With ExtraTorrent's closure this week another BitTorrent giant has fallen. While many torrent sites have come and gone over the years, ExtraTorrent's departure also means that several prominent torrent uploaders are without a home. That said, after a few days it appears that several of these groups will carry on, keeping the ET spirit alive.

This week the torrent community entered a state of shock when another major torrent site closed its doors.

Having served torrents to the masses for over a decade, ExtraTorrent decided to throw in the towel, without providing any detail or an apparent motive.

ExtraTorrent operator SaM simply informed us that “it’s time we say goodbye.”

Now that a few days have passed the dust is slowly beginning to settle. Frequent ExtraTorrent users have started to flock to alternatives such as The Pirate Bay, Torrentz2 and RARBG, which have all noticed a clear uptick in users.

What has also become clear is that ExtraTorrent won’t have quit without leaving its mark. The site was home to several prominent uploaders and groups, and some feared that these would go down with the site. However, it looks like that won’t be the case for them all.

On Thursday, shortly after the site was closed, ExtraTorrent operator SaM said that the movie torrent distribution group ETRG would disappear, but that there was hope for others.

“Ettv and Ethd could remain operational if they get enough donations to sustain the expenses and if the people handling it [are] ready to keep going,” SaM said.

Indeed, both TV groups are keeping the ET spirit alive as dozens of fresh torrents have appeared over the past few days. While they’re no longer on ExtraTorrent, the accounts on The Pirate Bay remain very active, as can be seen below.

ettv’s recent releases



Another well-known uploader, DDR, will continue to release torrents as well. TorrentFreak was informed that the uploader will use the ‘SaM’ accounts at The Pirate Bay and 1337x to continue his work.

And ExtraTorrent’s name lives on elsewhere too. The image hosting site Extraimage, which was regularly used by torrent uploaders to feature samples, is still up and running as well.

There is another major casualty of the ExtraTorrent closure though. TorrentFreak is informed that ET’s inhouse encoder FUM, known for regular high-quality TV releases, will stop.

Over the weeks we will see what the real impact of the surprise shutdown will be. A community was destroyed this week, and many uploaders lost their home, but as we’ve seen with KickassTorrents, Torrentz, and other sites before them, the torrent ecosystem isn’t easily disrupted.