What is the benefit to joining private torrents?
What is the benefit to joining private torrents?
Apologies if this is a basic question, but I am curious to know what I am missing out on by not having access to private torrents? I have been able to find everything I wanted using public ones.
Better speeds, better access to niche content, arguably better privacy.
For me:
- Lifetime of torrents, honestly I rarely have dead torrents on private trackers. Also, most of them send an alert to previous seeders telling them one torrent needs some seeds. So for that it's WAY better than public.
- Niche contents, I'm into rare movies and some movies are only available on private trackers (unfortunately), so yeah, for me no choice. Though I really miss VXT releases on RARBG :(.
Except that.. Not much. I think I still would keep my seedbox if I was on public trackers. Private or public, we all have to do our jobs and participate in seeding what we got :)
Private torrents are faster and safer. The downside is you typically have to maintain an upload ratio, which can be very hard to achieve without a seedbox.
The downside is you typically have to maintain an upload ratio, which can be very hard to achieve without a seedbox.
That's not a downside - the whole point is to promote seeding. Rent a seedbox for £5 a month and fill it with freeleech torrents and let it seed before you dive into downloading and you should easily be able to build a healthy ratio.
I understand the point, I have like 30TB uploaded on public trackers. It's a down side for the average user that does not have a seedbox or wants one.
You mean private trackers, yeah? The advantage is obviously they are not open to the public, which means copyright trolls need an account on the tracker to view the IP address of torrent participants. Secondly users are vetted for quality so the torrents on them are well seeded and trusted.
The advantage of a private tracker is also its disadvantage. You need to get through the vetting process. An invite and history are required to join which can be kind of a chicken and egg thing. It all takes some effort and facility.
If you don't have your own full time torrent server with high upload bandwidth, it's going to be difficult to get the seed ratios you need. Best thing there is to contract a seedbox. Even so you have to put the effort into working your way up to the ladder by getting a history of tracker accounts.
If you don’t have your own full time torrent server with high upload bandwidth, it’s going to be difficult to get the seed ratios you need.
I agree with this for some trackers, but many give bonus points based on passive seeding as well, which can then be exchanged to contribute to your upload ratio. Just having a large drive to use for seeding should be enough - that's what I've done at least for nearly 8 years now.
I was using different private trackers but in the end dropped them and went back to public ones. One thing that private trackers may offer is the forum or the discussion board and plenty of user generated content. But in general there are many negative points:
- the drama: lots of users feel entitled and there is a very negative attitude towards newcomers
- less security: there was a time when an italian private tracker was caught and ended up giving the name and data of few active users. I don't buy that you have to use a legit email and no vpn.
- you have to pay for a seedbox and always track your ratio: I seed forever most stuff (4k+ torrents) but I don't want this to become a time sink
Counterpoint to these is that you don't have to participate in the drama, many allow you to use a VPN, and seedboxes aren't mandatory and you can just as easily permaseed to build ratio (via bonus points). What you say is true of some trackers but not with any that I've joined.
Skip the drama, just download and seed the torrents
What was the italian tracker?
I am having troubles recalling the name right now. It was many years ago. I remember it was famous for having english subbed movies with italian subtitles, most of the time weeks before the title landed in the cinemas
You also get access to a broad repository of the history of a particular torrent. Like ever preferred a really obscure version of your favorite torrent? Probably impossible to find unless it was a really popular Vidya game and there's a legacy torrent still seeding.
I've still got a Myanonamouse (Private Book Tracker) account purely because there are certain editions of books that quite literally don't exist in print except as a used copy on Amazon. But because some degenerate decided to commit all their scans to a Seedbox, ebook versions of obscure early science fiction now exist.
Very niche, but also incredibly useful if you come across something that you just can't find elsewhere.
- they are properly moderated so no fake torrents or malware (and anyone trying to upload those is immediately banned)
- many have rules about formats, nfo files - another guarantee that your file is what it says it is
- duplicates are not usually allowed - eg if an album already exists in FLAC format, you can’t upload another one
- ratio requirements mean people almost always seed, and many use seed boxes which means speed is much faster. Movies download to my seed box in a couple of seconds typically.
The main thing for me is that Private Trackers, because they incentivise continued seeding, will maintain greater activity for older torrents. People are even given bonus incentives for seeding content that has few seeders. As a result, older content and torrents that would be long dead in public trackers are still alive and well in the private ones, and when they become relevant again can be brought back to the public trackers.
If you are able to get all the content you need from public trackers and you don't worry about copyright agancies tracking you than there's no reason for you at all to bother with private trackers.
I agree and went with the same route. One thing that private trackers may offer is the forum or the discussion board and plenty of user generated content
Content you may not be able to find elsewhere (for example, MySpleen has tons of old discontinued/out of print content), as well as you aren't going to find copyright holders in private tracker swarms monitoring for IP's to have infringement notices sent to.
Downside: If you don't like seeding, you get to fuck yourself and get used to liking seeding or you lose your account.
The main benefits of private trackers are:
-
Download speed. Many users of these trackers will use seedboxes to build ratio. This generally results in a faster download speed for peers.
-
Security. Many (but not all) private trackers have strict entry barriers, such as invite only or application based signups. This keeps copyright trolls out of their swarms, which eliminates the need for a vpn or other method of masking your identity. Depending on where you live this can range from a nicety to a necessity.
-
Longevity. Torrents generally live longer on private trackers.
-
Community. Some private trackers have a forum or IRC channel where you can interact with other community members.
-
Availability. Many private trackers will have a wider range of releases of a single media.
-
Quality. You will generally find higer quality releases on private trackers. That's not to say that high quality releases don't make it to public trackers, some do and some don't.
-
Faster releases. Releases will typically come to private trackers first. May torrents originate on these trackers or come from scene groups and trickle down.
If you're finding everything you want on public trackers then you probably aren't missing anything. You could test the waters on TL or something next time they open.
Chat gpt wrote this.
This is all good info. I still use a VPN with my private tracker though. You never know.
These are all great points, but I just wanted to add to the point about security that private trackers are typically very good about managing/minimizing the prevalence of malware on their platforms, whereas public trackers can have all sorts of fun surprises depending on what you're searching for.
-
If you get in really exclusive ones you can bring it up in conversations as an icebreaker and put it on your resume
In short, more privacy and a curated library of content.
I have been able to find everything I wanted using public ones.
In your use case there is no benefit, just keep doing what you're doing now.
People do find it helpful to look into private trackers if there are things they can't find on public torrent indexers or if they are looking for higher quality releases.
Less likely to get a dmca notice from private
Public trackers' public nature means they're more likely to result in your activity being seen / tracked by entities you don't want it tracked by, for one. Ever gotten one of those letters from your ISP warning you not to download pirated shit? My understanding is that that's usually the result of using an insecure tracker.
Or the lack of a VPN (specifically one that has a kill switch activated and to which the bittorrent client is bound).
I think you get new releases faster and you can also request more obscure stuff too
Access to content that isn't on public trackers and is well seeded for the most part.
Curation, breadth of access (less important if you don’t have obscure tastes which it sounds like you don’t OP, and that’s fine), quality control, security to a small degree, and community. Also if you get upload credit you can use the requests option and have some of the most rabid nerds on this world looking for what you want.
Top reason which people will be in denial about though is epeen
In short most people don’t need it and probably will never get in the most selective ones. If you’re not satisfied with public trackers or too worried you’re likely better off with Usenet or real-debrid.
Well, imagine private trackers being like subreddits or magazines in the Fediverse. There are private torrent communities that only share TTRPG books, files for FVX/Motion Graphics, Art/Photography books, Magazines from a certain era, STL files for 3D printing, etc. And all of these trackers have very strict filters for both posters and visitors so the quality of the content is top-notch.
In these trackers, there is stuff that you won't find elsewhere, period. Talking from experience... Good luck finding scans of Spanish tech/video game magazines from the 90s/00s, or copyrighted stuff like precise 3D models of Nintendo Switch's Joycon shells, out in the common web.
Yeah I join private trackers because they have freaky stuff you can’t find in normal places
My problem has been that I don't have any idea where to begin to look for these or get access.
I use a VPN, I have subscriptions to Usenet hosts and nzb trackers. I seed aggressively, especially stuff with low seeds or that I generally just think should be shared. But apparently not in the scene enough or tried hard enough to figure out a place that even has stuff I want besides the public ones.
Some private trackers are shady. Even if you seed, they might undercount your contribution and ask for money. If that happens, it's a scam, just walk away.
People say IPT does this it I’ve been a member for 10 years + and never had this. Never paid a penny. The key is to build a buffer - my ratio is some thing 8:1. Don’t donate, use the money to pay for a seed box, add some big free leech torrents (game packs, tv packs are usually solid choices) and just seed them forever. Free leech won’t impact your download total but will add your seed ratio.
What a lot of new users do is go crazy, build a massive ratio deficit and can never recover.
Usenet isn't too complicated once you install an NZB downloader.
Effectively, there is no benefit. But if you are looking for really niche stuff you can't find on public trackers, you might have success on a private one with a focused category of torrents
Effectively, there is no benefit
Much faster download speeds, no malware, no fakes, no transcoded rubbish - there are plenty of benefits!
Just less leecher and hit and run, nothing else if u are in a country who ignore dmca and where most of the people pirate without a profit
I'd like to know too
Only benefits for me are that they have faster download speeds and that I don't need a VPN.
Upvote if you have fond memories of Oink's Pink Palace.
Boost if you were there when Trent Reznor dropped a chunk of his new album directly into the tracker.
Oink was awesome - strict rules on formats (FLACs. V0's - no transcodes) , sharing ratios so everyone had to seed, pretty sure they had rules on file and folder structure. Used to love getting full discographies from there.
For me it's their speed and safety. I've been using them since over a decade and I've never had any issues wrt viruses etc
Anybody got one of them there invites? About time I check one out.
Me too please!
only benefit I gained was a forum board to discuss and also that there were lots of seeders even for very obscure stuff