Torrent search engines are a dime a dozen in todays modern world. So much so it is often hard to find new startups as a few larger players dominate the industry. You may be asking yourself what exactly can be done to build upon the current structure that torrent search engines are built upon? As far as actually finding the material you seek, you’re going to get similar results just about anywhere you go. However, the journey to such content is another matter. Personally, I haven’t spent that many hours of my life searching for “the perfect torrent search engine” and I’m sure many of you strive for anything that simply get’s the job done. Perfection in this field doesn’t really have much differentiation between “perfect” and “horrible”. If you’re feeling adventurous, I invite you to try out a relatively new torrent search engine (launched February 2009) called “KickAssTorrents”. While certainly a baby in the grander scheme of things, KickAssTorrents has plenty to offer.

Besides your typical search categories, and “latest/featured” lists, you may notice a few other subtle yet highly appreciated features. The layout of KAT is rather streamlined and void of more heinous design decisions that plague several other torrent search engines. Am I looking for Apple-esque style quality? Not at all. But not having to bandage my eyes because of god awful color choices, navigation that’s a pain, or blinking ads mean I’m a happy camper. Speaking of ads, after a few minutes on KAT you’ll notice that there aren’t any ads! You’re greeted with a clean, streamlined interface without pictures blinking all over the place as is all to common in the torrent world search engine world. Now don’t get me wrong, ads have their time and place as I make use of ads here on Gadgetsteria. But I don’t feel they’re obtrusive and annoying. I think we all know what ads I’m talking about though. When you spend more time zooming, scrolling, and clicking to get past an ad or ads then you do on the actual content you came to, you know there’s a problem. Thankfully you won’t find that here.

Looks and navigation alone are far from the bread and butter of torrent search engines. Rightfully so, KickAssTorrents has features to back up the visual pizzaz. Such features include, but aren’t limited to:

• Real-time torrent stats, seeder, and leacher numbers

• Direct http downloads for select torrents. (Currently in beta) — it’s worth noting, I tried direct http downloads on several torrents and my browser, Safari 4 on OS X 10.6 kept timing out. Your mileage will vary with this one. But as stated, said feature is in beta so bugs and glitches are expected.

• Customizable user area

• Extras such as ajax comments preview as well as Firefox plugins

• Last.fm integration

To me, the fact that KAT is less than a year old and already pushing well north of 100,000 visitors/700,000 pageviews a day signals that beyond my personal experience with the site, many others are finding their servers to be fairly valuable as well. After speaking with a KAT employee, I was informed that they’re even in talks with larger torrent sites regarding partnership offers. Again, pretty damn good for less than a year in business don’t you think?

Should you switch to KickAssTorrents as your sole torrent search engine? That’s hard to say and obviously is best answered by you. For myself, I like to have plenty of options which is why KickAssTorrents will join several other torrent search engines in my journey through this digital world. Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

*This was a sponsored post courtesy of Kick Ass Torrents*

Author: Mike Norris

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Gadget lover, smartphone collector, and beer connoisseur. I’ve been writing about gadgets for three years now and loving every minute of it. Outside of the digital landscape, I enjoy being active outdoors. I’m always up for a good conversation, so feel free to drop me a line!