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A few questions I've gathered about piracy (specifically torrenting)

I’m just gonna apologize already for some long run-on sentences and stuff, the text below the questions are more just unorganized thought piles then actual organized specific confusions.

Q1: Are private trackers worth it?

I’ve been seeing a lot recently about how private trackers are like the holy grail for piracy, better rips, faster releases, no ISP notices (I use a vpn so this doesn’t matter), etc, but I have never had issues like that. Every time I want to torrent a movie (including new ones) I can get them from places like 1337x, (rip) RARGB, or even tpb with good enough quality for what I need (3-7gb usually). I don’t have issues with finding new releases or higher quality ones and all the torrents I need I can find on public places. So what actually would be the appeal of private trackers for someone like me, like what do private trackers actually have that public ones don’t? Also, it wouldn’t help that my internet connect is absolutely horrible for torrenting, 500-600+ down and like 15 up with a vpn on and it isn’t better without one on much, just faster downloads. And so this would just make meeting the “share ratios” or whatever the trackers call it really hard to achieve because for me it can take days or longer to sometimes reach a 1.0 share ratio outside of some specific cases. It doesn’t help either that people seem to often be purged or kicked from private trackers if they don’t meet certain standards or aren’t active enough and then they’ll have to go through the whole rigorous interview process again or have to start from scratch with working their way up from trackers like RED.

Q2: What makes a torrenting site safe / unsafe?

I saw some stuff recently about how 1337x isn’t safe anymore because of some malicious game torrent being posted from some person connected to the owner of the site. I personally do not pirate games often (I’ve only done it once and I mainly just pirate movies and shows) and so I do not really know what makes a torrent site safe/unsafe for people to torrent from as I thought regardless of site, unless its from one specific trusted group like fitgirl, that there was always a risk of downloading malware and so you had to be really careful of what torrents they download and make sure that what they downloaded wasn’t malware either by checking things like seed counts or reviews or whatever (never had to do this so idk what the signs are). Do some sites just not have malware on them or what does it mean for a torrent site to be safe / unsafe.

I’ll edit this post or comment if I have anymore questions but thank you for taking the time to actually read this.

liliumstar ,
  1. Yes, I’d say they’re absolutely worth it. The main draw is you can get pretty much anything (unless you have very strange tastes) quickly, and be sure of the quality. Maintaining a ratio isn’t hard on most trackers with a credits/bonus system, so it’s usually not a worry if your upload is kinda slow. And you don’t really need to interview for movie/tv trackers. Probably joining a couple entry-level ones would be fit your needs.
  2. Most private trackers are very safe when it comes to malware, publics can be hit or miss. There is always a risk with binary content, which is why some people only grab scene releases for games and check the hashes. In either case, if you’re just grabbing videos you should be fine.
willya ,
@willya@lemmyf.uk avatar

Q1: close knit, and private anything when it comes to wanting quality out of what you’re looking for is always going to be better. There’s rules in place and checks done. People are held accountable.

Q2: safe/unsafe in my opinion will just have to do with the amount of virus infected crap. You should be doing the hiding your address aspect of it all.

yoichi ,

A1: Yes, but it depends

I used to be someone who used to watch movies and tv shows on soap2day/fmovies/etc but once I tried watching a proper full release (Bluray encode, or even just a WEB release) I could never go back. If you have a good TV, and you want to maximise your watching experience, private trackers are easily the way to go. But it entirely depends on your needs.

Even with a slower upload speed, it’s not impossible to keep a good ratio. As long as you have drive space to seed, you will get bonus points that you can use to keep your ratio positive. About being kicked, most sites are “one lifetime, one account” so you can’t just restart from RED if you get in trouble. Ideally, don’t get in trouble, stay off the forums except for recruitments, just keep a good ratio and don’t fuck up.

A2: Depends on the content

For Movies and TV you generally don’t need to care where you get it from. Even if the file is infected somehow, a competent video player will not allow whatever malicious code to be executed so you’re good there

What you do need to worry about is for Games and Software. You are essentially running random .exe files that would even show up as a malicious file on VirusTotal if it’s a cracked program that bypasses some subscription or premium purchase.

You said you don’t download much games and when you do it’s Fitgirl so you’re good there. Fitgirl is a trusted releaser and as long as you use fitgirl-repacks.site you won’t have an issue (double check the hashes anyway, fitgirl releases include a program that does it for you). It is true 1337x had that problem recently with the EMPRESS release for Baldur’s Gate 3 that included a Bitcoin miner (apparently EMPRESS was not responsible for it, and someone else had reposted it including the malware).

If you do download games, the best tracker is GazelleGamesNetwork (GGn) and you should consider finding a way in if you want to play more games at some point. Releases there are thoroughly checked and the staff are very careful. People find out very quickly if something is questionable and will not hesitate to call it out so it can be considered safe.

As for software, it’s tough because there is no big trusted private tracker for cracked programs for Windows. Rutracker is what I usually recommend, it’s semi-private and is atleast better than 1337x or TPB (try not to use those anymore). RuTracker also has m0nkrus releases, just translate the comments and see if anything seems off about it.

Flatworm7591 ,
@Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Great questions!

A1: Yes and no. They are worth it if you want to download and seed more obscure content that would not be found on public trackers. Private trackers often keep very old and niche torrents alive because of their rules designed to promote healthy seeding. Some private trackers specialize in certain types of content too. They will sometimes also get new release torrents slightly earlier than public trackers but nowadays there’s not that much difference in that respect. If you are already satisfied with the content you find on public trackers then I’d say the benefits of joining a private tracker are somewhat diminished. Having said that there are other possible benefits - e.g., some private sites tend to have more trustworthy content and comments because virus infected content is usually more quickly identified and removed, and some have a friendly community. But if you are mainly seeking popular and newer content then public torrents are perfectly serviceable. The VPN question is a thorny one for me. I’m naturally reluctant to trust my real IP address to any website, but many private trackers require that you don’t use one. Yes, you are less likely to be ‘caught’ downloading a torrent from a private tracker, but it’s still a possibility if a site is compromised. I’m not sure how often that happens in real life though, maybe some other members can provide some history of known breaches.

A2. No torrent sites are 100% safe. 1337x took down that problematic torrent within a day (I think), so that shows some goodwill. But there are always some suspicious torrents on public trackers, because no site mod or admin has the time to forensically check every upload - it relies on a certain amount of trust with regard to uploaders that they won’t suddenly start uploading virus infected content. But you get a ton of false virus reports on public trackers too, either because copyright holders may want to put people off from downloading the content, or because noobs often misinterpret virus scanner warnings which often highlight a cracked file as a keygen/PUP/trojan even when it’s (often) perfectly harmless. So long as 1337x has some moderation in place for uploaders and responds in a timely manner to reports of viruses etc, then I’d say nothing much has changed at 1337x, despite the various unsubstantiated conspiracy theories you may come across. I’ll still be using it from time to time. In general torrents will be safer on private trackers because they are more carefully moderated, but there are no guarantees. You should always take precautions.

Hope that helps a little - I’m sure you’ll get a lot of differing opinions on these questions.

sailing7seas OP ,

Do you have any recommendations for private trackers I should keep an eye on for open registrations or how else would you recommend I get into private trackers?

DrJenkem ,
@DrJenkem@lemmy.blugatch.tube avatar

Over the years I’ve used Usenet, public trackers, and private trackers. I always come back to the private trackers.

If your public trackers have what you want at speeds you want, and you’re happy using a VPN for all downloads, then by all means.

But I like private trackers because I get my hands on the content ASAP (both because they get posted quickly but also because of high seeder ratios). The quality of the encodes on the good trackers is maintained by moderation teams. And often times I’m looking for rare content that can only be found on private trackers. Most have a request system that allows you to even get stuff not immediately available.

Yes you have to seed, but usually it’s doable to maintain a good ratio even with slow upload speeds (freeleech or bonus systems help here).

sailing7seas OP ,

If this isn’t breaking some rule or like common practice, what private trackers do you use? or what private trackers would you recommend to someone like me?

Pulp ,

Look/wait for open signups.

sailing7seas OP ,

Do you have any recommendations for private trackers I should keep an eye on for open registrations or how else would you recommend I get into private trackers?

Pulp ,

A lot of people struggle with figuring out how to get into private trackers since the only way to get into them is to be in a different tracker. Their intentional secrecy with their invite forums also doesn’t help. So I decided to make a guide to explain the process to you.

The best way to climb the ranks is with power user invite forums. Some trackers have them. They may require your account to be a certain age or have a specific amount of upload credit, snatches or uploads. Once you reach those requirements you can join a forum where different trackers advertise themselves and if you meet the requirements you message a recruiter and wait to get in.

Climbing the latter is joining one of these trackers, meeting the requirements to get into the invite forums there, joining another tracker that you either want to be in or that will get you into trackers that you want to be in, then rinse and repeat. You can see the invite forums and requirements for these trackers on r/trackersinfo so you can plan out how you want to get into them.

With no prior experience you can get into trackers with either interviews or open signups. MyAnonamouse (MAM), Orpheus (OPS), and REDacted (RED) all have invite forums and are sites you can get into with an interview. The interview on MAM is dead simple if you know how to read. OPS and RED require more technical skills and you have to actually study for it. If you try cheating they’ll cancel the interview and ask you to admit to it. If you lie you’re never getting into that tracker. You can get into OPS from MAM so you can skip their interview. You can get into RED from OPS too.

Aither, AlphaRatio, AvistaZ, and LST.gg all have open signups from time to time and can get you into other trackers. So look out for those and join them if you can on r/TrackerSignups or the OpenSignups telegram.

The sites out of all of these trackers with the best invite forums are RED, OPS, AlphaRatio, MAM, Aither, LST.gg, and AvistaZ in that order, in terms of the quality of the trackers in the invite forums and your ability to get into better trackers from the ones you can join there.

RED and OPS both require uploads to meet their requirements. Also because of the tough economies and small size of files it can be very difficult to make the requirements without paying for a super fast seedbox, paying to fill requests, uploading a bunch of 2023 FLACs that aren’t already on the site, or spending several months with constant downloads and long term seeding.

Aither and LST.gg both require an absolutely insane amount of upload. Aither requires 10 TB and LST requires 25 TB. So unless you’re downloading and permaseeding a massive amount of torrents with either a seedbox or very good upload speeds, that will take you several years to get to. AlphaRatio requires 3.2 TB which is a lot but doable. However they typically open for signups for only a couple of hours and there’s no guarantee they’ll open again.

MAM is easy like I mentioned, all you have to do is read the rules and do an interview. The interview is more of a chat and isn’t very hard at all. You only need 25GB to get to Power User there which is super easy cause they’re very generous with bonus points. However, with MAM you can’t get into any good trackers from it directly. Only trackers that can get you into other places like Aither and OPS. It’s really up to you which of these are the best. It depends on how much you download and which torrents you actually use.

So is this even worth it? Only if you watch a lot of shows or movies that you can’t get on public trackers or lower rung private trackers that are easy to get into like TorrentLeech, NBL, Aither or LST.gg. You can request content on these trackers too so if you have the odd show or movie you can’t find, try requesting it and see if someone else can find it for you. It’s also worth it if you like high quality content and struggle to get that without higher rung trackers. Otherwise, if most of the content you watch is newer and well seeded, then there’s no real need to do this and it’ll be a massive waste of time.

If you’re someone like me who just wants to have all their shows download automatically without resorting to 480p or scouring the deepest depths of DHT for a torrent with at least 1 seed, then yes it’s worth it. Though if you do end up doing this, pay it forward and upload some of the files from PTs publicly so more people don’t have to do all this bs just to watch the content they like.

reddit.com/…/the_complete_guide_to_climbing_the_r…

sailing7seas OP ,

Genuinely massive thank you for making this and being very complete with the info you provide in this. This is the most helpful response I’ve gotten so far as a lot of the people in these comments seem to think that private trackers are necessary for everyone if they want even decent quality rips. I now think that after reading your comment that I won’t bother spending the insane amount of time (and bandwidth) it takes to get to the higher up PT’s. I can find just about everything I need on public trackers with good enough quality for me as my highest quality screen is 1080 (I even used YIFY torrents for the longest time before realizing how bad a lot of them are). Thank you for explaining all this, and I’ll continue seeding to however much I can without a seedbox cause believe it or not, I pirate (in game, in minecraft, as a joke, for educational purposes only, dont try this at home, simulated, not real) cause I can’t spend money on this stuff.

Pulp ,

Do it, and you have literally everything. Join a basic tracker like torrentleech, you will have most.

ttt3ts ,

Good guide! Thanks! Upvoted.

But, unfortunately, also highlights my biggest complaint with private trackers. Time! I could spend hours fracking with private trackers or an extra hour working and just pay for the couple things I can’t get on public trackers. I have always just paid…

matey ,

All the private trackers I’ve seen have rules saying they’ll kick you out if you share their content with anyone other trackers or with DHT.

Pulp ,

They mean their .torrent files. Not the content itself (though some uploaders may say to wait a bit before reuploads)

matey ,

Wait, really? So how do you share it? Do you make a new torrent file and upload it?

toxictenement ,
@toxictenement@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Yeah, pretty much. Just as long as it doesn’t have the previous trackers tracker url, and ideally have it generate a different infohash.

Sump ,

I would also recommend these two sites for finding your way: inviteroute.github.io/sheet/hdvinnie.github.io/Private-Trackers-Spreadsheet/

Zetaphor ,
@Zetaphor@zemmy.cc avatar

As someone who completely gave up torrenting for usenet, what made you decide against usenet?

hempster ,

The only benefit of Usenet is that you saturate your download bandwidth till the last drop. However, the subscription costs for indexes and hosts could be a pain for some. Then there’s the automation bit that when done right (filtering, grabbing and downloading. nzb) will give you the highest quality movie you want ready in your plex in no time.

RembrandtQEinstein ,
@RembrandtQEinstein@lemmy.world avatar

I’m pretty much in the same boat. Currently have a Plex setup with -arr taking care of most of the torrent handling, but keep seeing Usenet touted as a better option.

Zetaphor ,
@Zetaphor@zemmy.cc avatar

I completely gave up torrents for Usenet, also using the -arr’s to get content for Plex. I completely saturate my bandwidth with Usenet downloads and I’ve never once received an ISP letter, and I’ve been entirely without a VPN.

Tippon ,
@Tippon@lemmy.world avatar

If you’re looking to start with Usenet, DrunkenSlug currently has open registrations. I don’t know much about it yet, but it’s got a very good reputation 👍

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