In July 2016, the torrenting community bid farewell to a beloved site: KickAss Torrents. Commonly referred to as KAT, this widely used file-sharing platform was shut down following the arrest of its owner, Artem Vaulin, in Poland. With KickAss Torrents no longer available, users now need to explore alternative options to maintain their file-sharing experience. Luckily, I will guide you on how to access KickAss Torrents alternatives and discover similar sites for your downloading needs.
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The Best Kickass alternatives: A note on legality
As a disclaimer, I don’t encourage people to share and download files illegally. So if you’re looking for the best Kickass Torrents alternatives for streaming films and TV shows, I can’t help you out.
However, while I don’t condone illegal file sharing, I am very censorship, and like to promote usage freedom on he internet. As such, I do think that everyone and anyone who wants to, should be able to access alternatives to Kat, and unblock them in their country if they’re not currently available.
By nature, Kickass Torrent similar sites and other torrent sites are platforms for sharing data and information that is free for all. It’s this part that I’m sticking up for: Not all file shares are violate copyright laws.
How to use the best Kickass alternatives safely
Before you start downloading anything online (especially when using the alternatives to Kickass Torrents highlighted below) I highly recommend setting up a VPN.
A VPN – Virtual Private Network – will help to protect your identity and hide your activities from your internet service provider (ISP) and the government. Most ISPs won’t allow torrenting, meaning even if you can access the best Kickass alternatives, you still might not be able to download anything. And, if you are found torrenting files that breach copyright laws, you might find yourself with a hefty fine, as you’ll be identified through your IP address.
Using a VPN can stop this. When connected to a VPN server, you’ll be able to use Kickass Torrent similar sites without detection. Sites will receive the server’s IP address, rather than yours – so you should be able to keep your online activity hidden.
This is especially important if you need to travel to the United States or Germany as these countries are very tight on their online activity monitoring. If you want to know more about how you can protect yourself while torrenting, click the links below to read the articles on the following topics:
- Using Qbittorrent VPN to download torrents anonymously
- How to bypass P2P blocking
In the meantime, you can download one of the VPNs below to use with any Kickass Torrents alternative. I’ve personally reviewed all of these VPNs for ease of use, value for money and speed of connection. All you have to do is sign up to the one that takes your fancy, download the software and get connected.
I actually recommend using a VPN at all times when browsing online. They’re great for giving you that little bit extra protection from onlookers.
Best Alternatives to Kickass Torrents
Below are a variety of alternatives to Kickass Torrents. Some may, or may not work in your country – but I’ll show you how to set up your VPN to ensure you can access any Kickass Torrents alternative that takes your fancy.
The best Kickass Torrents alternative: The Pirate Bay
Losing Kat was tough, but it paved the way for other torrenting sites to flourish. The Pirate Bay has become the world’s most famous torrenting website after the incident – making it one of the best Kickass alternatives available. The huge amount of torrent links are a haven for those who are looking to download various types of files.
Unlike before, the annoying, X-rated ads have disappeared and their links have become very well-indexed over the course of a few years. Their torrent search feature is great, too.
The downside of Kickass Torrents alternatives is that they often go offline for a few days at a time. They’ll usually be back up and running in no time, but it’s inconvenient when you need to download something and it’s down.
Even with that in mind however, The Pirate Bay is still my top contender for the best Kat alternatives. To learn how to use TPB, check out my detailed guide here.
Kickass Torrents alternatives for HD movies: YTS.am
When searching ‘Kickass Torrents similar sites’, you’ll likely find YTS.am. Formerly known as YIFY, YTS.am is the go-to torrenting website if you want the latest high-quality movies with low bitrate rips. Plenty of torrent users are attracted to YTS because they’re known for their HD video formats especially those in Blu-ray. Compared to most torrenting sites, it has an incredibly user-friendly interface.
Their movie library is quite impressive, too. With over four thousand movies of different types of genre, no wonder it’s one of the top alternatives to Kickass Torrents. It’s also supposedly the content source for Popcorn Time.
YTS.am was named YTS.ag before, so you might think that it’s a fake site but they actually changed the domain name a bit.
Kickass Torrent similar sites for watching movies: Popcorn Time
Unlike the old-fashioned way of downloading movies and watching them later, Popcorn Time differs from other Kickass Torrents alternatives as it allows you to stream videos using the BitTorrent P2P protocol – so it’s like torrenting plus Netflix in one app.
But what makes Popcorn Time different from the other best Kickass alternatives? Well, they claims that it will never be taken down, thus making it a reliable option for anyone who hates this issue when using Pirate Bay.
To use Popcorn Time, you have to download the app on their website. It supports all devices and OS such as iOS, Mac, Windows, Android, and Linux. They index their movies and TV shows from other sites and stream it through the app so you will need an extremely stable internet connection for this one.
User friendly alternatives to Kickass Torrents: RARBG
This trusty ol’ torrenting site has been a great source of content since 2008. Judging on their interface, it looks like it has also been stuck in that year as well. A lot of Kickass Torrent similar sites – including RARBG – have very old-looking interfaces and an annoyingly large number of ads and clickbait. Despite this however, I still feel RARBG is legitimate, and a good Kickass Torrents alternative.
There are about 300,00 users per day that rely on RARBG for torrent files and magnet links. It’s an ideal website to start with if you’re new to torrenting and still getting the hang of it. Because of its simple interface, it’s pretty easy to navigate, too. The large community also helps by regularly posting feedback.
When using one of these alternatives to Kickass Torrents, I’ve already said I recommend using a VPN. But there’s another reason why: Ads can often be suspicious malware or hackers waiting to attack. If you accidentally click on one, you could find yourself – and your device – in a lot of trouble. You could even become a victim to fraud. By using the VPN, you can ensure that nobody can trace your activity while visiting any site – meaning you’ll be safe from potential onlookers like hackers and cybercriminals.
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Best new alternatives to Kickass Torrents: Torlock
Dubbing themselves as The No Fakes torrent site, Torlock is a fairly new Kat Torrent alternative, but has gained serious popularity since launching – and for good reason. Torlock features a wide selection of torrents under different categories, a simple user interface, and an ad-free experience – which means it’s certainly earned its position on my list of the best Kickass alternatives.
If you’re looking for recommendations from them, there have a Top 100 and Fresh category, too.
As with all new software, Torlock has its disadvantages. One is that it has a much smaller community than other Kickass Torrent similar sites. They are still working on developing an active user community and gaining lots of feedback but other than that, Torlock is a good torrenting site.
Kickass Torrent similar sites: KickAss Torrents.co (katcr.co)
Surprised? One of the best Kickass alternatives is Kickass itself! The former staff created Katcr.co from the original defunct site. Built from the kat.cr’s appearance and features, katcr.co is the closest we’ll ever get to the original KAT. It works perfectly well and has a clean user database.
Unlike its predecessor, katcr.co has some hiccups with the website that plenty of people are complaining about. However, it’s running smoothly most of the time and it doesn’t encounter major problems. If you want the same experience with the original KickAssTorrents, kat.cr is a good alternative. When searching for ‘Kickass Torrent similar sites’ you couldn’t get much similar than this!
Always use a VPN with alternatives to Kickass Torrents
When you visit these torrenting websites that I have listed, or search for Kickass similar sites, most, if not all, will always display a warning that you should always use a VPN first before attempting to download torrents. If you’re not protected, even the best Kickass alternatives will have no option but to display your IP address and location. This is why we’re always emphasizing the importance of a VPN, whether you’re torrenting or not.
The BitTorrent protocol allows anyone who is downloading the same file to see the IP address of the people who are also downloading it. Your IP address is your ‘online address’, that is specific to your device. If anyone, knows where you live and the structure of your house, it’s pretty easy for them to devise a plan on how to rob you, or steal your detail online.
With a VPN, you’re protected from copyright trolls, cybercriminals and potential threats. A VPN has other benefits too:
- Your ISP is unable to see your activities
- All of your data are encrypted
- Your real IP address and location is hidden
- You can bypass censorships and geo-restrictions
- You can stop your ISP from throttling your data
Take note that not all VPN services allow P2P file sharing. So before you try out a VPN provider, make sure that it permits torrenting. And if you don’t want to read another article to find the best VPN for torrenting, simply try my favourite one:
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Hopefully, this article has shared some insight on getting Kickass unblocked for you, or at least helped you to find Kickass Torrent similar sites.
