New signs point to the imminent return of torrent site, Pirate Bay. The sites homepage, now back online, features a design reminiscent of the sites familiar look, along with recognizable features and a decreasing countdown clock.

When the Pirate Bay was shut down after a Dec. 9 raid, users and pundits thought it could finally be the end for the Internet's most popular and resilient file-sharing site. Over 50 servers were seized, the site went offline, and even the site's original spokesperson Peter Sunde publicly called for a permanent shutdown of the torrent site he once championed. Frustrated users began the search for alternatives, such as Kickass torrents, the second most popular file sharing site on the web. New site clones such as oldpiratebay.org popped up, using the cached torrent information copied from Pirate Bay and even updating with new torrents.

Around holiday time, however, the site showed signs of new life. The homepage displayed a defiant pirate flag with the site's familiar skull and crossbones image. At New Year's, a countdown clock appeared, set to hit zero on Feb 1. Users suspected and hoped this was a hidden message that the site and torrents would return on that date.

Now more signs of a return have emerged recently. The animated pirate flag image is still displayed but has now been shrunken to a box in the middle of the page. More importantly, the Pirate Bay's familiar search box and torrent search links have reappeared. Though the search functions are not yet active, the links to affiliated sites Pirate Browser and PromoBay are now working. The countdown clock continues to tick down, with animation of a pirate ship about to reach land getting closer to its goal as each day goes by.

The new homepage is currently being hosted by a server in Moldova called Trabia which is assumed to also be the site host should the Pirate Bay indeed return online, an expectation supported by Trabia's official statement that  "[There] is actually no copyright infringement originating from websites such as 'thepiratebay.se' which makes it a very complex case which is open for a lot of interpretation and discussions. We stand behind all our clients as long as they use our services for a legal purpose."

Whether the site and all of its torrents return at all is still not guaranteed, but with Feb. 1 right around the corner, we expect to soon know what all the recent cryptic activity on the Pirate Bay homepage actually signifies.

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