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RARBG

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RARBG was a website that provided torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. From 2014 to 2023, RARBG repeatedly appeared in TorrentFreak's yearly list of most visited torrent websites.[1] It was ranked 4th as of January 2023.[2] The website did not allow users to upload their own torrents.[1]

RARBG
RARBG Homepage as of July 2019
Type of site
Torrent index, magnet links provider
Available inEnglish
Azerbaijani
Bengali
Bulgarian
Catalan
German
Persian
Bahasa Indonesia
Hebrew
DissolvedMay 31, 2023; 17 months ago (2023-05-31)
Headquarters
Bulgaria
Area servedWorldwide (except for blocked countries)
URLrarbg.to
RegistrationClosed
Launched2008; 16 years ago (2008)
Current statusOffline

History

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RARBG was founded in 2008.[3] Originally conceived as a Bulgarian BitTorrent tracker (BG in the name stands for "Bulgaria"), the website had been serving an international audience since then. According to TorrentFreak, RARBG specialized in English-language "high quality video releases", but lists other content as well, including "games, software and music."[1]

The website has been described in 2019 as a "notorious market" by the US trade representative.[4] In 2020, the website was listed as a target of Bulgarian law enforcement.[5]

Shutdown

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On 31 May 2023, the site announced its shutdown, citing multiple reasons, including inflation, side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine preventing it from covering the costs to keep the site running.[6] The full shutdown statement released by the site reads as follows:

Hello guys,
We would like to inform you that we have decided to shut down our site.
The past 2 years have been very difficult for us - some of the people in our team died due to covid complications,
others still suffer the side effects of it - not being able to work at all.
Some are also fighting the war in Europe - ON BOTH SIDES.
Also, the power price increase in data centers in Europe hit us pretty hard.
Inflation makes our daily expenses impossible to bare.
Therefore we can no longer run this site without massive expenses that we can no longer cover out of pocket.
After an unanimous vote we've decided that we can no longer do it.
We are sorry :(
Bye

Blocking and censorship

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RARBG was blocked in several countries around the world for legal reasons, generally due to its facilitation of copyright infringement.[1] In December 2008, the site remained closed for one week due to legal pressure from BREIN.[7] In 2017, RARBG was filtered out of Google search results following a controversy wherein links to torrent sites were highlighted in Google's "carousel" search results.[8][9] Due to a lawsuit brought against ISP Hurricane Electric by film studios demanding the personal information of pirates, Sophidea VPN, a VPN service operated through Hurricane Electric, blocked access to several torrent sites as of December 2020, including RARBG.[10]

Country Date of block
Saudi Arabia 2 April 2014[11][12]
United Kingdom 27 November 2014[13]
Denmark 27 March 2015[14]
Turkey 12 August 2015[15]
Portugal 26 October 2015[16]
Italy 6 March 2017[17][18]
Australia 18 August 2017[19][20]
Indonesia 10 October 2017[citation needed]
Finland 8 June 2018[21]
Ireland 18 January 2018[22][23]
Belgium 3 January 2019[citation needed]
India 12 April 2019[24][25][26]
Greece 15 May 2019[27]
Netherlands 31 March 2022[28]
Iran Unknown
Bulgaria Unknown
Oman Unknown
China Unknown

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Staff. "RARBG". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 9 July 2020. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  2. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (22 January 2023). "Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2023". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 19 July 2022. Retrieved 10 April 2023.
  3. ^ "Iconic Torrent Site RARBG Shuts Down, All Content Releases Stop * TorrentFreak". Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2023.
  4. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (26 April 2019). "US Govt Identifies Top Pirate Sites and Other 'Notorious Markets'". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 19 November 2020. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  5. ^ Van der Sar, Ernersto (3 April 2020). "Bulgaria Plans to Take Down Top Torrent Sites, with U.S. Assistance". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  6. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (31 May 2023). "Iconic Torrent Site RARBG Shuts Down, All Content Releases Stop". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  7. ^ Maxwell, Andy (8 December 2008). "BREIN Chases Another BitTorrent Tracker to Sweden". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 2 September 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  8. ^ Liao, Shannon (11 July 2017). "Google search now casually highlights 'best torrent sites' [Updated]". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on 11 September 2018.
  9. ^ Dassanayake, Dion (30 July 2017). "PIRATE BAY CRACKDOWN - Google taking fight to 'best torrent sites' on the internet". Express. Express Newspapers. Archived from the original on 30 July 2017.
  10. ^ Spadafora, Anthony (14 December 2020). "This VPN will now start blocking the Pirate Bay and more". TechRadar. Future US. Archived from the original on 14 December 2020.
  11. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (2 April 2014). "Saudi Arabia Government Blocks The Pirate Bay (and More)". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 11 June 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  12. ^ Vatu, Gabriela (2 April 2014). "Saudi Arabia Blocks Access to The Pirate Bay". Softpedia News. Softpedia. Archived from the original on 5 April 2014.
  13. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (27 November 2014). "UK Piracy Blocklist Expands With Demonoid, Isohunt, IPTorrents and More". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 15 March 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  14. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (27 March 2015). "Popular Torrent and Streaming Sites Blocked in Denmark". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 21 April 2018. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  15. ^ "Bilgi Teknolojileri ve İletişim Kurumu - Site Bilgileri Sorgu Sayfası". internet2.btk.gov.tr. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  16. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (26 October 2015). "Portugal Blocks Popular Torrent and Streaming Sites". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 2 September 2018. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
  17. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (6 March 2017). "Italy's Pirate Site Blocklist Expands with Flashx, RARBG and Others". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 10 July 2020. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  18. ^ Vatu, Gabriela (7 March 2017). "Italy Blocks RARBG, Flashx, Other Torrent Sites". Softpedia News. SoftNews NET SRL. Archived from the original on 10 March 2017.
  19. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (18 August 2017). "Court Orders Aussie ISPs to Block Dozens of Pirate Sites". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 3 July 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  20. ^ "Australia blocks another 59 popular pirate sites". BBC News. BBC. 18 August 2017. Archived from the original on 22 August 2017.
  21. ^ Van der Sar, Ernestp (8 June 2018). "Court Orders Finnish ISPs to Block RARBG and YIFY". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 10 July 2020. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  22. ^ O'Faolain, Aodhan (15 January 2018). "Websites infringing TV and film copyright to be blocked". The Irish Times. Irish Times Trust. Archived from the original on 15 January 2018.
  23. ^ O'Loughlin, Ann (15 January 2018). "Court grants blocking order against websites which allow users stream and download film and TV content". Irish Examiner. Irish Examiner. Archived from the original on 13 August 2020.
  24. ^ Maxwell, Maxwell (12 April 2019). "Pirate Bay, RARBG, 1337x & Torrentz2 to be Permanently Blocked in India". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  25. ^ Sharma, Prathma (16 April 2019). "Delhi high court cracks down on piracy, bans 30 torrent websites". Mint. HT Media. Archived from the original on 16 April 2019.
  26. ^ PTI (12 April 2019). "HC restrains 30 torrent sites from hosting copyrighted content, orders ISPs to block them". ET Telecom. The Times Group. Archived from the original on 13 April 2019.
  27. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (5 April 2019). "Greek Pirate Site Blocks to Expand with RARBG, Torrentz2, and Others". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 24 April 2019. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  28. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (31 March 2022). "Dutch Pirate Site Blocklist Expands with RARBG, YTS, EZTV and Others". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 16 April 2022. Retrieved 16 April 2022.
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