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TorrentGalaxy Drama Continues With Days of Downtime
Trouble continues for popular torrent site TorrentGalaxy. The site, which is seen as a notorious piracy market by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, has been unreachable for days. While some believe that the end has come for the site, technical troubles certainly can't be ruled out.
Founded in 2018, TorrentGalaxy has grown to become a leading player in the torrent ecosystem.
However, the past few months have been far from smooth sailing and last Thursday, TorrentGalaxy become entirely unreachable once again.
Attempts to access the popular torrent site stopped short of their intended destination. With one exception (torrentgalaxy.mx which points to 127.0.0.1) the site’s domain names are working just fine, but the route to the site’s servers clearly isn’t.
As usual, there is no word from TorrentGalaxy’s operators. The site’s regular staff and administrators are also left in the dark, which means that it’s not clear if or when the site will return.
Site Down, Bots Up
Occasional downtime is not unusual for these types of sites and TorrentGalaxy has had more than its fair share since new owners took over the site last year. The prolonged downtime is newsworthy, however, as the site is one of the largest torrent communities in existence today.
The site is also important as a key content supplier to other torrent sites though its upload bots. Interestingly, those bots are still operational, unlike during previous downtime periods.
While these troubles are a concern for pirates, copyright holders will be pleased to see the site gone. Last month, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) flagged TorrentGalaxy among the most notorious pirate sites. According to the report, the site was one of the main beneficiaries of RARBG’s shutdown in 2023.
Money, Ukraine & Anti-Pirates
Whether recent ‘technical’ troubles are the result of targeted enforcement action isn’t clear, however. The site appears to be hosted, or more likely proxied, though the Ukrainian company Virtual Systems LLC, which has a reputation for providing connectivity and staying out of third party disputes.
As a result, Virtual Systems was also branded a “notorious piracy market” by the USTR, for allegedly offering “DMCA Ignored” hosting services.
Interestingly, a few weeks ago, TorrentGalaxy claimed that it had trouble paying the bills. When the operators asked users to chip in, hundreds of dollars were donated in Bitcoin.
While some might connect the current troubles to a lack of funds, there’s no evidence for that either. If the site shut down voluntarily, it would likely put up a message one way or another, which isn’t all that hard. In fact, TGx has quite a bit of experience with spooky messages by now.
