Hello you dirty libs! Do you hate paying for shit to entertain yourself with during the end times? Well I have a solution for you: piracy. Well, I wouldn't consider making copies of ones and zeros the same thing as holding captain philips at gunpoint, but I digress. There are a few main routes to take when it comes to getting those leaked AOC feet pics and the latest episode of Game of Thrones though. This post will go over Bittorrent/torrenting.
If I were to give any advice starting out, don't just search for "<movie/show name> free" and watch a stream. Streaming generally gives you shit quality, when you could be downloading Blueray rips instead. This is just my opinion though, I know some people love the convenience of streaming. Anyway let's get started!
Easy: Bittorrent
Bittorrent is a peer to peer (P2P) protocol, meaning you will be downloading (and uploading) pieces of your download from many different people (peers) around the globe. This also means that media companies can also join and see what you are downloading, more on that later. Downloading torrents is called "leeching," while uploading back is called "seeding." The group of peers connected together is collectively called the "swarm." To be a good citizen, make sure to seed back to the swarm, even after you finish downloading.
Downloading torrents is not as easy as just clicking the download button and waiting for your browser to finish. You need a torrent client. A torrent client is the program you use to leech and seed your download by connecting to other peers. I use Transmission, but any other free/open source client will work fine. Other fine choices include qBittorrent and deluge. Just try to avoid commercial ones (even if they are free) because they are filled with advertisements.
Before we can start pirating, a quick note about P2P stuff: because anyone can join the swarm and see each others' IP addresses, copyright holders will tend to watch over popular torrents and notify internet service providers (ISPs) about "illegal activity on the network." These will come to your house in the form of legal scare letters, at least in my shithole country, the US. They are mostly harmless but in some countries, you will actually be sued or even jailed for sharing copyrighted materials. This is where the single valid use for a VPN comes in: pirating. Commercial VPNs do not protect your privacy or security when browsing the web (in fact it can be worse, see here for more details), but they can mask your IP address from the copyright holders, so you don't get those pesky scare letters. I personally use mullvad, but please, please do your research before buying anything.
Okay, your torrent client is working and you checked that it goes through your VPN (mullvad has a tool just for that), how do I find the sweet sweet copyrighted content in the first place!?!? Starting off, your answer is going to be a public tracker (as opposed to the elitist private trackers). Here are a few common sites that can actually get you quite far. Oh and by the way, please use uBlock Origin!!!
- The Pirate Bay (General torrents, watch out for fakes)
- RARBG (Movies and TV shows)
- Nyaa (Anime, some say it is better than private trackers)
- 1337x (General stuff, thanks to /u/take_five_seconds)
- RuTracker (Russian language, supposedly good for music, thanks /u/NonWonderDog and /u/steely_its_a_dildo)
Once you found something you like, you will want to find the magnet link, it usually looks like a magnet icon. (They make it too easy for you libs.) Hopefully it will open up in your torrent client (you may have to copy and paste the link otherwise) and you can start the download. Once it is done, congratulations!! Fuck the MPAA!!!
If the download is really slow or not starting at all, that may be because of a lack of peers. Try to find another more popular torrent that has a higher seed count. Most sites will give you an option to sort by seeds, so give that a try.
This post is already getting too long, so for the next post I will go over automation and usenet. For part 3, I will discuss downloading scientific papers, books and music (and maybe also XDCC).
See you soon guys, gals and non binary pals!
Curious as to why you're recommending to use a commercial VPN instead of a seedbox, the prices are about the same and their functions are similar, but with a VPN service you're throttling your download and upload down a fraction of what it could be. Most VPN services I've tested have a maximum bandwidth of 2-10mbps :(
Do you have recommendations for seedbox providers, or general things to look out for if someone was looking for one?
Every seedbox service I grew up with has been long gone, but I'd recommend checking out /r/seedboxes. Some providers are only gonna give you a web client for just pure p2p torrenting, others will give you a VPS solution that needs to be manually configured but you'll be able to use software like sonarr without issue.
I don't have much experience with different seedboxes, but I've been using seedit4.me since December and I think it's worth every penny. They don't allow public trackers, though.
It depends, some VPNs don't throttle that much. Would like to learn more about seed boxes though
There's pretty big differences between seeding at sub 1mbps on a vpn, 10mbps on your own network, then 1gbps upload speeds when contributing to private trackers.
Good point, I do not personally use seedboxes, but I have heard good things about them. Might check it out because my VPN ran out a little while ago.