BitCoinTorrentz.com - Torrent Download Service

[mjcmurfy]

Introducing BitCoinTorrentz.com, a high-speed, fully automated and 100% annonymous remote torrent downloading service.
You can find us at: BitCoinTorrentz.com

NOTE: We are trading on GLBSE, ticker symbol BitCoinTorrentz

What is BitCoinTorrentz.com
This website provides a remote torrent downloading service to it's users in exchange for payment in BitCoin. The cost is calculated based on the size of the file you wish to download. We charge a modest fee of 0.08 BTC/GB (but offer up to 50% discount - see below).

I would appreciate if anyone out there could try it out - it's really quick - and reply with any feedback you might have on the service, how it could be improved, or indeed any criticism. All comments are welcome.
 
How it Works
BitCoinTorrentz.com will download any torrent of your choice at lightning speed. Our servers can download torrents at speeds up to 100x that of a regular, home broadband connection. So your torrent will be ready for download/streaming in a matter of minutes in most cases.
 
You can either upload a .torrent file directly to our servers, or enter the url of a direct link to a .torrent file from your tracker's website. We analyze the torrent, and calculate it's total size and some other information. Once you confirm the torrent it will begin to download immediately, and you will be given a unique link that you can use to monitor the status of the download.

100% Anonymity
We place great value on the privacy of our users, and therefore pledge to provide a 100% anonymous service. No information is logged to our servers that could be used to identify you. All torrents are securely deleted after 3 days, and our service does not log IP traffic.
 
How you get the files
Once the torrent has completed, we provide a direct http download link to the files. You can then download the contents of the torrent using your browser, download manager, or ftp client (ftp access currently on-request only).
 
For those with slow connections, you also have the option of streaming the file directly to your media player with no loss of quality, as long as your connection is even somewhat ok. This means that if you have a slow connection, and you don't want to wait for a large torrent to fully download before you can watch it... you don't have to!

How much does it cost?
It's relatively inexpensive! The cost is calculated based on the size of the torrent you wish to download, at a rate of 0.08 BTC per GB. But if you want to know the exact cost of a particular torrent, just upload it and the exact price will be displayed.

If you register anonymously with the site, you will receive an instant 20% discount on the regular fee. For each 20gb that you download, you will receive an additional 10% reduction of your current fee. The maximum discount is 50% of the regular rate (i.e. 0.04 btc/gb).

Feedback and Support
If you have any questions, comments, queries or qualms... please do not hesitate to contact us. You can send us an email via the contact form on our website.

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[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Hey there,

I like the idea, would definitely use it.
Few questions

1. How is your service different from a seedbox?
2. If anything torrent is much faster than http/ftp, would it be better to give us some sort of online storage like dropbox where we can see our torrents donwloaded. Possibly create a folder on our computers.
3. How does someone see the status of a torrent?


Good luck!!

-Charlie

[mjcmurfy]

Hey there,

I like the idea, would definitely use it.
Few questions

1. How is your service different from a seedbox?
2. If anything torrent is much faster than http/ftp, would it be better to give us some sort of online storage like dropbox where we can see our torrents donwloaded. Possibly create a folder on our computers.
3. How does someone see the status of a torrent?


Good luck!!

-Charlie

Thanks for your input Charlie, it is much appreciated.

What sets bitcointorrentz.com aside from a seedbox is the fact that it is a single-use service. You only pay for torrents that you download, instead of paying a flat rate monthly fee. This could potentially save you a lot of money. This service is, however, not currently designed for long-term seeding or online storage of torrents so if this is what you want, a seedbox would probably be a better solution.

This site is extremely new, and is undergoing constant improvement. I have many ideas that could make this service even better. I think your suggestions about providing additional means of accessing the files, such as a dropbox-like service, are very interesting. I will certainly keep it in mind for v2.

Torrents are indeed potentially faster, but if you have a slow connection with poor upload speed, if your ports are not forwarded correctly, if you are stuck behind a filtering proxy, or if your ISP does not allow torrent traffic, your torrent download speed will likely not reach it's maximum potential. With http or ftp, your download speed is only limited by your own home broadband connection. And since you are able to stream downloaded video and audio files, having a slow connection does not mean you have to wait for the torrent to finish before you can access the file - meaning much faster access to that tv show or movie you want to watch.

With regards to the checking of the status of the torrent, once you have initiated a download, you will be provided with a status link that you can use to check the current status of the torrent. This is a private, single-use, and throwaway link, that identifies your torrent. Once the download is complete, the status page will provide you with the download link to the files automatically. I am actually currently working on implementing code for a more detailed status inquiry.

[terrytibbs]

What system are you using to accept Bitcoin payments? Looks like a custom-hosted version of Bitwillet.

[mjcmurfy]

What system are you using to accept Bitcoin payments? Looks like a custom-hosted version of Bitwillet.

Great question! I have actually created my own checkout feature based on the bitwillet system. In the beginning, i decided to use bitwillet for it's simplicity and ease of use, but it proved to be extremely unreliable. Their system would go down for days making it impossible for users to checkout.

Because of this, I decided to code my own custom-hosted version to replicate the functionality bitwillit provided, albeit intermittently. It works absolutely perfectly, and hands-down beats trusting my earnings to an intermediary.

My checkout feature is probably the thing I am most proud of on the site. I am actually considering releasing it as a standalone service/plugin that users can use and host on their own websites, instead of having to trust 3rd party checkout services.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Hey there,

I like the idea, would definitely use it.
Few questions

1. How is your service different from a seedbox?
2. If anything torrent is much faster than http/ftp, would it be better to give us some sort of online storage like dropbox where we can see our torrents donwloaded. Possibly create a folder on our computers.
3. How does someone see the status of a torrent?


Good luck!!

-Charlie

Thanks for your input Charlie, it is much appreciated.

What sets bitcointorrentz.com aside from a seedbox is the fact that it is a single-use service. You only pay for torrents that you download, instead of paying a flat rate monthly fee. This could potentially save you a lot of money. This service is, however, not currently designed for long-term seeding or online storage of torrents so if this is what you want, a seedbox would probably be a better solution.

This site is extremely new, and is undergoing constant improvement. I have many ideas that could make this service even better. I think your suggestions about providing additional means of accessing the files, such as a dropbox-like service, are very interesting. I will certainly keep it in mind for v2.

Torrents are indeed potentially faster, but if you have a slow connection with poor upload speed, if your ports are not forwarded correctly, if you are stuck behind a filtering proxy, or if your ISP does not allow torrent traffic, your torrent download speed will likely not reach it's maximum potential. With http or ftp, your download speed is only limited by the upload speed of the server you are downloading from. Also, since you are able to stream downloaded video and audio files, it means you do not have to wait for a slow home connection to finish the torrent download before you can access the file - meaning much faster access to that tv show or movie you want to watch.

With regards to the checking of the status of the torrent, once you have initiated a download, you will be provided with a status link that you can use to check the current status of the torrent. This is a private, single-use, and throwaway link, that identifies your torrent. Once the download is complete, the status page will provide you with the download link to the files automatically. I am actually currently working on implementing code for a more detailed status inquiry.

VERY VERY cool!

Great for people in dorms or public computers!

Keep me updated, add me to the Beta

-Charlie

[terrytibbs]

What system are you using to accept Bitcoin payments? Looks like a custom-hosted version of Bitwillet.

My checkout feature is probably the thing I am most proud of on the site. I am actually considering releasing it as a standalone service/plugin that users can use and host on their own websites, instead of having to trust 3rd party checkout services.

You should! Admittedly, it's hard to beat the "free"-price point of Bitwillet, but maybe you could make it work by offering excellent reliability.

[mjcmurfy]

You should! Admittedly, it's hard to beat the "free"-price point of Bitwillet, but maybe you could make it work by offering excellent reliability.

BitWillit will not remain free indefinitely. They are offering a free service right now in order to increase their user base. But once they have enough regular members, I wouldn't be surprised to see the introduction of service fees. It's a good strategy, if not a bit devious. In my experience with them though, their unreliable service outweighs the fact that it is currently being offered free of charge. Hence the decision to create my own solution.

[bitfoo]

This is a perfect application of bitcoin, I'll definitely be spreading the word.

If users are downloading copyrighted material, aren't you also liable? How do you plan to handle this?

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

This is a perfect application of bitcoin, I'll definitely be spreading the word.

If users are downloading copyrighted material, aren't you also liable? How do you plan to handle this?

heh a nice big disclaimer should do him just fine 

[mjcmurfy]

This is a perfect application of bitcoin, I'll definitely be spreading the word.

If users are downloading copyrighted material, aren't you also liable? How do you plan to handle this?

Thanks for your kind comment. I really do think that more services should start to accept bitcoin as a means of payment if the currency is to continue to exist in a useful form, rather than a speculative vehicle. I feel that my service is one small step in the right direction.

With regards to my personal liability, I have included the following disclaimer on the homepage:

The Standard Disclaimer
Please remember that the illegal downloading of copyrighted material is a punishable offense.
Please use this service for the downloading of legal, non-copyrighted materials only.

I should probably pad-out the disclaimer a little bit though.

I would appreciate it if anyone here who has used the bitcointorrentz.com service could provide feedback on the system. Is there anything that could be improved upon or modified to make the service more user friendly?

[Jessica]

You should at least have the system seed the torrent to a 1:1 ratio (ex. 100MB dl'd, 100MB ul'd), or have an option to do so, or seed more. Might make it more handy for user of private torrent trackers which embed user data in the .torrents.

Also. I can rent out my entire signature space, 1BTC a week. I post a lot, and you are going to get a lot of publicity ^^

[mjcmurfy]

You should at least have the system seed the torrent to a 1:1 ratio (ex. 100MB dl'd, 100MB ul'd), or have an option to do so, or seed more. Might make it more handy for user of private torrent trackers which embed user data in the .torrents.

Also. I can rent out my entire signature space, 1BTC a week. I post a lot, and you are going to get a lot of publicity ^^

Thats actually a great idea Jessica, thanks for that. This is why I love this place!

At the moment, torrents will seed for a maximum of 60 minutes, with limited upload speed, and will then automatically stop. I may indeed include the option of continual seeding for those using private torrent sites, for an additional fee. Though, if you happen to have access to a private torrent tracker, the odd's are you probably wouldn't find much use for my service in the first place.

Kind of you to offer your valuable signature space! I'll have to get back to you on that! :p

[Ricochet]

It says the fees are calculated based on file size, but do you have any ballpark figures to give?  Like for a 100 MB file, 1 GB, 5 GB?

[mjcmurfy]

It says the fees are calculated based on file size, but do you have any ballpark figures to give?  Like for a 100 MB file, 1 GB, 5 GB?

Sorry for the ambiguity. If you go to the FAQ page, there is a section there explaining the costs.
It's a pretty straight forward pricing structure. The rate is 0.1 BTC per GB.

So, if you want to download a 100mb file, thats roughly 10% of 1GB, so the price would be 0.01btc.
A 1GB file would cost 0.1btc, and a 5GB file would be 0.5btc, etc.

If you want to check the cost of any particular torrent, just upload it and the exact price will be displayed.
You can then proceed with the download if you choose.

[Ricochet]

My apologies, I didn't even see the FAQ link and thought the front page was all there was to the site.  Question answered.

[mjcmurfy]

No problem. I think I will actually put the price of the service on the home page for the sake of clarity.

[bitfoo]

I tested this service recently with a small file, and here is my review of the whole experience:

Initiation:
I searched for a torrent on btjunkie.org, copied the download URL and pasted it on the website. I got a message that said: "Sorry, there was an error opening the file". I then downloaded the same URL on my computer using wget (worked just fine), and tried uploading it. This time I got an error which said "file is invalid". I realized that wget had changed the file extension to ".torrent.1", so I renamed it back to ".torrent" and uploaded it. This time the server accepted the file successfully.

Payment:
The server checked the file size, and quoted me a price in BTC (which seemed quite affordable, IMHO). I paid the amount, and in less than ten seconds, the server had confirmed my payment. In other words, it proceeds with a 0-confirmation transaction, which makes for a slick user experience. On another note, I noticed that the server provides the same bitcoin payment address for every transaction, since the address already has a few transactions on blockexplorer. I also confirmed this by downloading a second torrent. This should probably be changed ASAP for user privacy protection and security. See this wiki page: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Merchant_Howto#Common_Errors

Torrent download:
I received a download status page, which just says "Downloading", but no progress bar or ETA for finishing the torrent download. I reloaded the status URL regularly until the status changed to "Completed." Since I downloaded a small file, I couldn't estimate the exact download speed. It was definitely around or above 1MB per second - could possibly be larger for bigger files.

HTTP download:
After the torrent was downloaded on the server, it gave me a URL to download from. My torrent was a multi-file torrent, so clicking on the URL dumped me on to a web-server generated directory listing. I would have had to navigate through this directory listing and download each file individually, if not for tools like wget. Providing a zip file of the entire torrent would be much preferred here. Also, the download URL is not hashed or obscured in any way: this may allow users to guess the locations of other "popular" torrents for example. It also allows me to download the same file multiple times, and from different IP addresses. This will allow users to pay for a download once and distribute the URL on a forum, for example. I don't know if this will really be a problem, but you may want to think about this. As for download speeds, I'm connected to a 100Mbps high-speed university internet connection (west coast USA), so downloads from most fast servers go at 10 MB/s. However, I was only able to download my torrent from bitcointorrentz.com at 400KB/s, which I would consider slow.

In a nutshell, the core service works fine. There are a few rough edges here and there, but nothing that can't be fixed. I hope this feedback is useful for future users and to mjcmurfy for improving the service.

[terrytibbs]

I tested this service recently with a small file, and here is my review of the whole experience:

Initiation:
I searched for a torrent on btjunkie.org, copied the download URL and pasted it on the website. I got a message that said: "Sorry, there was an error opening the file". I then downloaded the same URL on my computer using wget (worked just fine), and tried uploading it. This time I got an error which said "file is invalid". I realized that wget had changed the file extension to ".torrent.1", so I renamed it back to ".torrent" and uploaded it. This time the server accepted the file successfully.

Payment:
The server checked the file size, and quoted me a price in BTC (which seemed quite affordable, IMHO). I paid the amount, and in less than ten seconds, the server had confirmed my payment. In other words, it proceeds with a 0-confirmation transaction, which makes for a slick user experience. On another note, I noticed that the server provides the same bitcoin payment address for every transaction, since the address already has a few transactions on blockexplorer. I also confirmed this by downloading a second torrent. This should probably be changed ASAP for user privacy protection and security. See this wiki page: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Merchant_Howto#Common_Errors

Torrent download:
I received a download status page, which just says "Downloading", but no progress bar or ETA for finishing the torrent download. I reloaded the status URL regularly until the status changed to "Completed." Since I downloaded a small file, I couldn't estimate the exact download speed. It was definitely around or above 1MB per second - could possibly be larger for bigger files.

HTTP download:
After the torrent was downloaded on the server, it gave me a URL to download from. My torrent was a multi-file torrent, so clicking on the URL dumped me on to a web-server generated directory listing. I would have had to navigate through this directory listing and download each file individually, if not for tools like wget. Providing a zip file of the entire torrent would be much preferred here. Also, the download URL is not hashed or obscured in any way: this may allow users to guess the locations of other "popular" torrents for example. It also allows me to download the same file multiple times, and from different IP addresses. This will allow users to pay for a download once and distribute the URL on a forum, for example. I don't know if this will really be a problem, but you may want to think about this. As for download speeds, I'm connected to a 100Mbps high-speed university internet connection, so downloads from most fast servers go at 10 MB/s. However, I was only able to download my torrent from bitcointorrentz.com at 400KB/s, which I would consider slow.

In a nutshell, the core service works fine. There are a few rough edges here and there, but nothing that can't be fixed. I hope this feedback is useful for future users and to mjcmurfy for improving the service.

Thank you for sharing.

[mjcmurfy]

I tested this service recently with a small file, and here is my review of the whole experience:

Initiation:
I searched for a torrent on btjunkie.org, copied the download URL and pasted it on the website. I got a message that said: "Sorry, there was an error opening the file". I then downloaded the same URL on my computer using wget (worked just fine), and tried uploading it. This time I got an error which said "file is invalid". I realized that wget had changed the file extension to ".torrent.1", so I renamed it back to ".torrent" and uploaded it. This time the server accepted the file successfully.

Payment:
The server checked the file size, and quoted me a price in BTC (which seemed quite affordable, IMHO). I paid the amount, and in less than ten seconds, the server had confirmed my payment. In other words, it proceeds with a 0-confirmation transaction, which makes for a slick user experience. On another note, I noticed that the server provides the same bitcoin payment address for every transaction, since the address already has a few transactions on blockexplorer. I also confirmed this by downloading a second torrent. This should probably be changed ASAP for user privacy protection and security. See this wiki page: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Merchant_Howto#Common_Errors

Torrent download:
I received a download status page, which just says "Downloading", but no progress bar or ETA for finishing the torrent download. I reloaded the status URL regularly until the status changed to "Completed." Since I downloaded a small file, I couldn't estimate the exact download speed. It was definitely around or above 1MB per second - could possibly be larger for bigger files.

HTTP download:
After the torrent was downloaded on the server, it gave me a URL to download from. My torrent was a multi-file torrent, so clicking on the URL dumped me on to a web-server generated directory listing. I would have had to navigate through this directory listing and download each file individually, if not for tools like wget. Providing a zip file of the entire torrent would be much preferred here. Also, the download URL is not hashed or obscured in any way: this may allow users to guess the locations of other "popular" torrents for example. It also allows me to download the same file multiple times, and from different IP addresses. This will allow users to pay for a download once and distribute the URL on a forum, for example. I don't know if this will really be a problem, but you may want to think about this. As for download speeds, I'm connected to a 100Mbps high-speed university internet connection, so downloads from most fast servers go at 10 MB/s. However, I was only able to download my torrent from bitcointorrentz.com at 400KB/s, which I would consider slow.

In a nutshell, the core service works fine. There are a few rough edges here and there, but nothing that can't be fixed. I hope this feedback is useful for future users and to mjcmurfy for improving the service.

Thank you so much for going to the trouble to write that extremely helpful review of the site. Most of the issues you brought up I am already aware of, and am working hard on solutions. Apart from those few niggly things, the site is working as it should.

The reason why the site could not download your btjunkie file is because btjunkie employ certain security protocols, meaning that the "Download Link" you click for the torrent file is not the actual file itself. It does a subsequent redirect, then the torrent begins to download. I have noticed several sites have this authentication method, and I am not sure how to overcome this issue other than recommending that people download the torrent and upload the torrent file manually. Torrents from thepriatebay, however, work fine via CURL downloads.

With regards to the payment system, I am aware that all payments are going to the same bitcoin address. I am already in the process of creating unique wallet addresses for individual users, however, for the time being it is not so big of an issue as you would think. The cost of the download is filesize in GB (to 3 decimal places) * 0.1, then rounded down to 4 decimal places. It is the price of the torrent that identifies the payment, and unless two users simultaneously download a torrent of the EXACT same size, it is not an immediate problem. I plan to transition to a unique-address based solution soon.

With regards to the torrent status page, unfortunately, I cannot find a way to interface with the torrent client to update stats on realtime download speeds, ETA's etc. I can only differentiate torrent states, such as Downloading or Completed. I am working hard to try and improve the status page with more detailed information however.

Another good point you brought up with regards to multi-file torrents, with many subdirectories. I had considered doing exactly as you suggested and zipping up the whole torrent, but then I felt that some people may want instant streaming access to files contained within. I am still not decided on how I will proceed with this.

Torrent names, yep, again you are totally spot on. I intend to create folders with unique names in the future for downloads to prevent the exact scenario you suggested. Also, I don't really have a problem with multiple downloads of the same file as long as it does not start to become burdensome on the server. If this does become the case, I may have to put in place some further security layers to prevent this.

As for your speed, 400kb is indeed VERY slow. I don't understand how it could have been that bad. My website runs on a 100mbit dedicated server with unmetered bandwidth, based in europe. I max out my 30mbit home broadband connection downloading from this server every time, without fail. It could be due to the fact that the server is located so far away in europe, or maybe you just got it on a particularly congested time. It's hard to say. But I know that I am downloading something off it right now at a speed of 2.8 mb/s.

Thank you once again for your very in depth beta testing of the site and once again I really appreciate the time you took to write up this review that has provided me with such stimulating feedback.