BTJunkie, a popular BitTorrent search engine, has voluntarily shut down after seven years in existence. The recent seizures of MegaUpload and several hundred sports broadcasting websites likely had an significant impact over the move to voluntarily shut down. It’s yet to be seen if BTJunkie will go completely inactive or whether they will follow in the footsteps of The Pirate Bay, which ended its search service in 2009 but still allows for the trading of content through decentralized methods such as magnet link sharing.
All that is left of BTJunkie is a four-sentence statement, which reads:
“This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!”
According to the website ranking service Alexa, as of February 2012 BTJunkie ranked as the 392nd most popular website in the world. For comparison, The Pirate Bay reached as high as 75.
it was my favorite torrent site