Leechers Paradise, one of the world's longest-standing and most important BitTorrent trackers, recently shut down after 12 years serving hundreds of millions of torrent users. Now, however, a return is on the horizon. Speaking with TorrentFreak, the site's former operator says the service will rise again, but this time with improved security for its new operator.
Thanks to wonders of DHT and PEX, public torrents can be shared among millions of people without a need for a dedicated tracker.
However, the existence of standalone trackers is always a plus for torrent users, since these servers are able to put sharers in touch with each more quickly, speeding up the discovery and distribution of similar content.
Public trackers of this type are in short supply so it was a big blow to the sharing community when Leechers Paradise recently announced its closure.
After 12 years in the game, the site’s operator revealed that he’d had enough. Citing concerns over the EU’s Article 13 legislation and problems with hosting such a resource-hungry platform, ‘Eddie’ said goodbye to the torrent world. After recently serving up to 132 million peers in a single day in July, the news was significant.
Now, however, an unexpected light has appeared at the end of the tunnel. Speaking with TorrentFreak, Eddie has confirmed that Leechers Paradise will be making a comeback, albeit with a brand new owner.
“I am happy to announce that a college in the space has picked up the domains from me and will continue to carry the flame,” Eddie says, without providing specifics for security reasons.
“A person who is currently running a rather large OpenBitTorrent tracker will continue the work. However, due to this person operating two large trackers, he doesn’t want his name mentioned because he is afraid he will become too big of a target.”
Starting off anonymously with his new venture is not something that Eddie considered necessary when he launched Leechers Paradise well over a decade ago. Indeed, he took no precautions to hide who he was, something which he later came to regret.
“I would like to clarify that one of the reasons to quit was that my actual full-name and address was on the domain. This was no issue 12 years ago but these days with more and more copyright laws it has become more of an issue,” he explains.
“I have received physical mail from multiple copyright protection agencies in the past. However, this is not the reason for me to stop operating, as I have complied with their demands and continued to be on the right side of law.”
During our earlier coverage, we noted how the closure of Leechers Paradise should come as a disappointment to millions of users. However, due to its magic being worked largely behind the scenes, many won’t appreciate exactly what it did, nor the effort that was put in.
“It has been a mostly thankless job which I have gladly done,” Eddie says.
“However, the costs and risks have become too great to continue. The new owner will be able to hide his identity and therefore vastly limit the risk. I wish him the best.”
It is not yet clear when Leechers Paradise will be in the hands of its new owner but we understand that users won’t have too long to wait. TorrentFreak is informed that the domains are currently being transferred while a new server could be up in a matter of days.
