Here soon I'm going to update the pinned megathread and include links to all worthwhile posts from myself and other users, such as this one.
Not spending time is justifiable, trackers are a time investment for sure. But as far as finding open signups there has been a ton of big trackers with games open recently, I recommend following the telegram channel mentioned in my previous post.
Howdy, I brought that up in my previous post, compiling sources of where to find out about open signups. But basically only two good sources right now besides word of mouth here. Of the two mentioned in the post I currently recommend the telegram channel.
Disclaimer: We've been getting a lot of basic questions about trackers so this is just a primer for people wanting to see what it's all about. Skip if you are already well versed with trackers, unless you want to read just to contribute or correct me on anything.
What is a private tracker?
Let's start with what it isn't. Chances are you are familiar with infamous torrent trackers such as The Pirate Bay and 1337x. These trackers are what's known as public trackers. "Public" means anyone can visit them and download whatever they want to their heart's content. This is all fine and dandy, but it does introduce some problems.
- While you are downloading your file, you are known as a leecher. Once the download is finished, you become a seeder, which means you are done but will continue to upload the data you just downloaded to other downloaders who come along after you. The problem here is that on public trackers, most users stop the torrent, remove it, or close the BitTorrent client as soon as their download is complete. The end result? You have many more leechers than seeders, which equates to slower download speeds and a longer time required to download your files.
- A peer is another term that can be used to refer to either a seeder or leecher. The swarm is the sum of all peers on a particular torrent. Since anyone can effortlessly access and download files on a public tracker, it leads to unwanted parties gaining access to the swarm and its data, such as copyright holders or their agents. Why is this bad? When you are part of a swarm, you can see the IP addresses of other peers within it. Unless you use a service such as a VPN to mask your identity, your IP address uniquely identifies you on the internet. With this data, parties representing the interests of the people whose content you are pirating can monitor the downloads and issue copyright infringement notices to your ISP, resulting in you receiving nasty letters, having your internet shut off, or possibly facing worse consequences depending on your local laws..
- Torrents are decentralized, meaning the data isn't downloaded from a persistent, dedicated location; instead, they rely on the users, particularly the seeders. As mentioned earlier, if you abandon a torrent after finishing, you are no longer a seeder. If enough people do the same, the torrent could end up with zero seeders left, also known as a dead torrent. This means it becomes impossible to complete the download, as the entirety of the data isn't available in the swarm. Unless a previous seeder decides to return and seed again, nobody will ever be able to download the torrent again. Consequently, a significant amount of niche or older content is lost with the passage of time.
- So, where do these torrents originally come from? The uploader is the initial seeder of the torrent. On most public trackers, uploading content is almost as easy as downloading it. This large volume of uploads makes moderation difficult. The result? Poor-quality content, fake/mislabeled content, or even viruses.
Private trackers seek to solve these problems by restricting access to the site. Not just anyone can waltz in and download or upload a torrent; you have to be a member. Think of it as the VIP lounge of the pirating world. Here are some of the advantages of this approach:
- Users are incentivized to keep seeding torrents they've downloaded. This means the seeder/leecher ratio is much higher than what would be found on a public site. On a good private tracker, you'll notice that a majority of the downloads will utilize the full speed of your internet connection and download in the shortest amount of time possible for their size.
- For the most part, the companies and interested parties mentioned above, who would love to spy and tattle to your ISP about what you download, are completely absent on private trackers. I've been using them for over a decade and haven't encountered a single issue. This means you don't have to take risks, spend time configuring and updating IP blocklists, or invest money in a VPN.
- Due to the number of dedicated seeders on private trackers, torrents tend to stay alive much longer, if not indefinitely. This makes private trackers a treasure trove of content. There is a lot that you will only find here. Want to watch some obscure indie film you saw once when you were a kid back in 1989? They've got you fam.
- Due to the controlled nature of private trackers, the content tends to be very well moderated and curated. You can be sure that what you are downloading is exactly what it claims to be, and the quality is excellent as well.
- Private trackers are more than a download site, they are a community. Many are packed with helpful forums, and members who generally care about the scene and helping one another. Managed to find something that's actually no on the site already? Many trackers have request systems built in where you can ask the community to find it and upload it for you, and believe it or not, chances are pretty good that someone will!
Ok, but what's the downside?
Just one really. Your ratio is the amount of data you've downloaded on a site compared to how much you've uploaded. So, if I've downloaded an 8 GB movie but continued to seed it after finishing until I had uploaded 16 GB to other peers, my ratio would be 2.0 (16 ÷ 8). If I downloaded a second 8 GB movie but didn't upload any data, my ratio would fall to 1.0 ((8 + 8) ÷ 16). Most sites have rules about the ratio you must maintain to encourage people to keep seeding torrents they've downloaded. This means, unlike public trackers, you will want to keep seeding after your download has finished so that you can maintain a good ratio and continue to download more content as you please.
So how do I get in?
Private trackers recruit in a variety of ways:
- Open Signup - The easiest trackers to get into are the ones where you just have to sign up to become a member. Some trackers have what's known as limited open signup, which means you can't sign up anytime, but they open signups intermittently when they see fit.
- Official Recruitment - Some trackers have official representatives who recruit in the forums of other trackers. To qualify, you often have to be a power user on the tracker where the recruitment is taking place. The requirements to achieve this rank vary from tracker to tracker, but typically include uploading a certain amount of data at a minimum.
- Invites - On many trackers, members who meet certain requirements are given invites to pass out to whomever they want. If you can get someone to give you one of their invites, you're in.
- Interviews - There are trackers that conduct official interviews. If you interview and they like you, they'll let you join.
- Additionally some trackers will let you buy your way in. I don't encourage this because for one it's usually unnecessary, and second because it's the shadier trackers that usually offer this route anyways.
Patience, this is a new community, but I plan to add lots of info in this regard, this is just the first in a series of posts that will make up the community knowledge base.
I'm making an ongoing series of posts where we discuss something as a community, then I add it to the mega-thread for future reference. This has been an reoccurring question so figured I'd cover it next.
Where do you guys go for news and updates regarding open signups?
---
The two places I'm aware of:
Opentrackers.org - Updates have seemed a little lacking lately with many open signups being posted with a long delay or not at all.
OpenSignup Telegram Channel - Much more up to date but with the downside that sometime it gets flooded with junk/ads/spam.
For a website there is:
but I feel like it's been lacking lately. For both more and faster updates I'd suggestion joining the telegram group, it does pretty well:
And it's not even a compromise to use open trackers nowadays, several in the A-tier list have been open just this past couple months.
Well if the tracker you are on doesn't have active forums, and active irc or forbids invites, then I'd find a different tracker to get on via either open registration or interview that does.
That's what I was thinking but good to hear it confirmed, I'll go ahead and add them, thanks!
Yea I'm referring less to personal rankings and more of a generalization. Aka how well does the tracker do what it set out to do. If it's a movie tracker, has a huge library of everything you could want, old torrents are still well seeded, the site is well designed, etc, then it's high tier.
For me, red has everything I could want, but it seems in your opinion they are missing stuff. Which could mean in a generalizing sense it could be lower than I rated it which is why I wanted to get other peoples opinion.
Also I'm trying to keep extremely niche trackers off the list as I planned to make another post about them later to add to the megathread like I will this one.
Again I said it's subjective, if people want something changed I'll change it! There's been lots of complaints about IPT over the years of shady stuff going down, people losing their accounts of no reason, them wanting bribes to get back on the site, etc. I'll agree the content is good, but the site itself and staff are not. I could see it being maybe an A tier imo, certainly not S.
Maybe someone else can chime in with what they think of pornolab compared to emp.
Route most people take is they get in their first private tracker x, then on that tracker get an invite to tracker y, then on tracker y someone invites them to tracker z. Eventually you start to rack them up. I started at Demonoid in like 2005, now I have every tracker I could want lol.
Oh wow, this is a big list lol. Haven't heard of someone of these so will take a bit to work through it, but thanks for contributing!
Oh and I wasn't planning on including public trackers, I just made an exception for Nyaa since it's so well regarded in it's category.
Also wasn't planning on including too many hyper niche trackers as I was planning to make another post about those later.
I've heard a bit about Anthelion and Nebulance, is the retention there good?
Sounds like I'm also behind, as someone who only plays older games and they are always on there when I search haha. So you think it should be moved down?
I'll go ahead and place orpheus, thanks for contributing!
Hey yall, just for fun I had the idea of making our own community tier list for trackers. Lumping them all together regardless of category, just rating them on how well they do what they do.
Commit if you have any changes or additions and I will update!
---
S-Tier
- HDBits (HDB) - Movies/TV
- PassThePopcorn (PTP) - Movies
- BroadcasTheNet (BTN) - TV
- Redacted (RED) - Music
- GazelleGames (GGn) - Games
A-Tier
- Anthelion (ANT) - Moives
- Nebulance (NBL) - TV
- BeyondHD (BHD) - Movies/TV
- Blutopia (Blu) - Movies/TV
- MoreThanTV (MTV) - Movies/TV
- Orpheus - Music
- AnimeBytes (AB) - Anime
- Bibliotik (BiB) - eBooks
- TorrentLeech (TL) - General
- Empornium (EMP) - P0rn
B-Tier
- Aither - General
- Alpharatio (AR) - General
- FileList (FL) - General
- IPTorrents (IPT) - General
- MyAnonaMouse (MAM) - eBooks
C-Tier
- Bit-HDTV - Movies/TV
- Nyaa - Anime
I like the idea.. I was actually thinking of doing something similar, was going to post a community tier list haha, could supplement this. Anyways, here's my input. I'm on team IPT staff hater, the content is great tho for a general tracker.
Quality of Content: 7
Content retention: 7
Speed of new content: 8
Administration/Mods: 3
Community/other users: N/A
Forums: N/A
Rules: 5
Ease of ratio: 9
Overall: 7
Like he said, not just trackers but most niche communities on here don’t have much traffic. I mean most niche subs are slow even on Reddit, r/trackers included, and there is a fraction of the traffic here. Lemmy is very much in its early slow buildup phase.
I’m the admin here and I’ve just been kinda chillin while the platform user base grows. Been meaning to put out more guides but been busy starting a new job.
I’d happily mod anyone who wants to help contribute.
Highly recommended general tracker AlphaRatio now open for signups for a limited time!
Didn't feel like making a standalone post, but Blutopia is also doing something similar. Although I'll admit looking over their application it kinda seems like a hassle..
True, I'm going to signup, need some more tv/movie trackers in my rotation, HDBits a little too hardcore to make a full replacement for the more casual PTP.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2661680
> After a discussion and co-operation with PTP senior-staff, We would like to extend a limited time opportunity to all PTP users for a chance to apply for an MTV account. We fully expect PTP to come back stronger than ever, but we understand this may be a difficult time. PTP holds a special place in our hearts as it does for the community as a whole, and we are excited to see their return :ptplove: :mtvlove: > > We are extending this as a courtesy to the community. Please do not abuse this or it will disappear :( > > The more information you include, the more likely your application is to be accepted. MTV is in no way to be a replacement for your PTP usage upon their return. Just add it into your rotation as they will compliment each other. Don't forget after getting accepted, to view your security page to add your 2 factor authentication and/or create an API key for direct input into your *arr instance. > > Note: Ensure you use the same exact email address you use with PTP > > Apply at https://morethantv.me/application > > We expect you to act as you would on PTP they are watching ( ͡◉◞ ͜ʖ◟ ͡◉)
Looks like the signup is limited to people with certain Chinese university email domains
Lemmy link: /c/trackers@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Kbin link: /m/trackers@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Direct link: lemmy.dbzer0.com/trackers
/c/trackers is a place to discuss anything relating to private torrent trackers and their use, including, but not limited to:
- Tracker reviews
- Open signups
- Invites (See rules below)
- Seedboxes
We are newbie friendly so feel free to stop in just to check out what it’s all about and learn the ropes.
Invite Giveaways
---
Do you have any invites you want to give away to the community? This is the thread for that!
- Please edit and update your comment once your invite(s) have been given.
- Make sure you've read and abide by the community rules.
- Follow the rules of your tracker.
🚧 This thread under major construction as I create and add new content 🚧
---
Wiki
- New to private trackers or just wondering what this is all about? → Trackers 101
- Want to check out some tracker recommendations? → Tracker List
- How to get into private trackers guide coming soon. See Additional Resources/#Tracker Info for now.
- Want to learn even more in the meantime? → Additional Resources
---
Helpful Resources
- Private Tracker List by -HDVinnie-
- Extensive private tracker list with fairly up-to-date community submitted statistics and join methods.
- The Graph by inviteroute
- Keeps track of what trackers host official recruitment for other trackers. So you can determine the path to get to your desired tracker based on what you are already member of.
- Can also be used for tracker discovery and exploring your options by using the "any" option on the dropdown.
- Opentrackers.org
- See what trackers are currently having open signups.
- /r/trackers
- The community I wish to recreate here, but it's still an archive of great information.
- Used libreddit to avoid giving Reddit traffic.
---
Got any questions, contributions, or critiques? Comment below.
Notice there is a lot of talk about private trackers here and I low key miss r/trackers and tps forum, would anyone be interested in collaborating to make a home here? I'm assuming that's allowed?
