2011: the file locker
Putlocker.com opened in 2011 as a file hosting service, one of the "cyberlockers" of the time: you uploaded a file, got a link, and anyone with the link could stream or download it. The name is literally what it did, a locker you put files in. Within a year it was one of the busiest hosts on the internet, and most of what was streamed from it was film and television, embedded on other people's sites. That is how the name became shorthand for watching a movie online.
2014: Firedrive
In February 2014 the host rebranded as Firedrive, kept every user's files, and quietly dropped the famous name. Firedrive itself closed within a couple of years. The name, though, had already moved on.
2013 to 2016: putlocker.is
A separate site at putlocker.is took the name and gave it the look people remember: a white header with the green film-reel logo and PUT LOCKER wordmark, a green menu bar reading Homepage, New Movies, Featured, Genres, Years and A-Z List, a light patterned page, beige section strips, and a front page that opened with a search form asking for title, director, starring, years and genres. It was the largest address of the name until October 2016, when it went dark. This site is built on that design, measured from the March 2015 page, because that is the Putlocker people mean.
2016 onward: the suffixes
After the .is address closed, the name spread across copies: .bz, .to, .pe, .rs, .gg, .xyz, .ch, .ac, .il, .org, is.org, putlocker123, putlocker plus, putlocker today, and the plural putlockers. Each was a snapshot of the idea on a new suffix, and each is still searched by the people who used it. The address page lists them and explains why the official address is the one to keep.
Why the name lasted
Three reasons, and the site is built on all of them. The catalogue reached back into the 2000s and 1990s rather than only what was new, which is why the classics are the deepest shelf here. The search form let you narrow by director, actor, years and genre, which the search page keeps. And television was organised by season and episode, which every series page here does, with a Reached this episode button on every row.
Putlocker LLC, Putlocker wiki and the rest
"Putlocker llc" and "putlocker wiki" are searches for this story. There was a company behind the original file host and there is a Wikipedia article about the name's history; both describe the past. The present is the site at this address: search, new movies, featured films, years, the A-Z list, every season of every series, My List, and Watch now with the services for your country.
