this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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I'm a bit surprised to see so many torrent posts. Are most people still using Torrents? Are most piracy users aware of programs like sonarr or radarr?

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[–] Latecoere@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 2 years ago

You're surprised that most people use the free option that requires less hassle to get going?

[–] exonac@feddit.de 26 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What's the problem with torrent?

[–] Knoxvomica@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly nothing at all, I just prefer the speeds and reliability of Usenet (though I pay for that).

[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 11 points 2 years ago

Private trackers have great speed and reliability as well. I've been using sonarr and radarr for years but have never bothered with Usenet due to the added cost. They all work great with torrents even though they were originally designed for Usenet.

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Torrents. I don't really find Usenet worth the money. I can get most of the stuff I want on public sites. Some others I can get on private trackers. Never really felt the need to use Usenet. And as others have pointed out, the arr apps work great with torrents.

And honestly, I find it a little scummy to pay for content to people who don't own them. I don't think piracy in itself is unethical, but I if you take money for stolen content, that's not cool in my book.

[–] madnessman@lemmy.fmhy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I get what you are saying about paying someone who doesn‘t own the content.

However I‘d argue that you are not paying them for the content, but just for hosting it on their servers. So its more like a tool, as is your VPN if you are torrenting. And most people wouldn‘t mind paying a VPN just to pirate content.

Usenet, I agree, might take you some time to get invites to the good indexers, especially if you don‘t want to pay immediately, but in the long run it‘s definitly worth it.

I havn‘t played arround with torrents for quite some time, whats the most popular setup for torrents atm?

[–] SexualPolytope@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Not sure about the most popular setup, but I use a docker container that has qbittorrent-nox and gluetun in it. It's connected to some other containers with arr apps and such.

And I think it's a bit different than just paying for VPN. You can use VPN for many other reasons. But here, you know exactly what you're paying for. I'd never pay to use any private tracker for the same reason.

[–] Vamanos@lemmy.fmhy.ml 19 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly had no idea usenet was still a thing. I’m old. Old enough to know usenet and have used it back in the day. But young enough to switch torrenting and not ever really learn another way

Now I have to look up some info!

[–] state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Usenet costs money, that's why I don't use it.

[–] recklessfrozenroad@lemmy.fmhy.ml 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

same. I already pay for VPN. I can't be bothered to figure out how usenet has changed in the almost 20 years since I last was on it.

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[–] Ilikeprivacy@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I use torrents almost exclusively because of the price (free) and convenience. That is, I can get them easily where I live for no additional cost beyond my low speed internet. I have no extra money at all, at this time in my life, unfortunately.

[–] Cypher@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Probably a dumb noob question, but shouldn't one use a VPN for privacy when torrenting? Wouldn't that add additional cost?

[–] OtakuAltair@vlemmy.net 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Live in a third world country and all software is free software. No strings attached

[–] tartarsauce@lemmy.fmhy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

my brother 👏 our authorities are too busy using pirated software to crack down on it. can't imagine some people live in countries where anyone gives half a shit about piracy.

[–] headmetwall@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 years ago

Some countries just don't care (even if they have laws on piracy), no vpn needed.

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[–] RedCanasta@lemmy.fmhy.ml 15 points 2 years ago

I enjoy torrents, searching and deciding which is the best quality + storage combo is right for me is the fun part

[–] CrescentMadeJr 15 points 2 years ago

I use the Starr apps with torrents. I kinda just forget all about it since it all just works.

[–] wahming@kbin.social 14 points 2 years ago

Are most piracy users aware of programs like sonarr or radarr?

Sounds like you yourself aren't aware of their capabilities, if you're presenting a false dichotomy of torrents or *arrs

[–] Moonblitz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 years ago

Torrents for everything, i've found it to be one of the safest ways as well, thanks to all of the other ship mates who seed with me.

[–] Spectator@lemmy.fmhy.ml 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Torrents. Because it's free and fast (if what I'm pirating is famous enough). I started using sites like 1337x, nyaa,rabg🪦 etc.. with qbittorent a few years ago and never had any reason to change.

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[–] LongPigFlavor@lemmy.ml 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I've yet to try Usenet. I use Qbitorrent. I've heard of sonarr and radarr, but I haven't used them.

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[–] TheButtonJustSpins@infosec.pub 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Torrents are free. I use both, but it's always a choice whether or not to renew Usenet.

[–] Sanrasxz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 years ago

Torrents work great for my needs and I prefer them. Haven't really messed with usenet much.

[–] MedicareForSome@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

I still use torrents sometimes but almost exclusively use Usenet these days. For Plex/jellyfin servers it’s pretty unbeatable.

Torrents are mostly stuff like audiobooks from audiobookbay and myanonymouse and games from repackers like Fitgirl.

I mean usenet costs money and torrents don’t.

[–] CleeBrummie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 years ago

Been using Usenet for 28 years, I use torrents if I can't find it on Usenet

[–] factionparadoxes@lemmy.fmhy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

Torrenting with a seedbox for me. I'm aware of Sonarr/Radarr and other automation tools but I don't feel like I have the need for them. Some part of me enjoys the manual search and management. Never touched Usenet though it's in the mental "maybe try later" bin.

[–] GeekFTW@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago

Are most piracy users aware of programs like sonarr or radarr?

Of course we are, hell that's what I use with my torrents. They aren't just for usenet lol

[–] ThrowawayAfterDark@lemmynsfw.com 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Usenet. Been using it consistently for over 10 years now. I only torrent when I can't find something on usenet. So not too often. Plus Usenet just maxes out my download speed on everything. It's so freaking fast compared to torrents. I gladly pay for that.

[–] peril30@lemmy.antemeridiem.xyz 9 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I have no knowledge of usenet. How do I get started?

[–] hydra 8 points 2 years ago

A quick run down: Get yourself a Usenet client (akin to qbittorent for example). SABnzbd is the most popular, free, and open source.

Next you will need an Indexer (similar to a torrent site like The Pirate Bay). There are a lot of these and you will usually need to pay (most are like 10-20 per year, some are free, but it may be hard to find content on the only free sites) to access an indexer. A good paid one I used was NZBgeek. Another is NZB Finder which has free accounts (with some restrictions).

Last thing you need is a Usenet Provider (these are the companies that actually host the files you download). You will need to pay for this for sure and most people actually pay for 2-3 Usenet providers (most only host things for a certain time and content can get taken down due to DMCA). There are a ton of options to choose from and you can mix and match is so many diffrent ways, but Frugal Usenet is pretty popular (if you pay for yearly, they give you an account for another Usenet provider that you can use as a partial backup). I always paired it with UseNight (just has speed restrictions depending on time, but its a great backup) which is very cheap per year. I don't want to get to technical, but I will mention it incase people want to take the Usenet dive. When buying multiple providers, do NOT buy them if they are from the same backbone! You can refer to this chart to help figure out the main ones. Content that gets taken down via DMCA is pretty much removed at the backbone level and will affect every provider under it (I know the free account from Frugal is the same backbone, but that's just for backup in case of outages).

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[–] sheepcoin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Torrents+Real Debrid and IPTV have taken care of all my media streaming needs.

I do have Sonarr/Radarr setup, but streaming via debrid works so well I haven't needed to use them much.

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[–] Faceman2K23@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 years ago

about 90% Usenet for me.

[–] mr_coffee@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 years ago

I use torrents and usenet. I have sonarr and radarr configured to fetch from both.

I like using both because they each have different strengths. Usenet tends to be faster, but torrents tend to have longer retention and a wider variety of content.

[–] Cantstopthesignal@lemmynsfw.com 7 points 2 years ago

I used to use usenet religously, but it became fairly unreliable after a crackdown on NZBMatrix and I haven't really tried it in years. Is it fairly decent again? Lately I use Syncler for streaming through Real Debrid, and pass torrents through that service also.

[–] Atheran@lemmy.fmhy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

Sonarr and radarr can use torrents just as much as they can use usenet. I used them for both, now I dropped usenet altogether.

I find it easier to either DDL or torrent, plus a lot of the stuff I'm after recently proved hard tto find on usenet for whatever reason.

It's more hassle to search usenet for my usecase and while it's true that maxing out download speeds is awesome, I'm not in a hurry. I let the .arr apps do the work while I'm busy with life and when I get back home I have it all ready anyways.

[–] open_door@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've never used Usenet... I'm really not familiar with it, tbh. I just DDL or stream everything lol.

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[–] MadCybertist@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

I use sonarr, radarr, overseer, prowlarr, and a bunch of other shit.

I exclusively use torrents. Everything is automated and in dockers. No reason to use Usenet IMO. It gets me nothing torrents don’t already do.

[–] Orvanis@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I see multiple private torrent tracker users in here. I primarily use Usenet, but is anyone willing to shed some light on the private torrent scene? Wouldn't mind having a backup for anything that fails on Usenet but don't have a clue where to even start research on good/reputable private trackers.

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[–] Manuel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 years ago

Well to be fair it depends on personal preference rather than a technology being better than other. I used to torrent everything but nowadays I just subscribed to RD and with Stremio or Kodi + Trakt I got everything I need without having to worry for searching.

[–] yoichi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 years ago

I use both private trackers and usenet added to Prowlarr along with Sonarr and Radarr. Usenet has priority, reverts to torrents when it can't find something or if I need some specific release

[–] RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 years ago

Usenet ftw - i can never go back to torrenting

[–] TDC@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 years ago

I've only heard good things about Usenet but personally, I can find almost anything I want via DDL so that's where it's at for me

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