YggTorrent’s Downfall and Controversial Return
The prominent French private torrent tracker YggTorrent faced a dramatic upheaval in early March, as it was reportedly “devastated and then destroyed” by a hacker known as Gr0lum. Launched in 2017, YggTorrent had established itself as a pivotal hub for French-speaking piracy, offering a treasure trove of fresh releases, including films, series, magazines, books, games, and more. However, what remains now is a shell of its former self, with 6.6 million users left grappling with the aftermath and engaging in mutual accusations.
For those unfamiliar with the concept, a private torrent tracker operates similarly to a search engine for pirated torrent files, connecting seeders (uploaders) with leechers (downloaders) without hosting the files themselves. The term “private” indicates that unregistered users are barred from accessing the site, often requiring an interview or an invitation for entry.
Following the destruction of YggTorrent, Gr0lum released a manifesto laden with serious allegations against the site’s owners. According to Gr0lum, the YggTorrent administration engaged in “DDoS attacks against competing trackers, purged uploaders who dared to speak out, and sabotaged their own API to prevent the use of third-party tools.”
You store the credit cards of all 54,776 of your members? What exactly do you do with this information? Why do you track the behavior of every visitor? And fingerprinting cryptocurrency wallets – are your users even aware?
6.6 million users. Years of lies. An empire built on extortion.
The reputation of YggTorrent within the community was already fragile. In 2025, the tracker introduced a Turbo subscription priced at €15 per month, which significantly hampered file downloads without it. This move sparked a wave of criticism among users and was included in the list of grievances outlined by Gr0lum in the manifesto.
The reaction from the French piracy community has been mixed. Many users on Reddit expressed relief at YggTorrent’s downfall, while others lamented the loss of the largest centralized repository for current French-language torrents. Nevertheless, torrents have not vanished entirely; content from YggTorrent has already migrated to other trackers, some of which are struggling to accommodate the influx of “refugees.”
Despite the apparent total destruction, YggTorrent has made a tentative return in recent days, reemerging as a countdown website accompanied by an official statement. The administration has vehemently denied all allegations, characterizing the events as a “disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting YGGtorrent.” They assert that databases and backups were not destroyed, the site will not be offline permanently, user banking data was never collected, and security was not reliant on outdated mechanisms like MD5.
However, the French piracy community remains skeptical of these denials. Rebuilding trust, already compromised by the paid subscription model and allegations of surveillance, will be a formidable challenge—even if YggTorrent genuinely manages to resume operations.
