I have not found a way to completely disable it, unless we make it only display if there are 10000000 replies or 100000000 views. Most threads will not show up then. However, it you look at the current threads and look at the number of replies and views on them, we can determine what should be marked as a hot topic. Maybe it should be 10000+ views and 30 replies? This is why I am asking for some suggestions.

I will look into the search engine shortly.