Thread: Private trackers, seedboxes and BT Junkies

Hi,



I'm completely new here and am about to ask some really newbish questions so i'll hope you'll bear with me ;)

Firstly, I get that you all use private trackers and so there obviously has to be a benefit to their use but what specifically are these?
Is the speed that much better than public trackers like mininova/tpb (i'm hitting speeds of +700k on most well-seeded torrents) or is it a better range of material, higher speeds on older torrents etc? Why's it worth the bother and how come there's so many different trackers? you seem to have them for music and movies and tvshows etc. trading them like playing cards.. is there no allround trackers or is better to have dedicated ones for each media type?

Secondly, seedboxes..
I understand that private trackers require you to keep up your ratio which i'm all for as that's what filesharing is all about but how does running a remote seedbox help here? i know they have higher upload limits than home lines but do you operate these remotely and then download your content off the server? seems somewhat roundabout but again, i guess there has to be some benefit to it.. and, as a newcomer is it worth while renting space on a seedbox should i start engaging in the private tracker world or is this only a must if you're moving vast amounts of traffic

Thirdly, how much traffic on average do you guys move? I consider myself a heavy bittorrent user grabbing various movies all my tv etc and so my ISP choice is important to me in that i don't want limits and throttles but is it only worth endevaouring into private trackers if you're moving LOTS of data or seeding your own torrents?

and finally (hope you're still with me) what trackers are good for newbs? i know there's going to be threads rating them all but i've just requested one for demonoid and i know things like STC/FTN are part-mythical :laugh:
i'm a member of arenabg but haven't found it to offer anything better than mini/tbp and runs around the same speed, are there others that are much better?

Thanks and apologies for any redundant questions/missed stickies.

ok all above, private trackers r better cose of comunity, means better community it is better tracker it is. it is like this, u will have better speeds, u will have acces first to all torrents and u will be more protected. no need for seedbox to keep good ratio, u just download all the new staff and leave it seeded, that is how i do it than u allways have room for dling and seeding again, and there r tutorial how to keep good ratios here on site that can help u. and good trackers to start is demonoid, iptorrents and some low lvl torrents. work ur way and u will get better ones

If private trackers are usefull for you really depends on what kind of files you are looking for. If you usually hit speeds of 700+ with the stuff you download off public trackers it might not really be worth for the speed alone to use a private tracker. Sure you CAN have much better download speeds on some private trackers if the torrent has enough seeds. But you would also have to leave that torrent much longer open to get a good ratio if everyone is seeding like crazy. Then again if you have few seeds your speeds usually aren`t better than on a public tracker.

Private trackers might be the right thing however if you are looking for stuff that you can`t find on any public tracker or if you want to be part of a closed community.

Why are there so many trackers? Well why are there so many countries or corporations...? The answer is the same in my opinion.

Seedboxen: If you are not sure if you need a seedbox then you don`t need a seedbox.

I would suggest you just try a few private trackers out that have an open registration and see if it is your thing.

And yes, some people collect accounts to private trackers as if they were stamps.

Originally Posted by digitalpencil

Hi,
Firstly, I get that you all use private trackers and so there obviously has to be a benefit to their use but what specifically are these?

Better speeds, better quality, safer files, better feedback and support (community), and for some: a sense of eliteism (like a country club or yacht club... its exclusivity makes it appealing). The quality of these files are also a lot higher. The torrents are generated from within a community and generally from files that the user actually USES so they won't contain trojans or viruses, or extra crap in them. Also you won't get albums with volume differences in the tracks, or pops/clicks/skips... and aside form certain public rippers (like aXXo) the quality is almost always great.

Originally Posted by digitalpencil

Is the speed that much better than public trackers like mininova/tpb (i'm hitting speeds of +700k on most well-seeded torrents)

Yes. Normally I'll hit around 700k to my regular connection with a public tracker... on a well seeded item. On private sites I'll generally hit whatever the cap on my connection is (1.5Mbit on average w/ the rest of the things I'm doing). The reason is because people on private sites don't throttle their uploads as people on public sites do (if they do at all).

Originally Posted by digitalpencil

or is it a better range of material, higher speeds on older torrents etc?

Now this is a tricky part.. it depends on the trackers and their policy on files. Some are ONLY 0day releases and as they get older you won't find them on the site anymore... some sites keep items up indefinately.... it really depends. I still have to hit a public site generally if I want an older movie (liar liar, big daddy).. but then again it depends on the tracker you're checking.

Originally Posted by digitalpencil

Why's it worth the bother and how come there's so many different trackers? you seem to have them for music and movies and tvshows etc. trading them like playing cards.. is there no allround trackers or is better to have dedicated ones for each media type?

Some of them are allaround, most of them are specialized in some form... BitMe for learning, what/waffles/stmusic for music... bitmetv for television shows... hdbits for HIGHDEF movies and shows... p*ssytorrents for pr0n... and so on. At first, I thought it was better to have an all around site so that I could just get everything in one place, right? Well.. after awhile you find out that a site that has a specific range of items is better. Why would you want a site that puts 20% effort into music 30% effort into movies 20%effort into TV, 10% effort into applications, and 20% effort into games? What if the specific album, movie, show, program, or game is not in the % that you're looking for? You will have a much better chance at finding what you're looking for from a site that devotes 100% of their time towards that medium. Plus, as an example.... if you look for a music album on a public tracker you'll get what's out there the most regardless of the naming scheme, contents, quality, or bitrate. With What.CD you can generally pick from a selection of FLAC (lossless CD quality), 320kbps, 192kbps, lossy, or lossless)... depending on what you like to have.

Originally Posted by digitalpencil

Secondly, seedboxes..
I understand that private trackers require you to keep up your ratio which i'm all for as that's what filesharing is all about but how does running a remote seedbox help here? i know they have higher upload limits than home lines but do you operate these remotely and then download your content off the server? seems somewhat roundabout but again, i guess there has to be some benefit to it.. and, as a newcomer is it worth while renting space on a seedbox should i start engaging in the private tracker world or is this only a must if you're moving vast amounts of traffic

No, this is not mandatory (most of the time)... no, I wouldn't recommend it (at first) because a) you should get comfortable with torrenting first and b) it's expensive. In order to get special privileges like specific forum access, receiving invites, protection from being kicked for a low ratio, and the like.... you've got to maintain a high ratio. This isn't so bad if you aren't a download hog and keep seeding your items for a long time (to hit at LEAST 1.0). IF you're downloaing a lot and can't maintain the same ratio because you download 10x faster than you can upload it makes it that much harder.

The way it works is just as you guessed. You download the file with your seedbox (a good one will hit 10Mbit/s easy... and then let your seedbox upload (just as fast) to everyone else. So it's doing the hard part for you (uploading) while you sit back and download it once from your box to your computer and you don't have to worry about uploading anything back. In the same amount of time it would take you to seed back 1.0, or 100%) of the file you downloaded on your home connection you will have seeded 10 times that amount (1000%) with a box.

A second advantage this gives you is protection from your ISP. Since you're not uploading you can't be help accountable by your ISP for sharing *uploading* those "illegal copies". Also, you can set up SFTP (secure with SSH) to encrypt your connection to your box... This also helps if your ISP throttles your connection, or gives you a bandwidth cap (like only transferring 100GB of data per month) because none of the traffic went through you except to download the files once.

Originally Posted by digitalpencil

Thirdly, how much traffic on average do you guys move? I consider myself a heavy bittorrent user grabbing various movies all my tv etc and so my ISP choice is important to me in that i don't want limits and throttles but is it only worth endevaouring into private trackers if you're moving LOTS of data or seeding your own torrents?

This depends on a few things... whether or not they're using a seedbox, whether their machine is constantly connected, how much space you have at home to keep downloading. Before I Got a seedbox, I moved about... 20GB down and 30GB up a month... Now with a seedbox, that number has changed drastically. I have a 2TB bandwidth cap on my box and I'll probably hit it every month... but that's also because I've got the space needed for all those files and can keep downloading.

Originally Posted by digitalpencil

and finally (hope you're still with me) what trackers are good for newbs? i know there's going to be threads rating them all but i've just requested one for demonoid and i know things like STC/FTN are part-mythical :laugh:
i'm a member of arenabg but haven't found it to offer anything better than mini/tbp and runs around the same speed, are there others that are much better?

once again we move into the specialized vs unspecialized trackers. the better one for "n00bs" are the lower level ones. There's two ways a tracker is rated. One is by level.. this is their rarity or how hard it is to get into a certain tracker. The other rating is their quality... how good that site is (for speed/selection). You can find a list at:
Private Tracker Levels with Updated Rankings | THE source for BitTorrent & P2P Tips, Tricks and Info. | FileShareFreak

That link will give you a quick rundown and then a list. Once you do that then do like we all do when we're new and start at the bottom and work your way up the levels. You can't get invited to a higher level site unless you can show proof that you're going to keep a good ratio and are going to be a good member of their community. This is because for most private trackers the behavior and appearance of your invitees (the people you send invites to) directly reflect your account (if they're banned for cheating or misuse then your account could be suspended or banned as well since you're responsible for letting them into the community). Some of the really high level sites (As you were mentioning) have rules against even talking or posting about their tracker. The tracker login has a false webpage that has nothing to do with trackers and is just a front... it doesn't come up in search engines... and if the staff sees you post anything about their site (even the name) then they'll ask for it to be taken out, censored, or if they can find out who's account that leak belonged to you'll be removed from the community. Which is why you'll see things like U*-* and F*** as names for sites.


So yes... get to know your torrenting.... decide on what you want and aim for that kind of tracker. Stick with one, build up a good ratio... then try and get into another higher level one when you can prove that you can do a good job. Demonoid isn't really worth anything to anyone because it's not really a private tracker. Generally sites like FF (FunFile) are easy to get into... and the sites with a higher RATING (not a higher level) are easier to seed back and keep your ratio up.

I hope that helps, and I know this is already long enough, so if you have any more questions plz feel free to ask and we will expound on it even more.

Cheers, and welcome to Torrent-Invites.

Cheers guys, much obliged for taking the time to explain all that..
I'll consider joining up with some of the above lower lvl sites and see if they're for me.. in honesty though, i move around 60-70gb a month and never really drop below 600k, i do seed because i love bt and that's what keeps it alive but i have a decent line (unthrottled/uncapped) which is cheap and given i live in the UK, i'm hardly worried about the MPAA/RIAA breathing down my neck..
I am a bit of an audiophile though so will definitely consider what.cd but tbf, i listen to a lot of fairly obscure blues music and have never had any trouble finding anything in lossless on public trackers but can see benefits in specifiying formats/bitrates etc.

Anyways, thanks again.. i'll probaby sign up for a couple and see where it goes but if there's little benefit (speed difference) i'll probably leave it there.. i was never one for stamp collecting anyway :001_tongue:

Great explaination malakai!!

Based on your description of your needs I would suggest starting with IP Torrents. It is easy to get into, has reasonable upload times, is easy to seed and has a good community.