It was founded in 2008 and by November 2014, KAT became the most visited BitTorrent directory in the world, overtaking The Pirate Bay, according to the site's Alexa ranking.

[6] KickassTorrents on its website claimed that it complied with the DMCA and it removed infringing torrents reported by content owners.

[7] On 28 February 2013, Internet service providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom were ordered by the High Court in London to block access to KickassTorrents, along with two other torrent sites.

[14] In June 2014, KAT was blocked in Malaysia by the Communications and Multimedia Commission for violating copyright law.

[22] In October 2015, Portugal bypassed its courts by making a voluntary agreement between ISPs, rightsholders and the Ministry of Culture to block access to KAT and most of the other popular BitTorrent websites.

[24] At the same time, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked access to KAT because of security concerns with some of the ads pointing to malware.

[25] In April 2016, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox blocked KAT due to phishing concerns.

[27][28] On 20 July 2016, the United States Department of Justice announced that it had seized the KAT.cr domain and had identified its alleged owner.

[37][38] In November 2016, a Polish appeals court refused to allow bail for Vaulin, stating the evidence provided by the US is sufficient to keep him in prison.