• nyakojiru@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    I don’t have much free time to play around and never had the chance to be in a popular private tracker . It’s quite imposible for me … I mean wait for slots? A random date? An interview … forget it .

  • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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    1 year ago

    Look I get that private trackers are probably safer and have a mored dedicated community but personally I still love anyone that keeps it public and keeps the knowledge of torrenting open and available as a tool for new people to discover.

    I just use the public torrents, I have an IP Blocklist, and I seed the shit out of the stuff I download if it’s got less traction on it.

    I will probably find a private group or something once I realize my obscure watching habits leave me out of finding stuff unless I can literally find it physical or get lucky but for now I’m a free pirate.

  • Conyak@lemmy.tf
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    1 year ago

    Could someone explain the benefits? I use public sites and download everything I’ve ever wanted and rarely have to wait more than a few minutes for them to finish. I’m no expert by any measure so I’m probably missing something.

    • athos77@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      There are three types of private trackers: general, specialty, and niche. A general tracker has most of the newest of everything - tv and movies and music and games, etc. A specialty tracker focuses on a specific media - movies or comics or audiobooks or TV, etc. And a niche tracker focuses on a specific interest - British television, or horror movies, or dnb music.

      A general tracker has very similar content to public trackers, though they tend to be more secure. And like public trackers, while they’ll have the latest items, and old popular items, they tend to have retention issues.

      Since a specialty tracker has a narrower focus, it tends to have deeper archives for it’s content. A movie tracker, for example, instead of having just the most recent movies and a back-catalog of older blockbusters, will have those plus a catalog of older, more obscure, less popular content, and it will often offer that content in multiple formats and sizes.

      And a specialty tracker goes even deeper for those that have a particular passion for the subject that’s covered.

      Do you need a private tracker? IMO, most people don’t. Most people are happy with what they have, or are happy with what they get from public trackers and other places. It’s really only if you’re finding yourself unhappy with public trackers - you’re not comfortable with the lack of privacy, for example, or you’re often looking content that you can’t find - that I would suggest looking into private trackers.

    • dystop@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      First is speed. I’ve been able to get speeds of ~50MBps (not Mbits) on private trackers, granted this is dependent on Internet connection more than anything but I get 20-50% of that speed on public trackers.

      Second is retention and breadth of selection. If you’re trying to download the latest Marvel movie then every tracker is gonna have that, but if you’re looking for an older movie then it’s much harder to find on a public tracker. And if you do find one, it’s likely to be seeded by 1 person and you can only squeeze 10KBps out of it.

      • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Hard disagree. Plenty of private trackers have massive communities of request systems. You want some stupidly obscure movie and it has to be dubbed in Romanian? Private tracker.

        Edit: My comment no longer makes sense after the edit :)!

    • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I’ve never had any need, except for audiobooks. Getting into myanonymouse is just a case of knowing the rules and passing a wee test. Maybe start there?

    • Azzy@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      It’s a good idea to start with MAM since they have interviews twice a week, and you can access invites for other trackers in the forums once you get to vip (which requires 4 weeks of membership, and a ratio above 2.0)

      One of the nicer things about it is that you can gain bonus points (which is how you buy extra upload credit and VIP) just by being an available seed. Due to the shear number of books on the site, you won’t be seeding often, but they make it desirable to keep it available in case someone needs it by giving you a certain number of bonus points per hour depending on various factors.

      • AphoticDev@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        That’s a lot of work. I can’t imagine putting that much effort into downloading, not when Usenet doesn’t require anything but a couple dollars a month.

  • spez@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I don’t do much torrenting but only direct downloads (3rd world baby!) What are trackers really?

  • IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Here’s my experience with 99% of private trackers:

    “You haven’t upload enough. Download a free-leech to upload more”. So I download it, and no one downloads it from me.

      • HeneryHawk@thelemmy.club
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        1 year ago

        You’re downloading old and/or unpopular stuff. For you to upload content someone has to be actively downloading that content (that’s how the bit torrent protocol works at the most basic level). If you choose some 5 year-old FL of a Game of Thrones pack with 7,000 seeders, that’s on you

        • allocsb@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          The incentive structure just doesn’t seem designed well. It creates a zero sum game. When downloading you can either:

          1. Not seed to 100%. This damages your ratio

          2. Seed to exactly 100%. In terms of ratio maintenance across all seeders this option makes the most sense

          3. Seed past 100%. You build up your own ratio but deny other downloaders from reaching 100% which hurts their ratio. They must spend longer seeding the torrent to reach 100%, which further decreases the likelihood of subsequent downloaders from reaching 100% when seeding

          When you seed past 100%, you essentially have to rely on bad actors to create more upload work for good actors. If there are no bad actors then seeding past 100% is to the detriment of other good actors, who you want to protect because you also rely on them for system health. And private trackers aim to minimize the number of bad actors.