Before I get started with this review, I need to remind you that use of torrents and downloading copyrighted content is purely at your own risk. If you get busted, the onus is 100% on you.
Now that we got that out of the way, I can tell you about Vertor.com, a “new generation website” with VERified TORrents. That’s where it gets its name. On the surface, it may look any other site that lists torrents for music, movies, and other content, but it’s got a few features that really set it apart. If you’re not familiar with BitTorrent, you can check the FAQ.
Checking Out the Library of Torrents
When you hit up Vertor.com (shown above), you’ll notice that the page layout is utterly simplistic, not unlike Google. From that search bar, you can gain access to a wide range of torrents, including Hollywood movies, Japanese anime, and popular computer games.
Clicking through to the main page, you’ll find that Vertor is a little more robust that a simple torrent search engine. They’ve got their own news and reviews, lists of the most popular torrents, an official forum and more.
Have you discovered a great torrent that is not listed on Vertor? You can upload torrents for other Vertor users, as long as you are a registered member of the site.
Verification and Information
Downloading random content on the Internet can be a very scary experience, because many of the files shared over BitTorrent can be infected with all sorts of nasty things. Vertor helps to protect you against such threats, because every listed torrent file is downloaded and checked for viruses. This is part of the security of verified torrents.
Since Vertor is relatively new, it’s still going through some growing pains. As a result, they “have discovered our anti-virus software was not dependable enough, so we’re changing it to a more reliable one on 30.12.2008. Therefore we can not give you a 100% guarantee that all torrents are virus-free.” December 30th has come and gone, so I guess they haven’t gotten around to updating the anti-virus yet.
Vertor also checks to see if the archives are password protected. If you’ve ever used BitTorrent, you’ve probably encountered some torrents that require a password or membership to a certain site. It can be pretty frustrating to find this out after you spent hours downloading the archive, so Vertor saves you from that headache.
A Sneak Preview
While Vertor will tell you what files are found within each torrent archive, you may not be terribly familiar with the file names themselves. That’s why it’s very cool that they offer samples. For audio torrents, you can access some brief MP3 snippets. For video torrents, you get screenshots, like these from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.
The preview feature can also tell you if the files are corrupted or DRM-protected, as is the case with this Underworld: Rise of the Lycans torrent. The screenshots are just a mess, so you probably shouldn’t waste your time with that torrent.
The Cleanest Torrent Search Engine Out There
When you go to most of the other torrent-collecting websites on the Internet, you’ll notice that they are usually very cluttered and filled with flashing ads everywhere you look. There may be some annoying pop-up ads, a convoluted interface, and an abundance of useless torrents.
This does not appear to be the case with Vertor Verified Torrents. The site is very clean, easy-to-use, and 100% ad-free. The developers say that they hope to keep the site free of advertising for as long as possible.
With all of those extra features, like the antivirus protection and sample files, Vertor looks to be one of the cleanest and most complete torrent search engines on the net. Better still, you don’t even need your own BitTorrent client on your computer, because they offer the ability to use the BitLet online torrent client. That’s pretty neat.
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