Monova

Introduction

 Are you looking for a new, efficient, and powerful torrent search engine? If so, well, I have some good news for you … you have come to the right site. TorrentSites is my passion project: to catalog and review all of the best torrent search engines, torrent clients, and related sites on the web. No matter what it is that you are looking to download – be it free indie movies, free indie music, free indie TV shows, free indie video games, open-source software, free indie eBooks, free indie documentaries, free indie anime – you will definitely be able to find a site on my list that will have a torrent of it available.

 Nevertheless, you might still be asking yourself why you even need to find a new or better torrent search engine than the ones that you have heard about from your friends or that you have been using for years. This is a fair enough concern.

 That being said, how do you know which other torrent sites are worth bookmarking and which ones are to be passed up? What sites are going to be the most effective ones to have in your toolbox? Well, in order to figure that out, first you need to ask yourself another question: what sort of torrent search engine do you think you would prefer, a more popular one and widely used one, or a smaller, more niche torrent site that caters to a specific type of free indie content? As is often the case with any kind of website, torrent or otherwise, each type has its own list of positives and negatives. The correct answer, at the end of the day, just boils down to what you prefer and what kind of files you are looking for.

Maybe you happen to be looking for a more esoteric torrent, for example, one that you have tried (with no luck) to find everywhere else on the web. Perhaps that torrent is, I don’t know, an obscure foreign free indie French film from the 80s. This kind of hunt calls for a more specific torrent site of fellow free indie film buffs (preferably of fellow French free indie film buffs, if possible).

On sites such as these, the members are likely to be more advanced when it comes to torrenting as well, which is, of course, an asset, as members may be more likely to seed their files for longer, resulting in more effective, faster downloads for you. However, the downsides to such a site are in the very exclusivity that makes them great. Less peers in a torrenting community means that files may also be less likely to be available. Plus, these sites tend to be invite-only, and it is not every day (unless you know someone personally) that you can come across a registration link.

The larger, open torrent sites have their own host of issues as well. Seeing as they are not exclusive in the slightest, anyone can sign up and upload a torrent to many of these sites. It can be hard, then, to provide quality assurance. Short of a system of verified torrents and a comments section, there is not much that can be done to stop anyone from sharing anything – naturally, some safety concerns may be raised due to this. That being said, they often have high seed numbers, and the likelihood of finding the torrent you are looking for is high, due to the fact that they have so many members.

At the end of the day, it really just boils down to the type of file that you seek. I think that the best way to go is to have several sites bookmarked, and then just choose one that is going to be best for a specific download.

That being said, speaking of Monova, why don’t we delve in and see how this site stacks up against its competition, other multiple category, bigger torrent sites, shall we?

 Design

 When it comes to the design, Monova is about as minimalist as it gets. In fact, there is as close to nothing on this site without it actually having no content. It subtly asserts itself as a plain gray background (the blue and white “m” of their logo can be seen faded in the background). Other than that, it’s just a search bar and a sparse site menu bar at the top of the page. Oh, and plenty of torrent files to browse as well.

The site menu bar offers only the following options: Home, Browse, Upload, Login/Register, and Language (automatically translate the page if you do not read English). What you see is what you get. Nothing more, nothing less. This makes the site extremely easy to navigate and very user-friendly.

Although I am usually a fan of minimalist site designs. This one might be a little too stripped-down for my taste. I say this mostly because of the site’s lack of features and information.

 Content and Features

 Unfortunately, Monova does not offer much in the way of torrent info. When you click into a torrent’s info page, often all you will be able to see is the file download and magnet download buttons, as well as the contents of the file. This is nothing compared to other torrent search engines out there, some of which provide screenshots, free indie movie and TV credit info, reviews, etc.

Furthermore, Monova does not have comments on any of its torrents. Nor does it have a verified torrents section. This does not bode well, in my opinion, for the safest torrent downloading experience possible. I mean, many of these torrents claim to be uploaded by, and I quote, “nobody.” Maybe it’s just me, but I read that as “dodgy.” This site doesn’t even tell you how many seeds or leechers a file has!

The lack of torrent info and comments could also make downloading software a little trickier than need be. And open-source software already provides the most complex torrent downloading process there is.

 Mobile and Desktop Experience

 The mobile site is just as sparse as the desktop one. Actually, it might be even sparser. Again, it looks nice and clean … but at the cost of functionality. If you don’t mind not knowing much about the torrents you download, the mobile site will make for a smooth mobile torrenting experience. Just grab yourself a torrent client with a mobile app (of which there are plenty), and you should have no problem downloading tons of torrents to your phone today!

 Suggestions that I have for Monova

 Monova really needs to ramp up its offerings a bit. A few more community features would be much appreciated, such as a comments section (at the very least). Adding a torrent verification system would also be helpful for feeling at ease when downloading torrents from Monova. And, for the love of God, please, if you do nothing else, at least add the seed and leech info onto your torrents! I don’t want to have to guess whether a file is going to download, or how long it might take me every time I click a magnet link.