Thread: What is the difference between private trackers and open trackers?

Firstly, you got the terminology wrong...there's private trackers and public trackers...open trackers is usually referred to private trackers that have free signup and therefore you wouldn't need an invite at the time they have free signup..

1. Yes private trackers are safer than public.
2. Seeding longer is usually a requirement of private trackers (not just cos your ISP allows it as you mentioned), you usually need to seed to at least a minimum ratio of 1 or a minimum amount of time...different with each tracker. Private trackers have specific seeding rules and you have to maintain a mimimum ratio if you want to survive there.
3. Yes definately, on private trackers all users are registered and therefore all have to follow rules. They all usually have people actively posting in the forums which is the community.
4. Certain trackers do offer incentives, these are usually to make it easier to follow seeding requirement rules, you should read the tutorials for more info (we have a whole tutorials section with a lot of info)
5. Yup, private trackers usually require invites unless they are open (free signup as mentioned above)....but all private trackers require to signup and be a memeber (hence the term 'private')...public trakers allow anyone to download the torrents without having to signup.

AS mentioned, private trackers have many benefits like faster speeds, content usually get to private trackers first, longer seeding time so older torrents still give good speed, a lot of exclusive content, but they also require you to follow specific rules and seed longer.



There are many different types of private trackers, some which specialise in certain torrents like only games or music or movies or books, and some are also general which have more content but might not have everything a user might require. People tend to get at least one specialist tracker for content they are interested in.

Public trackers are mostly general content, so you can find most things on 1 or 2 sites. They also tend to have a lot more content than a private tracker would have, hence they could be useful once in a while.

As for speed and convenience,

That's actually better on public trackers, because the often idiotic ratio requirements on private trackers achieve mostly the opposite of what they were initially intended for (for a detailed explanation of the reasons see this). Today, seeding supply far exceeds demand, which means that uploading is nearly impossible for users with a slower connection -- "slow" being everything less than a seedbox. Consequently, their ratio remains low and increases slower than a slug on ice and ordinary mortals can neither download as much as they want nor as quickly as they would like to. Only 10% of users on private trackers and only 20-25% on public trackers are leechers who hit & run, but many private tracker administrators just don't get it and cling to the outdated concept of volume-based ratios. The one tracker where you can find more stuff than anywhere else, even more than on most specialized trackers, is Demonoid, which has nearly twice as many members as IPTorrents or TorrentLeech, precisely because it does not give a post mortem rodent's rear end about ratio -- go figure. There are thousands of private trackers out there, but only the first two or three in each category can even dare to dream of coming close to what is available on Demonoid, public trackers or fora that use file hosting services (MegaUpload, RapidShare & Co.) instead of BitTorrent. Unless you are an addict who wanks off over getting that newly released software a couple hours earlier than the rest of the world, content is seldomly an argument for private trackers.

Neither is community. For most technical problems (opening ports, kill a virus, overcome copy-protection, whathaveyou), there is much better and thorough advice freely available on websites dedicated to these problems, which one can find with an Internet search engine and access without signing up, instead of having to beg for an invitation to a place managed by people who are like cocks, believing the sun only rises to hear their crowing. Furthermore, most of the discussions circle around seeding problems to uphold a ratio, risk of bans, connectivity problems, i.e. l'art pour l'art à la BT incest. General discussions about god and the world can be found millionfold on the web, no need to get into a BT tracker for that. By the way, due to a presumed "1337" elite status going to their head, many administrators behave like absolute monarchs, censoring and banning people over even minor disagreements or unwanted suggestions. If you like an open community where freedom of speech is a value held in high esteem, most communities are better communities than private tracker communities. Nota bene: to every rule there are exceptions: MyAnonamouse.net is possibly one of the friendliest and most helpful sites out there, where both members and staff will go the extra mile to help nebies iron out their mistakes and AlphaOmega has some interesting discussions due to intelligent administrators, but these are rather exceptions, not the rule.

This leaves the third argument, security. For the time being, this is indeed a clear advantage for private trackers, at least until the three Russians behind YouHaveDownloaded.com get the financing to spread out their nets in the private scene, too. If privacy and security are a serious concern for you, subscribing to a professional Proxy and/or VPN service is a much better choice than paying for a seedbox just to "survive" on private BT trackers, because a thoughtful security setup will do much more for all your online activities, including but not limited to the use of public BT trackers.

Hope that helps as an introductory overview. Just read the various topics in the different subsections of this site before asking for invitations and all will become clearer and fall into place. Good luck, merry Christmas and take care.

Wow Qp, great info lol Glad you responded so I could read all that info. Should be a sticky lol