This article has been just updated:
Long gone is the golden era of torrent trackers. A dark cloud is hanging over the entire torrent scene, and it seems that it has embraced Demonoid with its arms of doom. That’s bad news for everyone who uses torrents, but especially for long-time Demonoid users, who are now forced to look for a suitable alternative.
Is Demonoid Ever Coming Back?
Demonoid has established a reputation as a resilient torrent tracker that always manages to come back even after being offline for weeks and months at a time. But despite its reputation, many supporters of the site realized that something is not right when the site’s owner mysteriously disappeared in August 2018.
Two months after the owner’s disappearance, the site went offline, and it has stayed that way since then.
“Users should be REALLY aware that there is no: .onion address, mirrors, alternative Demonoids and such. Especially to avoid demonoid.to. Demonoid will most likely return, but for now, we have to wait,” said Demonoid staffer Phaze1G in an interview with TorrentFreak.
But you don’t have to live a torrentless life until Demonoid returns. There are still many other torrent trackers that continue to truck along despite everything bad that has happened to the torrent scene in recent years.
1. The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay was launched in the same year as Demonoid, 2003, and the site has experienced at least just as many clashes with copyright watchdogs and law enforcement as its demonic relative. In recent months, The Pirate Bay has spent just as much time offline as online, but its .onion domain works almost all the time. The Pirate Bay is available in 35 languages, and it offers everything from movies and TV shows to software and games to music and audiobooks.
You might want to install an ad-blocker before you visit The Pirate Bay because the site runs a cryptocurrency mining script that starts as soon as you enter it and uses your CPU to mine XMR.
2. 1337x
1337x is a general-purpose torrent tracker that started its life in 2007. It has since become the third most popular torrent website in the world, and we think that its modern design, which was introduced in 2016, has a lot to do with it. Of course, 1337x would never be as successful as it is today if it also didn’t offer a large selection of torrents of all genres.
The tracker has several alternative domain names that increase its overall resilience. You can find all official alternative domain names on the about page, and we highly recommend you bookmark at least two or three of them.
3. Torrentz2
Torrentz2 is a meta torrent tracker that aggregates torrents from many different torrent trackers, including Demonoid and presents them in one place, saving you a lot of time and energy. At the moment, Torrentz2 indexes over 61 million torrents from more than 270 pages on 91 domains.
Because Torrentz2 doesn’t host any torrents on its servers, it much less likely that it would ever get taken down. However, Torrentz2 is prepared for anything, and the site has both a .onion domain and several mirrors ready.
4. NYAA.si
Demonoid attracted a lot of anime fans because the tracker was an excellent source of Japanese entertainment. With the site inaccessible for such a long time, many anime fans have been looking for a new source of anime, manga, and Japanese video games.
NYAA is a special-purpose torrent tracker that focuses exclusively on East Asian media. It started in 2011 and has quickly become one of the largest public anime-dedicated torrent indexes in the world. It’s also worth noting that NYAA has a sister site, called Sukebei, where you can find hentai, adult video games, and JAV.
5. RARBG
RARBG is a reliable torrent tracker with a curated collection of both scene and P2P torrents. The tracker is home to the release group RARTV, which specializes in popular TV shows. RARBG is one of only a few torrent trackers with an RSS feed, allowing you to automatically download the latest TV show episodes the moment they are released.
We recommend RARBG to anyone who’s sick and tired of downloading fake torrents and dealing with malware.
6. RuTracker
RuTracker is a massive Russian torrent tracker that you should keep on your radar because it has such a large collection of torrents that it’s hard to believe.
Unlike Demonoid, RuTracker is a semi-private torrent tracker, which means that you must register before you can use it. However, you can register for free and create as many user accounts as you want.
You should, of course, seed as much as you can, but RuTracker has one of the most layback sharing requirements, so even users with a poor internet connection should be able to meet them.
7. Zooqle
Zooqle is a rising star of 2018. This Russian public torrent tracker has a very modern layout with support for mobile devices. It lists nearly 4 million verified torrents, and approximately 2,000 new torrents are added each day. The tracker has been translated into English, and more languages are to come.
Best VPN for Downloading Torrents
It’s possible that Demonoid’s owner has been arrested because he or she didn’t use a virtual private network (VPN) to protect his or her web traffic from snooping, interference, and censorship. You can think of a VPN as a private tunnel that nobody except for you can access. The traffic that goes through this tunnel is encrypted, so even your internet service provider doesn’t know what you’re doing online.
Not all VPN services are suitable for torrenting, which is why you need to choose carefully and pay attention to the terms of service. We recommend NordVPN because of its slick client, strong encryption, global presence, affordable prices, and positive attitude towards torrenting.
NordVPN costs only $2.99 per month if you pay for three years of service up front, and you can secure up to six devices at the same time with a single NordVPN subscription. 
Once you start directing your online traffic through a hack-proof, encrypted tunnel, you no longer have to worry about receiving a warning letter from your internet service provider every time you visit Demonoid or some other torrent tracker.
Conclusion
Nobody knows what has happened to the owner of Demonoid, and it’s uncertain whether the site will return. Even though Demonoid has made several surprising comebacks after being offline for weeks and even months at a time, some Demonoid staff members fear that this might be it for the site, which has been around since 2003.
Fortunately, most torrents that were available on Demonoid can also be found elsewhere, such as on the trackers listed in this article.
