It was so easy when I was growing up. I would just type my search into LimeWire and if it turned out to be weird porn I would delete it. Then we had The Pirate Bay, and I could go through reviews to see whether something was a virus or not. Now all public sites I am aware of are riddled with viruses, and I am warned that attempting to download any of them will result in me receiving threatening letters from copyrights holders in the post.

Here is what I have discovered today, trying to pirate things again:

  • The safest thing you can do is direct download from file share websites, but nobody says where these websites are.
  • If you want to torrent files, you need to subscribe to an exclusive private tracker. To get access to a private tracker, you need to get lucky, or you need to go through a painstaking process of levelling up over months and months of seeding torrents from semi-private trackers until you get to an actual good one that may or may not have the content you are looking for.
  • If you don’t want to do this, you need to pay for a UseNet provider, then you need to register for a similarly exclusive UseNet index service, probably paid as well. There is no guarantee you will find what you are looking for on here either, and there is a chance that your download will fail.
  • Whether you are using torrents or UseNet, you need a service to help you find the content in the first place, for example Sonarr, Radarr or Lidarr. Something called Jackett also fits into this somehow and apparently links to whatever indexes you are using.
  • If you are torrenting, you then need a torrent client such as qBitTorrent to actually get the files.
  • If you are using UseNet, you need a UseNet downloader such as jdownloader.
  • Alternatively, for either option you can pay for a Debrid service such as Real-Debrid or Premiumize to download the files for you, if you send them the links. Besides protecting your privacy and your bandwidth, these services are also great for bypassing the limits on the elusive direct download sites nobody can tell me any more about.

I don’t really think of myself as a stupid person but this shit is so confusing. It is harder than paying for drugs on the dark web with illegal crypto currency. Am I nearly there? Is this everything? If I pay for a UseNet provider and somehow register for a UseNet index, is it as simple as connecting the two together to something such as Sonarr to find the content and jdownloader to get it?

I just wanna have my own home streaming service.

  • Wrrzag@lemmy.mlEnglish
    43·
    9 months ago
    • If you want to torrent files, you need to subscribe to an exclusive private tracker. To get access to a private tracker, you need to get lucky, or you need to go through a painstaking process of levelling up over months and months of seeding torrents from semi-private trackers until you get to an actual good one that may or may not have the content you are looking for.

    Uh, no. Tpb, rutracker, nyaa… Work well. If you want more curated stuff then yes, private trackers might be worth it, but you can still find a ton of things on public trackers.

    • Whether you are using torrents or UseNet, you need a service to help you find the content in the first place, for example Sonarr, Radarr or Lidarr. Something called Jackett also fits into this somehow and apparently links to whatever indexes you are using.

    No. You can just search in one of the trackers and add the torrent to your download client.

    • If you are torrenting, you then need a torrent client such as qBitTorrent to actually get the files.

    Yes, obviously. If you want to ddl you’ll likely need a web browser, too.

    I just wanna have my own home streaming service.

    If you don want to automate it then just search for stuff manually and move your downloaded media to your library folders like it has been done since forever.

    • neocamel@lemmy.studioEnglish
      27·
      9 months ago

      My man might be wearing the ol rose-colored glasses when it comes to the Limewire “heyday” of piracy.

      I remember many times accidentally infecting my computer with a virus through that thing. That repair process was a HUGE pain in the ass.

      I was stoned one night looking for concert footage and instead I got a video of a woman getting her head blown off at close range. That shit FUCKED. ME. UP. for a hot minute.

      Todays situation is better in my opinion.

        • Scrollone@feddit.itEnglish
          41·
          9 months ago

          I remember I was trying to find the video of an ad that was on TV (don’t ask me why, I’m probably autistic). YouTube didn’t exist yet. Instead, I downloaded a CSAM video - I was a child myself at the time, and that thing scared me and fucked me up.

          Today it would never happen by using a torrent tracker, even a public one probably

      • idkmybffjoeysteel [he/him]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
        4·
        9 months ago

        Yeah no I agree using LimeWire as a kid was wild, it’s just I stopped pirating when OG TPB got taken down and never really figured out how to get back into it.

        • Solemn@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          3·
          9 months ago

          Honestly nothing has changed since the OG tpb days, you can even still use tpb. BitTorrent should be replaced with qBitTorrent or something I think, I haven’t exactly changed my client in years. You have more choices of VPNs now if you care about that I guess. Some of the other old good trackers are defunct, but I think Reddit still has an actively maintained wiki of good public trackers…