According to you, what is a tracker actually worth joining ?

[buttnudge]

First some personal context.

At some point in my life I remember having like 40+ different bookmarks of private trackers and credentials in LastPass for each of these. I probably only used What.cd once in a while or PTP in case I was having problems with the seeds for similar torrents with the same content on public trackers. In the end I barely used any of those and it was more of a collection, life went on, what.cd died ( really loved the forum ) and I eventually just abandoned most of those. Now I guess you could make the case for having all these in a situation where you have a whole setup with Xarr and friends ( Sonarr, Radarr ) but most people who end up in this situation don't, I think, I have no way of finding if this affirmation is valid.

Today I've replaced what.cd with the RateYourMusic forums and a Soulseek which even at what.cd's peak had stuff not available on what.cd ( probably due to stringent rules, but what's the f-ing point of having all these rules when it goes to shitter once every X years )

What according to you is a private tracker most worth joining as a proper user of a private torrent tracker ?

[FubareD]

Hello and welcome to the site.

I've had some similar experiences in the past related to what you mention. Having tons of accounts of which almost none of them were being used or were actually worth it.

Really deppends on the content you need, since you mentioned music mainly. Altough you already have a replacement, I highly recommend downloading from Deezer or Qobuz.
This site explains how to download (lossless without quality loss) from the nowdays streaming sites: https://rentry.org/firehawk52

In case you need some other material, like Movies/TV/Games. I would just aim for Torrentleech and go by my day. It's all you need. Maybe throw in IPT or RuTracker to complement. But thats it!

[buttnudge]

Thanks. Sorry for not being more clear but I'm actually interested in your take on this. If you had to delete all private trackers but keep one. Which one would you keep and for what reason ?

[FubareD]

I'd keep TorrentLeech as a private site. Rutracker (public) as a backup.
TL or IPT (its about prefference), I like TL the most. It's got everything you could ever need, easy to buffer, its got the whole combo on one site.

[anon]

As I see it, there are two questions you should ask yourself.

1. Am I getting the content I want with the memberships I already have?
2. If there are "better" places, are they worth the effort I must make to join them and maintain an account there?

In my case, I found that FL, IPT, RuTracker and PornoLab were enough for me to answer "yes" and "no" respectively, and I've been on most elite trackers past and present (I also use Nyaa, AnimeTosho and Usenet, but those are beyond the scope of this discussion). Others don't need any private trackers or even torrents at all to reach that point. Here's some reading to help you decide.

https://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=34999
https://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=17788 (look, it's what you just asked )
https://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=18575

If you ultimately take the recruitment route, that's fine, but keep in mind: climbing the ranks and competing against seedboxes takes time, money and effort you won't get any refunds on. Recruiters can take months to respond, change requirements or stop recruiting while you're halfway through. The tracker you're buffing your account on could shut down. The one you want to join could do the very same... and if you finally manage to get in, you could lose access at any time because a mod didn't like something you said/did, someone on an invite selling forum used a name similar to yours, you were on the "wrong" DHCP pool, or a variety of other bullshit reasons.

[buttnudge]

As I see it, there are two questions you should ask yourself.

1. Am I getting the content I want with the memberships I already have?
2. If there are "better" places, are they worth the effort I must make to join them and maintain an account there?

In my case, I found that FL, IPT, RuTracker and PornoLab were enough for me to answer "yes" and "no" respectively, and I've been on most elite trackers past and present (I also use Nyaa, AnimeTosho and Usenet, but those are beyond the scope of this discussion). Others don't need any private trackers or even torrents at all to reach that point. Here's some reading to help you decide.

Yes, I get it but if I could just argue in an uncharitable way for one second, did you at any point in the last year find yourself reaching out to these because you didn't find what you were looking for on public trackers or do you just go to them by default ?

https://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=34999
https://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=17788 (look, it's what you just asked )
https://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=18575

I'll take a look. Thanks. I didn't search because I wanted a more current view of things. Tell me if I should just necrobump in the future.

If you ultimately take the recruitment route, that's fine, but keep in mind: climbing the ranks and competing against seedboxes takes time, money and effort you won't get any refunds on. Recruiters can take months to respond, change requirements or stop recruiting while you're halfway through. The tracker you're buffing your account on could shut down. The one you want to join could do the very same... and if you finally manage to get in, you could lose access at any time because a mod didn't like something you said/did, someone on an invite selling forum used a name similar to yours, you were on the "wrong" DHCP pool, or a variety of other bullshit reasons.

I consider this valid and I'm trying to avoid doing this again.

[anon]

did you at any point in the last year find yourself reaching out to these because you didn't find what you were looking for on public trackers

Stuff goes unseeded or never gets uploaded in the first place, and for warez in particular, I find private sites to be much more trustworthy. The accounts for which the answer to your question was no were all trimmed over time (as commented on one of the linked discussions, having multiple ones of the same category adds to "maintenance" costs while giving diminishing returns).

Tell me if I should just necrobump in the future.

That's usually a bad idea unless there's something really important you want to clarify or add and it hasn't already been done on other threads.

I consider this valid and I'm trying to avoid doing this again.

For what it's worth, statistically speaking, everything I just mentioned is unlikely... and trackers would suck if no one uploaded anything because they could lose their accounts at any moment. But unlikely doesn't mean 0% and that's something you should account for.

[illusive]

FL, IPT, RuTracker and PornoLab

This. Will try to give more options to have the same result

- RuTracker, uniondht, pb.wtf or ddgroupclub. Basically semi-private tracker or even a reputable public tracker would do. I used to use demonoid, zamunda, thepiratebay, 1337x and even kick ass .... (do not remember the name). That will cover apps, music and new stuff.
- IPT or TL or FL or TD. For high speed on older stuff, maybe auto dl new stuff and for requests.

THAT IS IT. I really do not use most of anything by now other than IPT and RuTracker though, well, PornoLab too.

[anon]

This. Will try to give more options to have the same result

https://nnmclub.to/ - I don't use this one, but some swear by it.
https://rutor.info/ - Same.
http://www.parnuxi.com/ - Fairly unknown Pornolab alternative with no registration needed.

Honorable mentions: bigtorrent.org, pornleech.ch. Both were good but have ceased to exist.

IPT or TL or FL or TD. For high speed on older stuff, maybe auto dl new stuff and for requests.

Is TD worth having if you're already on IPT and TL? The fact they faked their member and peer counts to appear popular put me off it early on and ever since.

[illusive]

https://nnmclub.to/ - I don't use this one, but some swear by it.
https://rutor.info/ - Same.
http://www.parnuxi.com/ - Fairly unknown Pornolab alternative with no registration needed.

Honorable mentions: bigtorrent.org, pornleech.ch. Both were good but have ceased to exist.

These names are new to me, never used any. Nice to know, thanks a ton.

Is TD worth having if you're already on IPT and TL? The fact they faked their member and peer counts to appear popular put me off it early on and ever since.

Personally I think the three are same for most if not all content I look for. TD got same seeds (speed) and content. So it's either IPT, TL and TD for me. Having two of them is great redundancy. That being said, IPT/TL is massive compared to TD. So it is a definitive no.

Worth mentioning though, on games and maybe movies also, the comments on these three, specially IPT/TD is very active and worth reading as sometimes I find a trick to fix something in a game related issue or a review to a movie worth or not worth watching. Well, that used to be relevant when I was gaming couple of years ago though . I believe that is the reason why I started torrenting with TorrentLeech as my first private tracker but ended up using IPT a lot more after joining it. Rutracker beats every other also on this but all posts in Russian, good thing that firefox has internal translator now !

[anon]

These names are new to me, never used any.

I have many more bookmarked, but those are the best I can remember that haven't been mentioned already, and chances are at least half of the rest has shut down anyway

IPT/TL is massive compared to TD. So it is a definitive no.

Got it, thanks

Rutracker beats every other also on this but all posts in Russian, good thing that firefox has internal translator now !

The need for a translator in RuTracker seems overestimated to me. I've only had to use one to register (back in the Torrents.ru era when they opened a few hours a day) and then very few times for potentially relevant comments. Most thread titles are in English, screenshots and mediainfos need no translation, and knowing how to read Cyrillic helps a bit with the rest.

Some are also apparently traumatized by the forum-based design, even though it allows you to quickly search torrent descriptions and comments by using /forum/search.php...

[illusive]

The need for a translator in RuTracker seems overestimated to me. I've only had to use one to register (back in the Torrents.ru era when they opened a few hours a day) and then very few times for potentially relevant comments. Most thread titles are in English, screenshots and mediainfos need no translation, and knowing how to read Cyrillic helps a bit with the rest.

Agreed. Most of the time this is the case up to a point getting a big product like adobe stuff with specific info on the cracking steps that needed a tracing of the comments to know how to apply it properly instead of wasting time trying blocking hosts communications...etc. Actually, many foreign trackers registersation steps and browsing Chinese trackers also are fun by using the translator, let alone FL forum and comments which is all Romanian. But forcing using chrome was accepted but sucks in a way

Some are also apparently traumatized by the forum-based design, even though it allows you to quickly search torrent descriptions and comments by using /forum/search.php...

I like that style of searching actually and there is google and duckduckgo search support which is superior search mechanism for filtering exact result and searching Windows ISOs checksums . Before I discovered that was supported, IPT search in description was superior.

[anon]

Actually, many foreign trackers registersation steps and browsing Chinese trackers also are fun by using the translator

Machine "translations" of Chinese are often very fun, indeed.

I like that style of searching actually and there is google and duckduckgo search support which is superior search mechanism for filtering exact result and searching Windows ISOs checksums

You must be very lucky, I gave up on this method since I had horrible success at finding almost anything.