qBittorrent, a hugely popular cross-platform torrent client, has a great built-in search feature. This means you don’t need to visit different torrent search engines, which might be blocked by ISPs or inaccessible for other strange reasons.
To use this search function, you first need to enable it and install “search plugins.” When you click the button, it directs you to a GitHub page that acts as a repository for these plugins.
Now, Jackett works as a master search plugin. If you install and configure it correctly, you won’t need to install any other plugins—no more adding The Pirate Bay, 1337x, or YTS (Yify) manually.
The catch? Installing Jackett isn’t straightforward, especially on Linux. I’ve managed to configure it 50%, but the rest is trickier—I’ll cover that in another post.
How to Install Jackett on Linux
- Download the tar.gz file.
- Extract it on your system.
- Create a hidden directory under
/home/<username>using this command:mkdir .jackett_installer - Move the extracted folder from Step 2 into this hidden directory.
- Navigate to the folder and install the Jackett service using:
sudo ./install_service_systemd.sh - Go to /home/<username>/.local/share/data/qBittorrent/nova3/engines and open
jackett.jsonin a text editor. - Type http://localhost:9117 in your web browser (I prefer Firefox/Zen browser)
8. Copy the API key from the top-right corner and paste it into the jackett.json file. Save the file.
9. Back in your browser, click the green “Add indexer” button and add as many torrent indexers as you like.
Now, you can search for torrents directly in qBittorrent!
The Final Hurdle…
I ran into a technical issue. Apparently, I need to install and configure FlareSolverr to make everything work seamlessly. I’ve decided not to install it anytime soon, but thanks to Jackett, I can still manually search for torrents via the localhost URL in my browser.
BTW this is the video I used for guidance.
Until then,
Love technology