I know it's not easy or viable for a lot of people, but folks really should try to embrace the private tracker world if they can because it involves a lot of moderators who help prevent malware from being uploaded to begin with by having strict rules. It's not completely perfect and not everything gets caught, but it's got more safeguards than a public site without a moderation queue.

[–] nesc@lemmy.cafe 51 points 2 weeks ago

Actually folks shouldn't embrace the private trackers they make finding content harder, make regarded rules (like you can't seed these files on another tracker), and feed ego of moderating pricks.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

What do you recommend to find a private tracker? A while back, I tried to find one, but none of them were available for new users. Granted that I haven't used torrents in a while.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Opentrackers.org posts open signups. TorrentLeech is at least as good as the public ones, and it has open signups a few times per year.

Otherwise, you can apply/interview for RED and a few others, work your way up through the ranks, and use the invite forums. This is how you get to the really big and really good trackers. But it's also a lot of time and effort, which most people don't want to do.

You might get lucky on the open signups. Every top-tier tracker was once a tiny site with no users. If you join and contribute, they could be the next big thing, and you joined with minimal effort.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 weeks ago

So deal with Reddit style mods and hoops and maybe you can do exactly what you are already doing? No thank you.

[–] hydroxycotton@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I recently tried torrent leech as my first private tracker and I'm not really happy with the experience. They discourage you from downloading older torrents (old, obscure stuff) due to it potentially tanking your ratio and it seems there's limited content available.

They also encourage signing up for other paid services to get an invite which just kinda rubs me the wrong way.

[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There is a ratio, which may be a new experience if you've only used public trackers. It's not really a big deal if you have some patience, though.

TL (as do most ratio trackers) gives you bonus points for your time seeding, even if you have done nothing more than make it available. You don't have to upload even a single byte unless someone wants it, and you'll still get points. These points can be used to buy upload credit.

If you simply keep seeding everything you download, and buy credits as needed, you'll quickly have more ratio than you could ever hope to burn. No need to spend money or anything.

As for limited content, it's a general tracker. You probably have niche interests, so you would be better suited on a more specific tracker. I've almost never had issues finding anything mainstream, although quality can be a crapshoot. That's the main reason I usually use other trackers.

[–] BlueRingedOctopus@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 2 weeks ago

No you're getting it all wrong!!

We want to download the torrent and delete the torrent right after we've finished watching

I and the users of this sub don't want none of your seeding bullshit, download, watch, delete, this is how its done

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 weeks ago

Torrentleech periodically opens signups. Can't speak to any others personally

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago

i still use public ones just because a) they're easier and b) i like sharing with as many people as i can but i experimented with

spoiler

torrenting {dot} com

as my first tracker and they've been good.

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Why? My Prowlarr stats show that, after Usenet, 1337 has the most successful retrievals of the torrent trackers I use.

Is it more of an issue of trying to find things manually? My setup is all automated, so maybe the bad stuff is just getting weeded out? I could definitely be having some confirmation bias here since I rarely have to find something manually.

[–] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

they have very lax standards and some sus moderating. A few years ago there was a chain of accounts sending crypto miners along with cracks, and they were most likely complicit

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Ah, I see. I've just been lucky with my setup, then. I keep Radarr/Prowlarr synced with the Trash Guides. I also have Cleanuparr set up to keep my torrent queue clean, and it includes a malware component that tells qbit to ignore most non-media file extensions.

[–] nathan@lemmy.permisuan.com 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I can't seem to add 1337x to prowlarr, how are you able to add it as a tracker? I don't think flaresolver works anymore

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

I've also read in a few locations that flaresolver supposedly doesn't work anymore, but it seems to be chugging along just fine in my setup. If I try to use the 1337x tracker without flaresolver, retrievals will fail every time. Including a screenshot here of the most recent flaresolver logs. I do run flaresolver through my VPN connection - not sure if that would have anything to do with it.

[–] seederbot@lemmy.permisuan.com 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

I can't seem to add 1337x to prowlarr, how are you able to add it as a tracker? I don't think flaresolver works anymore

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

You marked your account as a bot but you look like a human user. Some users filter out bots so you may want to change it.

[–] nathan@lemmy.permisuan.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah that's was me using the wrong account. I just started hosting my own instance, been screwing around with settings and using that account with lemmy subscriber bot to get federation started.

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

[–] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

don't tell me you think malware is impossible to add to an mkv lmao

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

Malware can be added to any file - I don’t need a condescending “lmao” attitude to remind me. Having active antimalware measures in place helps drastically reduce my chances of encountering it over not using anything at all, though.