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A small message of 150 words is the only thing that remains of what until a few hours ago was one of the largest torrent directories on the network, the page sought by many of those who wanted to get the chapter of a series or a movie by unorthodox ways.

RARBG, the fourth source for torrent and magnet files (the two formats of the BitTorrent P2P file sharing system) by traffic volume, explains in that text that after 16 years it has been forced to close. "After a unanimous vote, we have decided that we can no longer continue. We are sorry :(", sign its managers.

The reasons are several. Some of the original team members, for example, have died in the last two years from complications arising from Covid-19.

Inflation has also played an important role in the decision. The increase in the cost of energy in Europe has multiplied the bill they had to face for hosting servers.

RARBG, which was born in Bulgaria, also had its leaders divided between several Eastern European countries and the Russian-Ukrainian war has affected its operations. Among his collaborators were both Russians and Ukrainians who are now fighting (on both sides of the conflict, they point out from the web).

The impact on the P2P community is big and the hacking scene is big. RARBG was not only a very visited directory. Many of the groups that created some of the highest quality copies of movies and series originally released torrents in this directory. Its popularity led several countries to ban access to the website, including Portugal and Italy.

The shutdown coincides with an upward trend in piracy after years of relative stability in the market. The rise in prices of streaming services and the end of the permissibility policy with the exchange of passwords has led many users to restart the torrent application.

In 2022, according to the consultancy MUSO, movie piracy increased by around 39% compared to 2021, in TV series, the figure touched 9%.

  • Coronavirus
  • Europe
  • Bulgaria
  • Italy

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