Google over Bing, and why Ask Jeeves died off. A torrent search engine is no different. Believe it or not, there are plenty of torrent sites out there that simply do not have the files you want.

It’s not all a numbers game, though. Equally important (if not more so) to the quantity of torrents that a site has to offer is, of course, the quality of those torrents. A given torrent site may have any and every file you could dream of … however, that does not mean that those files are going to download quickly. Nor does it necessarily mean that they are going to download at all.

Given the Peer 2 Peer nature of torrenting, you need to ensure that your go-to torrent search engine has enough peers who are actively sharing the files. These people are known as seeders. In relation to this number, you will want to weight the number of people who are downloading the file at a given time, also known as “leechers.” If a file has more leechers than seeders, or if a file does not have enough seeders, you are going to run into issues attempting to download it. The download may take hours or days to complete – or, in a worst-case scenario, it may never finish at all. An active torrent search engine is often a better one.

Another equally important aspect to take into account when turning a critical eye to your torrent search engine of choice is its level of security. The best torrent search engines have high levels of protection to help make sure that you don’t end up with corrupted, faulty, inaccurate, or malicious files. I think we can all be blunt and admit that torrenting, after all, does not have the best reputation when it comes to digital security and safety. Which is why there are measures that your torrent site can take in order to set up a line of defense.

Firstly, your torrent site might have a system of torrent verification. This means that someone from the site in question actually evaluated the file and has given it the go-ahead. This is one way to nearly be guaranteed that your torrent will not give you any problems. And verified torrents are usually represented by some sort of icon next to the file to quickly indicate that they are safe.

Secondly, your torrent search engine should have a comments section for every single torrent. Here, in case a torrent hasn’t been verified, files can share their torrenting experiences with a certain file. If there is an issue, somebody should voice it here. This is also a great way to ask for help with trickier torrent files and installations.

Even if your torrent search engine does have these additional security measures in place, I still advise people to further bolster their security by downloading an antivirus software (some torrent client programs will even come with them built-into the software) and a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for privacy and hackers.

From there, though, it is basically easy sailing. The remaining concerns are relatively minor – your torrent site should be well-designed and easy to navigate. Your torrent search engine should have, well, a powerful search engine (ideally with advanced search features). And your torrent search engine should be versatile, no matter what device you happen to be on.

And with that, let us dive in and take a look at the torrent search engine known as File Base.

Design

File Base is only a little bit disorienting when you first arrive on the home page. It is not quite as intuitive, in other words, as some of its competitors. The main reason for this, I think, is due to the fact that File Base is rather cluttered. Margin to margin, you have information being flung at you – be it useful information, such as the top uploaders of the week or active forum topics, or annoying information, such as ads. I am not a huge fan of this style of design, personally, of trying to cram as many things onto a page as possible. This is why more interactive, immersive styles of web design have been introduced over the last decade or so.

The bottom half of the site, however, I do enjoy.

Content and Features

This site, however, is jampacked with user features. If you like a torrent search engine with a robust community, this may be the perfect site for you. File Base has, in addition to torrent file comments, both a forum and a live chatroom function. This is a torrent search engine that can become much more than that – with these features, perhaps File Base could become your new home page.

Another thing that I like about this site is how much information is offered on each torrent. Find credits, screenshots, synopses, file specs, and user ratings along with every file. This makes File Base a great resource not only for downloading torrents, but for discovering new free indie content as well. There are some very useful features for those file hunters who like to take their time browsing new stuff.

Mobile and Desktop Experience

Could the mobile version of the site be a little better optimized? For sure. Does the mobile version of this site still work properly? Absolutely. Some of the text may be a little small for your liking (you might have to do a lot of screen pinching to zoom in), but everything is there and legible, and, most importantly, you can download torrents from the mobile site just as easily as you can on the desktop version.

But whatever concerns I have with the mobile experience probably stems more from the design of the site as a whole, not necessarily that of the mobile site. I should also probably note that just because I don’t like their way a site is designed, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t! So, by all means, check the site out for yourself and decide.

Suggestions that I have for File Base

If it isn’t abundantly clear by now, I would like to see File Base undergo a bit of a cosmetic makeover. I want more intuitive, less ad-ridden, more experiential site design. Secondly, an app, of course, would never hurt matters. Lastly, I think that the addition of an advanced search function could make a huge difference in helping us find precisely the files we are looking for.