Using TPB is like rawdogging a hooker.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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May be the most accurate description of TPB I’ve ever read.
Fun while it lasts, the regret comes later.
Only a problem if you're running executables like cracked games, right? Bc of teh virii?
I would think if you're sticking to books, music, and movies, it wouldn't matter? Unless you're looking for questionable porn I guess, in which case you may come across more than you bargained for?
TPB has always treated me p well shrugs
It is less likely, but viruses can absolutely come in non-executable file types. A quick look at VLC media player's changelogs show that there are a lot of updates to fix security issues. Same with PDF files and security issues in Adobe Reader (to relate to your ebook mention). Can't speak to music, but image files are also a common choice for malware embedding. For a good while the easiest way to run homebrew on PSP was by taking advantage of an oversight with how it handled image files to get it to run unsigned code, and similar exploits exist in image reading software.
The only thing someone spreading malware needs is an opportunity. It's not hard to imagine someone tracking torrents for things like cult classic films and then taking advantage when seeders dry up by uploading their own torrent and faking seeders (or sockpuppeting them by using botnet machines) to get their compromised torrent listed at the top of results for that search. I've lost track of how many times I was surprised to find something I thought was reasonably popular with only 15 seeders. It wouldn't take much to game those numbers.
Hell, it's probably even automatable with enough of a media library and time spent scripting. Theoretically could be a good way to build a botnet, or collect endpoints for a shady residential proxy service.
For the record, I've only had issues with TPB content when I was being unreasonably risky (in retrospect) and my antivirus caught things before I was truly infected.
That said my rambling point is: why take the risk when there's plenty of safer options even just in the public tracker space?
Hell, you can browse a web page and get infected with a RAT that doesn't even ping your antivirus.
I bet only a few of us here use pirate bay these days. Atleast for media.
I suggest 1337 or torrent galaxy. They have seasons packed into a single torrent
Watchsomuch.to has been my go to lately.
There are torrent sites on the megathread... You just have to scroll down to where it says "Torrents" rather than direct download. I'll be honest, you come off as a bit entitled in this post. Calling a free resource that someone took the time to make "useless" just because you didn't take the time to scroll down is a bit rude, IMO. Not that I think you meant to come off that way.
Anyway, here's a link to the torrenting section on FMHY's piracy resource list.. The link should automatically scroll down to the list of torrent sites ;)
You're right, I don't mean to sound entitled in any way, I'm just...frustrated and a bit lost. And it's hard, because I don't necessarily know where to look for help because the community (naturally) is fairly underground. Even signing up for this and posting this makes me nervous that I'll "get caught" somehow, despite having a VPN.
You're right though, I just assumed that since Torrents seem to be the best method, they'd be at the top. But they're down there, I'm just clueless. I'm already having success with the 1337 site other people recommended though, which is good to know about.
Hey props to you for acknowledging it, we all have our moments!
I definitely feel you on how frustrating it can be sometimes to access information in the piracy community, both due to potential legal repercussions and to a certain insularity. Pirates don't always want to share the cool new thing, because sometimes when too many people start knowing about the cool new thing, corporations will also learn about the cool new thing and want to shut it down.
1337x.to has been my go-to for a while, I rarely fail to find what I'm looking for there!
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I used to use TPB until I came across 1337x. It feels more modern and seems to have higher quality downloads, and more recent downloads.
1337x.to is my go to.
I primarily use 1337x.to
The pirate bay has been unreliable for me for years.
There is nowhere near enough quality control or moderation of what's posted on TPB. Yeah it's absolutely got more content and even seeders than elsewhere, but you're really rolling the dice.
It's fine for movies, music, etc, but it's sketchy for software
I think downloading software is sketchy regardless of where you find it. Things can slip through the cracks even on a reputable site and it's not as if some moderator is thoroughly inspecting every single file that gets uploaded.
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IMHO the great Days of TPB are long over, there are many good alternatives, some are linked in the Megathread.
Use qbittorrent, add the search tool to it, add all the search engines you can, and then let qbittorrent search all the torrent sites for you. Tpb is just 1 of many.
Use prowlarr, sonarr, and radarr instead of all this.
So, three programs instead of one with searching included in its functions?
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The only thing The Pirate Bay is good for is the occasional old and rare torrent. In basically every other area it has been outclassed by newer sites for years.
If you're going to use a poorly moderated site like TPB, you might as well go all-in and use a DHT crawler like Bitsearch or BTDigg. On these websites you can find anything. If it's not on BTDigg, it's probably not on any public tracker.
ThePirateBay used to be decent but ever since it went down and now there's 9000 clones with varying sketchyness the quality has dropped dramatically.
Same thing that happening with rarbg, a bunch of clones with dubious torrents.
I usually go on this order
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Look for a reputable site that is specifically for what your looking for. For example if I want anime first place I check is nyaa, or for books zlibrary
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If what I want is not there or not enough seeders I check general torrent sites like 1337
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If that fails then I check is TPB
As others have surely said by now, TPB is not safe because they don't do any sort of moderation (or at least whatever they do is insufficient) leading to it being swarmed with infected software.
If you use it for music or videos or other stuff that can't realistically be infected with much (and use a VPN, which you obviously want to always do when using a torrent site but especially when using the most prominent and visible torrent site in the entire world) it is technically safe but there are better options.
Although IMHO the megathread should probably mention it somewhere just in a "here's why you shouldn't use it" sense - I thought it did? Since it's so high-profile that users will probably know about it already and need to be warned not to use it for anything executable at the very least.
Everybody, OP is a troll account. nobody ever uses tpb, it is a last resort kind of site nowadays!
TPB is not what used to be anyways
TPB is exactly what it used to be, it hasn't been updated in nearly 2 decades.
As the site maintainers used to and still do say, if you don't like it, make your own.
People can and have made sites that are better than TPB. Functionally, TPB's site is still usable (and also quite a nostalgia trip with its appearance), but in terms of the content, there are a ton of malware-laced torrents on there. I understand that you always have to be careful when torrenting regardless of where you get something from, but it's kind of a bad sign when you're looking for something, and most of the torrents you find are malicious.
1337x for me. Believe me, I've tried to use TPB but it just sucks. It's old and doesn't have the content I'm looking for.
TPB used to be great once, now it is riddled with malware. There are safer alternatives like 1337x, rutracker & torrentgalaxy etc
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Why not go private? alpharatio, mac-torrents, myanonamouse, PTP, BTN, RED, there are plenty of options.
Suggesting PTP and BTN to someone who has never used private trackers before is a bit mean.
Yeah I guess I'm old, I've been on those for 10+ years and didn't realise they don't allow new members. My bad (no irony, I am actually 42 years old).
PTP recently became possible again via RED but it is a loooong road for a new comer.
Meh these places seem like little more than a exclusive club that members can lord over the outsiders. I've had little issue finding content using a mix of 'B tier' private trackers and public sites, none of which had some long convoluted membership process. I don't think they're worth the trouble.
PTP definitely worth it.
So I use IPTorrents, and I've heard of a lot of shady stuff with the people who run it. It's the only private tracker I've ever been able to join though. I've been wondering if there is a reason to look at others. Aside from ethics is there anything one of those you listed does that is different? Or are all trackers fairly close to the same?
IPT is a general tracker meaning it has music, series, movies, etc. The ones listed are specific to a single category that they specialize to. They can cover that category better than IPT ever could.
I see a lot of comments about how TPB tends to have the most seeders.
I'm not knowledgable enough to answer this myself, but is there any reason when downloading things from a public tracker to not just chuck every public tracker from one of the automatically updated github lists into the trackers section for it in your client?
The reverse would be to add the TPB tracker to public torrents from other sources, if you wanted to grab any seeders for the same torrent from TPB, right?
Pirateproxy.live is nearly 100% reliable for me 🤷
I don’t use it constantly but I never have issues finding what I’m looking for
torrentgalaxy.to and rutracker.org are safe alternatives, you actually wanna be infected or what?
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TPB has been a cesspit for years now.
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