I’m a bit surprised to see so many torrent posts. Are most people still using Torrents? Are most piracy users aware of programs like sonarr or radarr?
You’re surprised that most people use the free option that requires less hassle to get going?
Torrents… Fast, free, and easy
my man
What is fast for you? On usenet it maxes out my internet speeds. Can’t get any faster than that. And I pay like 5 bucks a month for usenet. Fully automated, max speeds. It’s worth it.
I just paid $70 for a 3-year PIA subscription to mask my torrent usage from my ISP. So, an average of a little over $2 per month. Well-seeded movies only take about 10 minutes to download, more obscure stuff admittedly takes longer. Also, torrent streaming exists, so you can start watching even faster if that’s your thing.
Admittedly, I’m not familiar with Usenet or how it works. I’m just saying that torrents are cheap, fast, and easy. Do you have a crash course on how to use Usenet? I’m curious.
You can find tutorials out there but the jist is.
- Subscribe to a suenet provider. I use Tweaknews, but there are some that can get as cheap as $3 per month. Especially around black friday, the plans go on sale.
- Get a downloader such as sabnzbd or nzbget and configure the provider in it.
- Get an indexer. Much like torrents, you need an indexer to grab release from. I use Nzbplanet, but there are lots of others like Nzbgeek.
- Then its a lot like torrents. You download the nzb file off the indezer and import it into your downloader. and it will max out your speeds. For example, all my content averages a download speed of 57MB/s (that is mega-bytes not mega-bits). And I have it throttled. It will max you out.
Once you get that far, then you can move on to the best part, How easy it is to plug in sonarr and radarr. then everything just auto-downloads for you and you dont have to do anything.
To me, if you are using a VPN to torrent, great, I have one too for obscure stuff. But most people are far better off using Usenet. It is way safer and faster, and is easier to automate.
So who’s hosting all of this movies? Who are you actually downloading from?
- 57 MB/s isn’t especially fast. I have plenty of torrents “max” my connection, you can easily download a popular torrent at gigabit speeds because they’re often well seeded. But the speed really isn’t that important to me. The difference between a 5 minute download and a 10 minute download is insignificant.
- Torrent downloads can be automated. If you have a favorite uploader you can easily subscribe to their releases.
- I don’t see how Usenet is inherently more secure than torrenting with a VPN…You’re just downloading files from somebody else’s server, it could easily get taken over and become a honeypot, or the owner could serve you malicious files. Both torrents and usenet are potentially vulnerable to that sort of thing.
- Torrents have the advantage (and disadvantage) of being decentralized. As long as a torrent has seeders it’s nearly impossible to take down. You’d have to individually attack each seeder, and there might be thousands.
My point was every single thing i download maxes out, the 57MB wasnt the point. Not every torrent will max out. Only the well seeded torrents, and on public trackers it will not max out. I’ve tried. Private torrents sure, but unless you have a seedbox, you’re ratios are going to be all out of whack. I do both Usenet and torrents, I’m well aware of all the advantages of torrents, and im well aware it can be automated. Usenet is just easier. No symlinking to maintain ratios.
And of course its more secure. 1st off, no VPN disconnects. Second off, point me to one single case where someone has been prosecuted for downloading off Usenet. Most of us here are probably from r/piracy, and see every day the dozens of “I got the letter” posts from torrenting. I’ve never seen a single letter from usenet.
Torrents are really great for obscure stuff that is really hard to get though. That’s pretty much all I use it for.
I’m a member of one private tracker; it’s private enough that I don’t need a VPN while downloading/seeding and I have had no issue maintaining ratios.
For public trackers, no ratios required. For VPN disconnects, you just need a torrent client that properly isolates to a single network connection, which effectively operates as a kill switch. There are also VPN clients with kill switches, but I tend to not use those because doing it in the torrent client is easier and more reliable.
Re: prosecution, I’m pretty sure nobody has been prosecuted for simple downloading in a decade. The feds only go after major torrent tracker owners, the ones doing the distributing. The dreaded letters are just that: letters. They’re a scare tactic from your ISP, they don’t actually prosecute or even kick you off your plan; they just make you watch a little video on how piracy bad.
Again, Usenet is only “secure” if you can fully trust the owner of the server you’re connecting to. It would be trivial for a government agency to set up a honeypot or take over an existing server and turn it into one. The reason they don’t seem to care is probably because fewer people are on Usenet; they’re going for the bigger fish.
And the reason they don’t care is because it’s so much harder to get people on it. Hence, it’s safer.
Sure, most of this is true, but only for some people. The letters still come, and people absolutely do pay damages for torrenting, especially in Germany. Meanwhile none of this is true for Usenet, there simply is no misconfiguration you can make that will result in a letter. Sure it could but at this point it’s never happened. With torrenting it can and does happen all the time. No letters, no scare tactics, no ratios to maintain (I get that you dont have to but most struggle). No secret club you have to get into. No variable speeds.
I totally agree that torrenting is awesome and it used to be the way i did everything as well. But after getting on usenet I was completely shocked and I’m never going back.
Torrents can also max out your speed if there are enough seeds, unless you live in a country where your ISPs are allowed to throttle specific types of traffic or something. Or I suppose if you have 10 gbit downlink then you prolly won’t max it off a torrent.
Idk what you mean by fully automated. If you mean sonarr, radarr and the like, they work for torrents too.
I might very well try usenet when I get fiber in my current location (haven’t had it in over a year, it sucks, don’t recommend) and a server for the arr suite, but in general I like my piracy being free lol
All I know is I don’t ever have to care about well seeded torrents, or maintaining ratios on private trackers, or getting letters from VPN disconnects. The 5 bucks a month is worth it just for that.
With a proper setup, which is not hard to do, you shouldn’t be getting any IP leaks or copyright letters. Just be sure your VPN has it’s firewall up and clients are set to only use the network adapter.
And yet, people still do. I don’t, I use a docker container for torrenting. With usenet there is no misconfiguration you can make to get nabbed. It’s safer.
Fair enough, none of that has ever been a thing for me.
Okay, extremely obscure things have dead torrents, but I’d wager you won’t find many of those ultra obscure downloads on Usenet either. I dunno about any letters either, I suppose my country is a bit too small for anyone to care, because I’ve been torrenting for nearly 20 years with no issues - and so have many of my friends.
The ratios I’ll agree with you on. It’s a damn competition on private trackers, really annoying because everyone else wants to seed too. I just use public trackers.
Ratio on private trackers isn’t really a big deal as long as you’re the kind of person that can keep a couple hundred GB worth of things seeding close to 24/7. Aside from actual ratio(the thing your torrent client reports), they tend to have a system that rewards having things seeding, whether anyone actually connects to you or not, that you can use to boost “ratio”. There’s also usually some options for acquiring some content without it counting against you, like freeleech(download data isn’t counted in your ratio) for low seeded or new torrents, or discounted/refunded credit for extended seed times, or seeding large amounts of data. Aside from the first few months in a new tracker, ratio isn’t a big issue.
My experience (and I’ll admit that I’ve only used a private tracker since rarbg went down) is that you can only get some seeding done within the first few hours of a new torrent going up, after that there’s just so much competition and so few people downloading, you might get a gigabyte of upload a week on a 50 GB freeleech torrent. It might just be specific to TL.
I do have a ratio nearing 10, but my upload buffer is still small enough that I don’t want to download anything non-freeleech lol
Not OP but well seeded torrents max out my server’s ethernet at 80 MB/s (bytes not bits)
What’s the problem with torrent?
Honestly nothing at all, I just prefer the speeds and reliability of Usenet (though I pay for that).
Private trackers have great speed and reliability as well. I’ve been using sonarr and radarr for years but have never bothered with Usenet due to the added cost. They all work great with torrents even though they were originally designed for Usenet.
Private trackers can be a real pain in the ass. Usenet is set it and forget it, no sweating over your ratio or what the special rules are on a particular tracker.
@Knoxvomica @exonac which one do you use ? Years ago, some were not reliable anymore … Like giganews if I recall correctly
Torrents. I don’t really find Usenet worth the money. I can get most of the stuff I want on public sites. Some others I can get on private trackers. Never really felt the need to use Usenet. And as others have pointed out, the arr apps work great with torrents.
And honestly, I find it a little scummy to pay for content to people who don’t own them. I don’t think piracy in itself is unethical, but I if you take money for stolen content, that’s not cool in my book.
I get what you are saying about paying someone who doesn‘t own the content.
However I‘d argue that you are not paying them for the content, but just for hosting it on their servers. So its more like a tool, as is your VPN if you are torrenting. And most people wouldn‘t mind paying a VPN just to pirate content.
Usenet, I agree, might take you some time to get invites to the good indexers, especially if you don‘t want to pay immediately, but in the long run it‘s definitly worth it.
I havn‘t played arround with torrents for quite some time, whats the most popular setup for torrents atm?
Not sure about the most popular setup, but I use a docker container that has
qbittorrent-noxandgluetunin it. It’s connected to some other containers with arr apps and such.And I think it’s a bit different than just paying for VPN. You can use VPN for many other reasons. But here, you know exactly what you’re paying for. I’d never pay to use any private tracker for the same reason.
Honestly had no idea usenet was still a thing. I’m old. Old enough to know usenet and have used it back in the day. But young enough to switch torrenting and not ever really learn another way
Now I have to look up some info!
Usenet costs money, that’s why I don’t use it.
same. I already pay for VPN. I can’t be bothered to figure out how usenet has changed in the almost 20 years since I last was on it.
Basically, automated everything for keeping track and downloading of movies, music, comics, adult content, etc.
Requires work to set up on a home server and costs money for usenet service and private indexers.
Once set up, you just plug in the shows, movies, music artists you want and the various services monitor indexers and grab what you want when it becomes available.
The nice thing is many of the *arr apps also can use torrent sites and interface with your torrent client so you don’t necessarily need to use usenet to use the system.
So, definitely positives and negatives.
I use torrents almost exclusively because of the price (free) and convenience. That is, I can get them easily where I live for no additional cost beyond my low speed internet. I have no extra money at all, at this time in my life, unfortunately.
Probably a dumb noob question, but shouldn’t one use a VPN for privacy when torrenting? Wouldn’t that add additional cost?
Live in a third world country and all software is free software. No strings attached
my brother 👏 our authorities are too busy using pirated software to crack down on it. can’t imagine some people live in countries where anyone gives half a shit about piracy.
Some countries just don’t care (even if they have laws on piracy), no vpn needed.
You can also torrent on i2p for added slowness and privacy. Usually fast enough.
You can get reputable VPNs for very cheap. Windscribe provides unlimited bandwidth for a minimum of $3 a month and Mullvad is $5 a month.
Usenet typically requires more expensive fees to join.
I use a free VPN (Windscribe’s free 15 GB) from time to time if I’m torrenting something very new. Otherwise I don’t use one.
There are a few free ones that some like to use. ProtonVPN is an example.I am currently using Nord(paid). However I cant atest to the security of any of them. I have had no issues with Nord.
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Sonarr and radarr manage downloads for TV and movies in a nice way for Usenet and actually torrents as well. You can set up quality profiles and choose which shows and movies you want to download and they will grab torrents/nzbs that meet your preferences, automatically start them in your torrent app or Usenet downloader, and then organize them in folders with appropriate metadata for Kodi/Plex when the downloads complete. They automate the process very nicely.
Edit, I’m a Usenet guy if that wasn’t already clear lol
How is Usenet for privacy compared to torrents, e.g. if a usenet service you are paying for is compromised at some stage are they likely to be able to identify you based on payment data for example?
Usenet services are more concerned about removing illegal content when it’s reported than what users are downloading. You can get a provider that doesn’t log download activity and accepts Bitcoin payments, you’d want to use its SSL connection, and you can go through a VPN as well (some Usenet providers even bundle VPN services with their Usenet subscription). It’s generally much safer than torrenting from a privacy standpoint where anyone on your tracker sees your IP (or, once again, your VPN’s IP). I’m not aware of any Usenet server that says it didn’t log downloads secretly doing so because it’s really not in their interest to lie about it. They know why people are subscribing.
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They search indexers and send to downloaders. You can set up a whole *arr suite to automate everything.
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Not OP but: they are apps to schedule automatic downloads. Like Star Trek Strange New Worlds but don’t wanna go every week and download it manually? Set it up in Sonarr and when you wake up the new episodes are waiting for you. Radarr is the same for film, prowlarr for aggregating torrent trackers all in 1 spot, bazarr for subtitles, and there’s a few others. Can also be set up with usenet in addition to torrents.
is prowlarr better than jackett? Is it wise to invest some time to migrate?
Yeah I switched after Jackett kept having issues with RARBG before they shut down. The biggest change is the fact that adding a tracker to Prowlarr will automatically add it to radarr, sonarr, and the like rather than having to duplicate everything manually yourself.
I did, it was very little time to invest, and it’s pretty cool that it integrates to sonarr & radarr and sync’s your configuration from a central place. Also the web UI seems to have more information and stats if you ever need.
Jackett is for trackers that don’t have a native api or similar but Prowlarr can likely handle most of what you use today.
The only thing in jackett that I miss when using prowlarr is support for a selfhosted magnetico instance, because otherwise I don’t think there’s any way to add magnetico as a source for sonarr/radarr. Granted I don’t miss it much because my magnetico postgres DB shit the bed and I’ve been putting off recovering it because my DB is 100 GB and I kinda don’t want to deal with it.
I do like that prowlarr will connect to sonarr/radarr using their API and can be set to sync all the indexers set up in prowlarr into both sonarr/radarr automatically based on which ones support movies or TV shows, so that’s what drew me to it. Makes adding and removing torrent sites less work.
Prowlarr is infinitely better because it integrates directly with all the “arr” apps (and mylar and lazylibrarian as well) and will set up all the indexers in those apps for you. That way you only need to maintain or edit them within Prowlarr and then it does the maintenance in the rest of the apps for you.
It took me 15-20 minutes of my time.
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Both these give you a simple way to search for things you want. They use IMDB and the like to give you a big list of results. You add what you want to your collection and in the background they scurry off to torrent sites or usenet and downloads it. Then they name everything nicely and stuff then in your Plex library.
You can set them up to use specific torrent sites. Download specific qualities, or more likely an order of qualities by preference and all sorts of other tweaks.
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Can they tackle my existing 20tb of Plex media (shows, anime, movies)? Somewhat organized but I’ve been relying on Plex to identify and sometimes manually fix matches. But that’s about it, doesn’t even rename or organize anything.
is there a point if you don’t use plex (i.e. just watch everything on your computer)?
I enjoy torrents, searching and deciding which is the best quality + storage combo is right for me is the fun part
Are most piracy users aware of programs like sonarr or radarr?
Sounds like you yourself aren’t aware of their capabilities, if you’re presenting a false dichotomy of torrents or *arrs
Torrent
utorrent
lol
Torrents. Because it’s free and fast (if what I’m pirating is famous enough). I started using sites like 1337x, nyaa,rabg🪦 etc… with qbittorent a few years ago and never had any reason to change.
Except for rarbg
RIP rarbg
I use the Starr apps with torrents. I kinda just forget all about it since it all just works.
Torrents for everything, i’ve found it to be one of the safest ways as well, thanks to all of the other ship mates who seed with me.
Are most piracy users aware of programs like sonarr or radarr?
Of course we are, hell that’s what I use with my torrents. They aren’t just for usenet lol
I’ve yet to try Usenet. I use Qbitorrent. I’ve heard of sonarr and radarr, but I haven’t used them.
Sonarr is phenomenal for downloading active TV shows. Just add the show and when a new episode comes out it gets it automatically. Radarr is great for downloading from lists. Let’s say you look up Spielberg movies and find a imdb list with all is movies. Add the list and radar gets all the movies.
I just cannot figure those pieces of software out. Gotta try again next month.
I think the best way is to use dockers. Hit me up if you need any help.
