Are they for you? Why or why not?

    • MisshapenDeviate@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      The organization and typical submission requirements are what really put them over public trackers for me.

      Public tracker: It’s this big and this many files. Figure it out.*
      Private tracker: All the metadata

      * Experience may vary. Post is overly dramatic for comedic effect

    • velocity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Same. Plus the quality encodes are a lot easier to find and more abundant (assuming you care about such things of course)

    • JoeKrogan@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      If you are forced to disable your vpn there is more risk. I’m not sure if some permit a vpn but I wouldn’t be trusting any of them without one.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        Usually they want only your IP while signing up to be able to see if they had already banned you and you try to evade it.
        Most times there was the rule that once signed up, you can turn it back on for both torrenting and browsing.

      • akilou@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        I use a VPN and it’s on a kill switch, so if it gets disconnected for whatever reason, the machine can’t reach the internet at all.

        I can’t imagine why a private tracker would disallow you from using a VPN

        • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de
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          4 months ago

          MAM used to be quite anti-VPN but I haven’t used it in years, so no idea what their take is now. They tracked quotas and stuff through your IP and required you to be online on IRC. Great content and community, but a lot of hoops to jump through.

        • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          There used to be issues with tracking ratios when using a VPN. And since many private trackers require users to maintain a specific ratio, it meant that many private trackers effectively banned VPNs. Because if you were using a VPN, you’d be stuck at a 0.00 ratio and quickly get banned.

          • akilou@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            I use a VPN and maintain a ratio. They must use something other than IP address as a unique identifier.

      • BeardedBlaze@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Even with VPN, ultimately you’re still storing everything at your house. Seedbox, preferably in the Netherlands is the way to go.

  • jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
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    4 months ago

    I can find most everything I want/need on public trackers, so I’ve never felt the need to jump through their hoops; however easy that would be.

    • i_love_FFT@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      If i wanted to jump through complicated hoops, I’d try paid streaming services!

  • maxprime@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    I think it depends on why you pirate. Are you doing it because you don’t want to pay? Then services like usenet and private trackers, where there is some expectation of payment (be it monetary or bandwidth) are probably not for you.

    Do you pirate because you hate DRM and want to self host a robust media library that you can curate without fear of media being removed because of an expired license or something? Then you might be more into private trackers and Usenet. I spend almost as much on hard drives and Usenet subscriptions and PT donations as a Netflix account.

    • Diurnambule@jlai.lu
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      4 months ago

      Or if you want films or série in a specific languages with decent quality and not too big file size

  • notannpc@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Only because I was randomly invited to one by a friend, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered with it.

  • Pazuzu@midwest.social
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    4 months ago

    I’ve only been part of one private tracker, and I got kicked from them after not logging in for a month despite meeting ratios. haven’t bothered since then

  • HappyRedditRefugee@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    I just don’t have the time for it or well, I do, but I don’t wanna put effort into mantaining ratios and whatnot. I have stuff to do that I enjoy more than be part of a internet club.

    But that’s just me.

      • HappyRedditRefugee@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        At the very least, you need to keep an eye on it. Just seeding can be insufficent because of speeds, competition and popularity of things you download.

        Is it a lot of effort? Probably no but in my case any effort is too much effort. Is just not my thing. I admire the spirit but I don’t have it in me.

      • h6a@beehaw.org
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        4 months ago

        My experience is that just seeding what you like indefinitely is not useful. You have to be proactive and find popular torrents to seed and accrue any meaningful upload amount.

        The tracker I use has a bonus point system to encourage all seeders even of unpopular releases but it’s slow.

        I found that the perfect solution for my use case (music) ended up being Soulseek. I don’t have much money for seedboxes or buying extra storage so I feel like I’m priced out of private trackers.

  • crossover@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    They’re extremely good for higher quality content such as 4K REMUX files. I have access to a private tracker that I use regularly. I only search public trackers if what I want isn’t available in the private one…which is rare.

    To me it’s not about price or openness or anything. Piracy is a service issue. Private trackers have better service than public trackers. Better curated content, better seeders, and fewer (if any) shit quality re-encodes by people who don’t know what they’re doing.

  • TheControlled@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    They’re the tits. Public trackers are literal trash by comparison. Like comparing Notre Dame to a busted gas station chapel in Missouri.

    Edit: Don’t PM me and beg for invites… Not a chance.

  • narc0tic_bird@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Great as long as it’s easy to maintain ratio. And by “easy” I mean basically not having to do anything that can’t be automated. I also don’t care enough about the harder-to-get-in trackers that I would spend a lot of time sending in screenshots of profiles of other trackers I’m on or whatever. I’m not trying to get internet points for being on the very “coolest” private trackers.

    The good thing is that decent private trackers have a well maintained catalog and most content usually has at least one or two seeders even months/years after the torrent was created, and these seeders often have a ton of bandwidth.

    In contrast, public trackers often falsely advertise the amount of peers in the swarm (so a torrent that’s supposedly alive is often dead). I’d say I’m grabbing about 80/20 from private/public trackers, and I seed each torrent for around 30 days. Public torrents are often so starved for somewhat decent seeders that I regularly have a ratio of 20+ after the 30 days I’m seeding for. And that’s without a seedbox, just a normal Internet connection.

    In the end, both are fine. When you setup your *arr tools correctly, they usually choose a decent release automatically, whether from private or public trackers.

  • Telodzrum@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    They’re basically the RC Cola of Usenet. Instead of messing around with torrents and private trackers, just move on to the grownup option.