It happened before and it's happening again. Numerous clones and mirror sites surfaced when YTS/YIFY, Kickass Torrents and Torrentz.eu abruptly disappeared and as expected website replicas have been coming out when ExtraTorrent closed permanently last week. The latest uses the domain Extratorrent.ag.
A quick check on the site will show that operators want to make it appear that ExtraTorrent has been resurrected with a new domain. The FAQ reads: "ExtraTorrent.ag is the biggest BitTorrent system. Our goal is to provide an easy-to-use directory and search engine for all kind of torrent files. Visitors of ExtraTorrent.ag can upload torrents to this site, tracked by any BitTorrent tracker."
And the site indeed could easily pass as the new ExtraTorrent, having the original's general look and feel. But a closer look will reveal that Extratorrent.ag is hosting torrent files, specifically movie offerings, that were originally uploaded in YTS.ag. While there is no official announcement of a tie-up between the two torrent operations it seems intriguing that YTS.ag finally found a willing torrent hosting player to index its site contents.
Since YTS.ag took over from the original YTS/YIFY group, the operation has been shunned by long-time torrent sites, among them The Pirate Bay, that deemed the takeover illegitimate. So it makes sense that in order to further increase its already high visibility, YTS.ag will support or even set up clone operations that take advantage of established brand names.
As mentioned and even discussed by ET operator SaM when the file-sharing site went off the air a few days back, there will be fake ExtraTorrent sites to come out. This week, Extratorrent.cd went live and site operators claimed they used to be with the old site and worked as admins and uploaders. Supposedly, they put up the site to keep the fire burning for ExtraTorrent.
But according to Foss Bytes, Extratorrent.cd is a rip off, technically a clone of The Pirate Bay that makes use of ExtraTorrent skin. "Extratorrent.cd indexes a torrent from 2004 (originally uploaded on TPB) which is long before the original ExtraTorrent came into existence. So, Extratorrent.cd is just the mirror of The Pirate Bay and carries the UI of ExtraTorrent," the report said.
The obvious ploy for Extratorrent.cd is to cash in on the hugely popular ExtraTorrent brand name and the same will be seen in the days and weeks ahead, meaning more ET copycats will emerge. And most likely, torrent fans will not mind so long as the free contents continue to flow.