Torlock

Torlock Torrent Site Review

So, you are looking for a new torrent search engine … well, you have come to the right place. I have made it my life’s mission to catalogue and review all of the best torrent search engines on the web. No matter what it is that you are looking to download – free indie movies, free indie TV shows, free indie music, free indie games, open-source software, free indie eBooks, free indie anime, free indie documentaries, etc. – TorrentSites has got you covered. Simply scroll through my many categorized lists, read my reviews, and take the hassle out of finding the perfect torrent search engine for you.

Why even bother looking for a new torrent site, though?

But what kind of torrent site should you find for your backup (or maybe even your new go-to if it’s good enough)? Well, in order to figure that out, first you have to ask yourself a few questions. For starters: would you prefer a bigger, more generalized torrent search engine that lets you search for all kinds of file types, or do you require a smaller, more niche (possibly exclusive) torrent site to find what it is that you are looking for? Both options, of course, come with inherent positives and negatives … it’s really just a matter of preference and what kind of downloading you intend to try.

What I mean is this: maybe you are looking for a very specific file. Perhaps it is a more obscure title, say, a foreign free indie film that you can’t find anywhere. This might prompt you to try your luck on one of the smaller sites that are made specifically for free indie movie torrents.

The members of such a torrent search engine tend to be fellow free indie movie buffs. And the communities tend to be much more actively involved, meaning that you could potentially even request an upload from a fellow user who has access to the indie movie in question. Sounds pretty perfect, right? Why wouldn’t everyone just use these more niche, smaller torrent sites?

Well, for one thing, these sorts of torrent search engines tend to be very exclusive. That’s how they ensure that their users are so active and dedicated to P2P file sharing (especially within the niche to which they cater). This means that they tend to be safer, too, as members are often vetted. However, they maintain such a high level of exclusivity by being closed off. Such sites are often invite-only, and do not allow you to even browse their files unless an existing member has referred you for a registration link. These can be difficult to come by.

Another problem that you might face with these smaller sites, again because of their exclusivity, are low peer numbers. With fewer members comes fewer seeds. That is not to say that seed scarcity is not also a problem on the larger torrent sites, but more peers, at least in theory, often translates to a higher likelihood of a larger seed amount; which translates into faster downloads and more successful downloads on your end.

Really, in my opinion, what it boils down to is this: how casual of a torrent downloader are you? Do you just download the occasional free indie movie, free indie TV show, or free indie game here and there? Or do you often find yourself looking for hard to find, rare free indie files, doing deep dives; furthermore, do you tend to download large numbers of torrents every day? If the latter is true, I would recommend looking into finding an invite to a more exclusive torrent site. But if you just want to browse free indie files on a whim and see what’s out there, a more general site should be just fine.

Which brings us to the torrent site that we will be taking a look at today … Tor Lock. Much like some of the most popular torrent search engines out there, Tor Lock caters to several different file types. But does Tor Lock have what it takes to potentially replace the one of the big sites as your go-to torrent search engine? Well, let’s take a closer look and see for ourselves. 

Design

I rather like the look and feel of Tor Lock. This is the first thing about the site that impressed me when I visited. They have opted for a very stripped-down design. I think that “minimalist” would probably be the best way to describe it. And it offers a pretty refreshing theme, too, appearing in a sleek combination of blues, blacks, and grays. The site very easily pops right off of your screen, but in an understated way.

At the very top of the page, you’ll find a slender site menu bar with accompanying search. Here, you can either type in whatever keyword you have in mind or check out Categories, News, Fresh, and Top 100 torrents. This makes it intuitive and convenient to quickly browse any aspect of the site that you wish, without having to do any digging whatsoever.

Right below, you’ll find a few popular search terms that take the form of a suggested tag cloud, with the most popular terms appearing in a larger text than others. Click through these to be brough directly to files that share these keywords. Keep scrolling down to be greeted by popular fresh torrents in each category, each file type. The site is clean and well organized, as such a site should be.

Content and Features

The first thing that stands out to me about this site is that it does not offer one-click magnet downloads, at least not from the list of files. In other words, you are going to have to click into the file’s information page in order to access the download button. And upon doing so, you’ll find all of the technical specs of the file, the actual information associated with the content itself, and the comments section allowing users to discuss the download and any potential hurdles you will have to jump in order to access the content.

It does not appear, however, that the discussions on these torrents are extremely lively (unlike other torrent search engines). The site does offer a system of verified torrents, though, which makes you feel a little more secure in downloading from the site in lieu of this. I also appreciate that, on the file’s information page, if there are other alternative torrents of the file in question, they are listed at the bottom of the page. This makes it as easy as it should be to browse and check out all of the different download options available to you. 

Mobile and Desktop Experience

Although the mobile version of this site looks pretty good, there are a few problems that I take with it. The main one being the fact that the ads, at least on the mobile site, are obnoxious. I’m sure they are not great on your desktop browser either if you are not using an ad blocker. But there are tons of ads that appear all over the page when you access the site from your phone. What’s worse, clicking on links to torrent files sometimes just opens up new tabs in your phone’s browser instead of just redirecting you to the torrent in question. So, if you are looking for the best torrent search engine for on-the-go downloading, this one might not be it.

Suggestions that I have for TorLock

While we are on the topic, I would recommend that Tor Lock consider rethinking their advertising structure. Look, I get that you have to make money somehow, I really do, but it can be done in other ways. Here’s one idea, just off the top of my head: maybe offer an ad-free premium version of the site. This would allow users to pay a little bit of money per month, should they wish to access the site without ads.