As I get more and more invites to private trackers, I’m finding that I find myself spending more and more time on public tracker websites.
I’ll only use private trackers if I can’t find what I’m looking for on a public tracker. Private tracker rules can get pretty onerous and I prefer to just avoid the whole scene if possible.
If I’m honest, this opinion surprises me. I didn’t expect to prefer public trackers. I always thought that private trackers were so cool and exclusive. I don’t think that way anymore.
- GingeyBook ( @GingeyBook@lemm.ee ) English29•10 months ago
How do you go about getting invited to a private tracker?
I seed all my Linux isos on public trackers but I’m not active in any communities
Will an owl show up someday with a letter?
- Appoxo ( @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English11•10 months ago
Yes. you just need to visit an open invite forum/thread like on reddit or on the interwebz.
Keyword: Open Signup - WarmApplePieShrek ( @WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•10 months ago
/r/trackers has a lot of info, and /r/trackersignups tells you when trackers are open for signup. Too bad they aren’t on Lemmy.
- splendoruranium ( @splendoruranium@infosec.pub ) English24•10 months ago
I strongly disapprove of private trackers. I’m forced to take part in some only because the content isn’t available anywhere else. And the private trackers generally forbid re-sharing their content on public trackers, which unnecessarily gatekeeps the content and perpetuates the problem.
If it doen’t help to make everything accessible to everybody then it’s not a valuable part of the sharing ecosystem.- athos77 ( @athos77@kbin.social ) 4•10 months ago
Do they forbid sharing the content, or do they forbid sharing the torrents? If it’s just the torrents, you can just create a public torrent with a different piece size and cross seed.
- splendoruranium ( @splendoruranium@infosec.pub ) English2•10 months ago
It’s the content, presumably in order to maintain exclusivity of the little private club. That’s part of the problem, I suppose. Private trackers aren’t just an anonymous one-stop supermarket like some public trackers, they’re often small personal hangouts, actual communities. In of itself that sounds great, but it always carries the danger of content being held hostage for what - at least in my eyes - amounts to pointless, snobby elitism.
- WarmApplePieShrek ( @WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•10 months ago
The torrents, because they mess up tracker stats. Just change the source parameter so the infohash changes, and remove private=1 if you’re going to post on a public tracker.
- skele_tron ( @skele_tron@feddit.de ) English8•10 months ago
I used to want to get in on some private trackers, esp cult movie related ( karagarga ) but was always put off by elitism of those rules and systems.
Instead i opted to upload to pirate bay and like a trve pirate - no questions asked, download what you will - seeded some very obscure movies that i collected. Had to pull the plug after more than 10 yrs because i was emigrating, was a good time.
- smoothbrain coldtakes ( @canis_majoris@lemmy.ca ) English7•10 months ago
I am on a few private trackers but they don’t offer anything that the public trackers don’t already have covered for my use case, outside of porn.
I am more of a DDL pirate anyways. I have a seedbox for torrents but I tend to stick to mega links, even if there is a slight delay in getting the media. Typically what I find is that all the re-encoded high resolution h265 content comes later and is more abundant on the mega link forums than on trackers; most trackers will have h264 copies at 720/1080, but they’re often larger than the h265 high resolution re-encodes.
- SchizoDenji ( @SchizoDenji@lemm.ee ) English2•10 months ago
Unless the h264 files extra audio tracks, you’re downloading lower quality (bitrate) stuff.
- smoothbrain coldtakes ( @canis_majoris@lemmy.ca ) English6•10 months ago
The lower bitrate is fine because I’m usually streaming off the local network, so keeping the file sizes down is pretty beneficial.
- ѕєχυαℓ ρσℓутσρє ( @SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org ) English7•10 months ago
I’m kinda in the same boat, except for a specific private tracker. It’s a local private tracker which has a ton of exclusive stuff in my native language, and most of the users also speak it so there’s a communal aspect to it. But otherwise, yeah. I also tend to prefer public trackers, especially for more mainstream stuff.
- Imprint9816 ( @Imprint9816@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English6•10 months ago
Doesn’t matter, my happiness is solely based on fulfilling my needs. This ends up requiring a mix of private and public trackers.
In this day and age its easy to automate fulfilling whatever obligations a private tracker requires once invited, so they are a relatively small hassle most of the time.
- java ( @java@beehaw.org ) English6•10 months ago
I can’t bother joining a private tracker. Of course, they might be useful for niche content. For instance, 15 years ago there was a special tracker, where people shared races of virtually all racing series. But mainstream stuff is available on public trackers.
There one tracker where I download lossless music. But anyone can join it, I guess you could define it as semi-private or semi-public.
- Dwalin ( @Dwalin@lemm.ee ) English3•10 months ago
I’m interested in the lossless music tracker. Which one is it?
- Tweed ( @Tweed@lemmy.studio ) English4•10 months ago
I’m also interested. It’d be nice to have backups of the CDs I’ve bought in the past, at least
- java ( @java@beehaw.org ) English4•10 months ago
rutracker.org, e.g. https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3494796
The interface is in Russian, but it’s not that hard to translate a couple of words to navigate. Apparently, you don’t even have to be registered to download anymore.
- Type 1 [Missouri] ( @Type1@midwest.social ) English5•10 months ago
I’ve applied for half-a-dozen private trackers, but they’ve all turned me down. Definitely seems counter to the entire idea of piracy IMO.
- dudemanbro ( @dudemanbro@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English5•10 months ago
My home-base is a private forum (DDL). I think of it as a place where people gather the best media from around the internet. We may not get it first but it eventually makes its way there. There are also many exclusive uploads (mostly encodes) but people do some fantastic work with upscales of movies and/or TV series. The user base is also part of the many private trackers the world has to offer. I am part of like 2 private trackers and they are phenomenal as well. I also use public trackers extensively as well as there is actually a lot of stuff out there. I will always try and seed for public trackers but I definitely don’t go as long as I would for private ones (just cause I don’t want to get dinged) (Yeah I could use a VPN but too lazy, even though I am in a place that don’t give many fucks about media piracy). I prefer DDL because I don’t have to maintain ratio, but I do understand that with private trackers there can be some more longevity (but isn’t really guaranteed). There are also other private trackers of the index variety that aren’t built around ratio which can be nice.
There can be a lot of rules with private trackers, and yes some of them are really annoying, not gonna lie. The rules are there for a reason, for the most part. For some it’s about building a community, while for others it’s about making sure stuff survives for as long as possible. There are so many tools for a fellow seafarer to have and private trackers are just one of them and they serve a purpose. I am of the belief that all information should be available to everyone forever, but the world don’t work like that and the long dick of the law can really fuck you life up. I think a valuable lesson from private trackers is that it makes one not just be a leech and makes one give back. There is nothing wrong with leeching, but I always like to think that piracy is about sharing the wealth. (not trying to moralize piracy, to each their own)
But as you said, public trackers have A LOT of stuff. So much media can be found on them. Private trackers help if you want the best of the best with regards to certain media or for hard to find stuff. Each have their place and it all about using the tools available to you
- WarmApplePieShrek ( @WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•10 months ago
I hate DDL. The fucking delay times, javascript nonsense and ads.
- dudemanbro ( @dudemanbro@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English1•10 months ago
A lot of the private DDL forums dont deal with any of that. It’s more on the level of “If you know, you know”
- athos77 ( @athos77@kbin.social ) 3•10 months ago
The newbie blues for each private tracker are a definite thing, but once you get past that it’s great. It also depends on which trackers you’re on: the general trackers tend to have similar content as publics, but it’s the specialty and niche trackers where privates really shine.
- GravitySpoiled ( @GravitySpoiled@lemmy.ml ) English3•10 months ago
Provate tracker. We are there for each other and together we have an awesome collection of linux isos
- Appoxo ( @Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English3•10 months ago
Indifferent.
I use both torrent und usenet, public and private trackers and indexers. - PlasmaDistortion ( @PlasmaDistortion@lemm.ee ) English3•10 months ago
Public but that’s because I always find what I am looking for and don’t see a need for a a private tracker.
- prole ( @prole@beehaw.org ) English2•10 months ago
My private tracker days are behind me after they shut down OiNK, and then later what.cd. Though I can’t say I don’t miss it sometimes. At its peak, What was an amazing place.
- TimewornTraveler ( @TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee ) English2•10 months ago
I dunno the difference