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Who remembers Skytorrents (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629)? Posted as a "Show HN" here, it was a DH
by bangonkeyboard 3y ago
Who remembers Skytorrents (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629)? Posted as a "Show HN" here, it was a DHT-sourced index and stack written in C with no JavaScript, no cookies, no ads, no tracking. Skytorrents was unbelievably fast, friendly, and complete, and this translated into rapid adoption and traffic growth that caused the site to shut down due to server costs after just a year (https://torrentfreak.com/skytorrents-dumps-massive-torrent-database-and-shuts-down180221/ https://torrentfreak.com/skytorrents-dumps-massive-torrent-d...).
It was a shame that the technology behind Skytorrents was never open-sourced; it was the best torrent crawler and site I've ever seen, and I would have liked to see how it worked so well.
- mgdigital 3y agoI guess the takeaway is that a public torrent site can (probably) never be sustainable while acting in users' best interests?
- evanjrowley 3y agoSkytorrentz was great, but I never knew it had been coded in C nor presented here. Thanks for the background info.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bawolff 3y agoI feel like writing a fast torrent tracker isn't particularly hard. The hard part is the legal risk.
- nadermx 3y agoThis can't be underestimated. Legal is by and large the largest risk of a torrent site. Maybe one day..
- 3abiton 3y agoNever heard of it, what an interesting read