Startup Ideas Bank

A Terminal Torrent Tool Nobody Asked For

AI roast score: 45/100 (F)

The idea

Building a torrent tool for the terminal is like creating a new type of dial-up modem. Niche, outdated, and irrelevant.

In the founder's own words

baairon/torlink — A sleek, zero-setup torrent finder and downloader that lives right in your terminal.

Finding a torrent these days sucks. One site is a minefield of fake download buttons. Another hides the real link under a popup that spawns two more tabs. And after all that, half the results are dead, zero seeders.

torlink is a torrent finder that lives in your terminal, with zero setup and nothing to configure. One search checks a short, curated list of reputable sources at once, and whatever you pick downloads straight to your computer. The files are yours, saved to your downloads folder.

Get started



Install Node (from nodejs.org ), it's all torlink needs.


Open your terminal.


Start it:

npx torlnk


That's the only thing you'll type. torlink opens straight to a search bar: search for what you want, paste in a magnet link, or just press Enter on an empty box to browse the curated library. From there it's all keypresses, nothing to memorize, and ? brings up the full list anytime.

Finding something

Type what you're looking for and press Enter. Results stream in from every source as they answer, tagged with size and how many people are sharing each one, so you can see what'll come down fast. Arrow to what you want and press d to save it.



Your downloads

Active downloads sit up top with their progress, speed, and time left; when one finishes it drops into Recently downloaded just below, so the list stays tidy. Everything's still there when you come back, and anything interrupted picks up where it left off.

Downloads run in the background while you keep searching, so you can queue up as many as you want. They save to your downloads folder, and the Downloads pane keeps tabs on each one. When something finishes it keeps seeding automatically so the next person can find it too, and the Seeding tab lets you pause or stop that anytime.



What it searches

A short, hand-picked list of trusted sources:



Category
Sources



Games
FitGirl


Movies
YTS, The Pirate Bay, 1337x


TV
EZTV, SolidTorrents, The Pirate Bay, 1337x


Anime
Nyaa, SubsPlease



Games are the only category that can run code, so they come from FitGirl alone, a repacker with a long, trusted track record; everything else is plain video and subtitles. If a source is down, the search carries on without it, and torlink tells you which one is offline.

Contributing

To run or work on torlink locally:

Clone the repository and open the folder.

Install dependencies:
npm install

Run the development version:
npm run dev

Or build it and run the bundled version:
npm run build
npx torlnk


Before opening a PR, skim CONTRIBUTING.md ; it lays out the bar with examples from real merged PRs.

Privacy

Your files stay on

The roast

Your idea of a terminal-based torrent finder and downloader is a nostalgia trip nobody needs. In an age where consumers value convenience and user-friendly interfaces, you're offering a solution that appeals to a minuscule subset of already tech-savvy users. Furthermore, the legality of torrents is a murky area, making it harder to find enthusiastic backers or users willing to pay for it. The idea's reliance on a 'curated list of reputable sources' is also fraught with challenges; maintaining this list is labor-intensive and will quickly become a weak point. Your pitch misses fundamental aspects like user experience and market demand. Most people who need torrents already have easier-to-use tools available, and they’re probably not the type to switch to a terminal-based system. Your idea lives and dies in a niche that is both shrinking and increasingly irrelevant, making it a hard sell. Lastly, your biggest unknown—whether people will pay for this service (q15)—is glaring. Given that torrents are often associated with free content, your user base is more likely to avoid paying for a tool like yours.

Red flags

Verdict

Focus on solving a problem with broader appeal and clearer monetization paths.

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