The popular torrent meta-search engine Torrentz2 is without links to external torrent sites once again, for some, which makes the site harder to use. This time the issue is not caused by the site though, but by ad-blockers that use the popular Easylist filter.
With millions of visits per day, Torrentz2 is without a doubt the most popular torrent meta-search engine on the Internet.
The site took this spot from the original Torrentz site, which surprisingly closed its doors during the summer of 2016.
Up until a month ago everything was running smoothly, but that changed when links to other torrent sites disappeared late December. Instead of a metasearch engine, Torrentz2 turned into a database of torrent metadata, and traffic started to drop off.
Torrentz2 remained without links for roughly three weeks, after which the site, just as surprisingly, returned to its former glory. But that didn’t last very long.
Starting yesterday, all links mysteriously disappeared again, without any official explanation. However, this time it only affects users who run an ad-blocker.
Initially we assumed that the issues were affecting all users, but upon closer inspection this is not the case. This means that the current issue is in no way related to the earlier disappearance.
The issues are the result of the EasyList Adblock filter which appears to block all nofollow links on Torrentz2. Since most adblockers use this list, many people are affected.
The good news for affected users is that they can solve the issue by simply disabling the adblocker on the site. Alternatively, they can also disable the EasyList filter in their ad-blocker, or fiddle with other settings.
Update: Shortly after publication we learned that the disappearing links are the result of EasyList and adblockers. We updated the article accordingly.