Snowfl

Introduction

Sometimes no matter how many individual torrent sites that you look through, it seems like you might just never be able to find a certain torrent. Has that ever happened to you? I know that there have been certain torrents for which I have searched for weeks, sometimes months on end. Usually, I have no problem being able to find what I want on the big torrent index sites… but every once and a while, you are faced with that elusive torrent that just does not want to be found.

Usually, this only happens with more obscure torrents. Maybe some really underground indie musical artist or some obscure foreign free indie film or something. When it comes to searching for the widely popular files, however, I can generally find and download a torrent in a matter of minutes. Every once in a while, though, I come across these more challenging searches.

As someone who loves torrenting, I actually kind of like being faced with such a challenge. However, I know that not everybody is nearly as big of a nerd as I am … so, I am here to make your life a little bit easier when it comes to finding and downloading any and every torrent file you can think of. In order to best understand how to best ensure that you never go unable to find a torrent again, the first thing that you must understand is how the different types of torrent sites work, and which ones to use for which occasion.

The last time that I couldn’t find a certain file, it was a piece of open-source software. In addition to being a torrent geek, I am also a bit of an indie music and audio recording buff. I was searching for a very specific open-source audio production software tool that, in the world of music recording, is actually quite popular and well known. I was shocked to see that I couldn’t find it on any of my usual go-to torrent sites.

My first thought once I came up empty-handed on all my usual sites was that maybe I should try a private torrent tracker – there are, after all, a couple really good ones that are dedicated solely to this sort of open-source recording software. It took me one full week, though, to acquire an invite code to one of these extremely exclusive torrent trackers. I got it from someone nice enough to share it on Reddit (another great resource for torrenting, by the way, but that is for another review).

Much to my chagrin, I could not find the software here either. If a private torrent tracker that is literally designed to help people find precisely this kind of open-source software did not have it, was it possible that not a single torrent of it existed anywhere on the web? That seemed unlikely to me because I have never not been able to find a torrent, even if sometimes it has taken a bit of time and patience. I was about ready to give up.

Then, finally, as a sort of last-ditch effort, I decided I would try one of the best torrent search engines. I figured, hey, you never know, maybe a torrent search engine like Snowfl would lead me to a torrent index that I’d never heard of before, or that I’d not yet considered checking. So, feeling admittedly less than optimistic, I typed the name of the software into the search bar.

I was full-on shocked when I saw that this torrent search engine had returned a single hit, on a torrent index that I had never even thought of. There it was, fully seeded and ready to go. Within the hour, I was using the software and making one of my best songs to date.

So, needless to say, I am greatly indebted to Snowfl and the best torrent search engines on the web. I certainly learned my lesson: when in doubt, turn to the Google of torrenting. Snowfl may just have what it takes to earn that title. In order to know for sure, though, we’ll have to dive in and take a closer look at everything this site has to offer.

Design

There honestly is not much to be said in the way of Snowfl’s site design. This is one of the most stripped-down and minimalistic sites that I have ever seen. It offers nothing more than a search bar, some additional search options to pare down results with precision, and then a list of search results. Nothing less, nothing more.

I rather like Snowfl’s approach. It is a no-nonsense site. I like how streamlined and smooth the user experience is, too. When you first land on Snowfl’s home page, it might look a little awkward – the search options and keyword bar occupying the top, say, quarter of the page. Below that, Snowfl has included a helpful list of its features and how to best use the site.

Conduct a search, though, and you begin to see why I prefer Snowfl’s design to most other torrent search engines that I have seen. Instead of being led to a new page (and then several after that as you click through results), Snowfl’s search engine acts as a site menu bar that remains fixed at the top of the page. No new pages will load when you search, the content below the search bas simply changes to reveal your search results. It is simplistic site design done right.

Content and Features

For what is easily one of the most pared back torrent sites on the web, Snowfl actually makes most other torrent search engines look quaint when it comes to features. Whereas a lot of torrent search engines do little more than let users search keywords and then browse torrent sites, Snowfl has a solid advanced search, as well as some very useful info included with each result.

You can, of course, search by keyword. But you can also arrange your search by top torrents of the day, week, month, or all time. You can also sort search results by number of seeds, leeches, file size, and age. Lastly, making the site more family friendly than many, Snowfl has a quick filter that allows you to decide whether you would like NSFW torrents included in your search results or not. Use Snowfl safely and confidently no matter where you happen to be.

Snowfl is also one of the few torrent search engines that includes torrent information along with its search results. How this is not the standard for torrent search engines is beyond me, but it is very helpful to see how many leeches and seeds a torrent has before clicking into the third-party site listed. Snowfl also tags each hit with the file size, a separate hyperlink to the site in question, and the date added. Snowfl is, without a doubt, the most informative torrent search engine that I have seen. You’ll never have to click through to a torrent index blindly again.

It seems as if Snowfl may be one of the largest torrent search engines as well. I have come across quite a few torrent search engines in my day that draw from as few as 3 or 4 torrent sites. Snowfl, on the other hand, offers up dozens (maybe even hundreds). I cannot find info on the exact number of sites included in Snowfl’s algorithm, but its vast reach is most definitely the reason that I was able to find that elusive software I spoke of earlier on Snowfl and nowhere else.

Mobile and Desktop Experience

 Although Snowfl is pretty well optimized for mobile devices, I do think that there would be a more sensible way for them to redesign their mobile site to make it even more so. The search bar, for example, should also be fixed at the top on the mobile site (making it collapsible would be nice too) the way that it is on the desktop version. Since it is not, you may find yourself having to do a great deal of scrolling up and down unnecessarily (especially since both the mobile and desktop site use an infinity scroll feature).

That being said, the layout and usability of the site is decent enough for mobile devices. Mobile torrenting will be a piece of cake with Snowfl.