HDReactor

Introduction 

There is a growing community of people around the world who refuse to accept subpar quality. We are what you might call snobs. And we wear that label proudly. We believe that everything we consume – every free indie movie, indie TV show, piece of indie music, indie cartoon, indie video game – should be in the highest possible quality. Why wouldn’t it be? If 1080p HD or 4K versions of our favorite free indie movies are available (and they are), why on earth would we settle for 720p or, god forbid, standard definition? I shudder at the thought.

Luckily for us, the quality snobs of the world, the definition keeps improving. HD keeps getting clearer and clearer, seemingly by the day. We are pushing free indie content forward, into the future. Into a world in which reality and the quality of our media are one in the same … where we won’t be able to tell whether we are watching a free indie movie on a screen or witnessing something taking place in the world through no lens but our own eyes.

We are the reason that HD is constantly being redefined. And we won’t rest until everything is available in the highest of definitions possible. Which is why we are not satisfied with the average torrent tracker.

If this sounds like you (even in the slightest), I may have just the site you have been waiting for. Today, we will be taking a look at the public torrent tracker known as HD Reactor. This site is a Russian torrent tracker that specializes in only providing the highest possible free indie quality content. Everything found on this site, then, is going to be HD, in one way or another.

If you are looking to download free indie movies or TV shows, you will only be able to find 720p or higher here. Interested in downloading your favorite classic free indie albums or the hottest new free indie releases? There is no excuse for subpar quality and HD Reactor, unlike any other torrent tracker that I have seen before it, has built this into the very fiber of its being.

So, if you are a true believer in quality over quantity, get ready for what has the potential to become your new go-to, default torrent tracker. Let’s dive in and take a closer look at HD Reactor, shall we?

Design

I must say, for a site that is primarily concerned with quality, I wish that this philosophy made its way into their approach to site design a little more. HD Reactor is not the worst torrent site that I have ever seen – not by any means – but it is certainly far from the best torrent tracker I have been to. I think that, on the whole, what is bringing down the quality of the site design is its penchant for cheesiness, as well as its rather dated layout and execution. You will see exactly what I mean in a moment …

Home page – The home page is loud, and colorful, and everything seems to be much larger than it needs to be. You will be greeted by a CGI robot (who I want to say is meant to look feminine for some reason?). She is casually lying on her side, waving at you, welcoming you to the site. To the right of this robot is the HD Reactor logo, which looks something like the title on an action movie from the 90s. Like I said, a very cheesy aesthetic, indeed.

As far as layout is concerned, though, the site is very confusing. It is cluttered, for sure, and somewhat all over the place. There doesn’t seem to have been a whole lot of planning that went into the layout or organization of this site’s pages.

Appearing almost at random, you’ll find the site menu bar at the absolute top of the page (about as far up as they could have put it without breaking through to your browser’s bookmarks tab. Here, alluding to sky, I think, they have opted to separate items of the menu, their barriers, and the background with three different shades of blue. This makes things more difficult to read than they need to be. At any rate, however sloppily executed, the site menu bar lets you browse the site by clicking on the following options: Home, 4K (UHD), 3D, Cinema HD, TV Series HD, Cartoons HD, Music HD, Games, 18+ HD, Sports HD, and Forum.

From there, moving downward through the home page, you’ll find a search bar above some enormous windows of featured torrents. Whereas I do like that they went for an image-based indexing method (a lot of torrent sites, in my opinion, tend to be unnecessarily data heavy), there is no reason for each torrent to be given this much space on the home page. I think shrinking down these boxes would be a good start to a full-on site remodel.

Inner pages – The inner pages of the site are equally oversized and unnecessarily cluttered. They do, however, offer more than a lot of other sites do. You’ll find the poster or cover of the movie, show, or album in question. You’ll also be able to access a plot summary, some credit info, or track list. These pages also have a comments section, which is always nice to see.

Content and Features

In addition to comments, which can help you torrent in peace and add a sense of community to these P2P file sharing sites, you can also take advantage of an active forum. The forum, by the way, is more toned down in design. It looks exactly like you’d expect a forum to look (which is refreshing in the context of the rest of the site).

Other than that, though, HD Reactor is a fairly straightforward site. It offers tons of HD and lossless quality indie torrents, a solid community of users, and a forum … that’s all there is to it, which means that you can instantly start downloading HD indie torrents today with no roadblocks or hoops to jump through.

Mobile and Desktop Experience

Although HD Reactor is not the best-designed site on desktop computers or mobile devices, it is marginally better on your smartphone or tablet. It’s easy enough to use. Thankfully, HD Reactor has made the sections of the site smaller for your phone. However, the alignment seems oddly off to me. It’s slightly askew to the right. Not the biggest deal in the world, of course, but still a little annoying, nonetheless.

That being said, there is some good news pertaining to the mobile and desktop experience of GD Reactor. The ads on HD Reactor are much easier to deal with than they are on man other torrent trackers. Although, obviously, zero ads would be preferable, almost every torrent tracker has ads in some form or another. And at least HD Reactor doesn’t turn every click into a popup. All you will have to deal with is a few ads in the margins of the site. They are relatively modest, to be honest.

So, this is good news for anyone who likes to torrent on the go. HD Reactor is an excellent resource for finding HD indie torrents, no matter what device you happen to be using.

Suggestions that I have for HD Reactor

First and foremost, HD Reactor, as I am sure you have gathered by now, needs to address its design flaws. I don’t mind the cheesy aesthetic as much, every site needs its own identity, but I would like to see the free indie content be resituated. I also think that adding a few helpful features could make a huge difference.

For instance, adding an advanced search would be nice for helping users to narrow down the queries a little more. I would also like to see the site add on a more convenient means of browsing files. Sure, you can browse by content type as of now. But I also want to be able to browse by genre, subgenre, and potentially even actor, network, studio, etc.