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?

  • PeachMan@lemmy.oneEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I just paid $70 for a 3-year PIA subscription to mask my torrent usage from my ISP. So, an average of a little over $2 per month. Well-seeded movies only take about 10 minutes to download, more obscure stuff admittedly takes longer. Also, torrent streaming exists, so you can start watching even faster if that’s your thing.

    Admittedly, I’m not familiar with Usenet or how it works. I’m just saying that torrents are cheap, fast, and easy. Do you have a crash course on how to use Usenet? I’m curious.

    • idle@158436977.xyzEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      You can find tutorials out there but the jist is.

      1. Subscribe to a suenet provider. I use Tweaknews, but there are some that can get as cheap as $3 per month. Especially around black friday, the plans go on sale.
      2. Get a downloader such as sabnzbd or nzbget and configure the provider in it.
      3. Get an indexer. Much like torrents, you need an indexer to grab release from. I use Nzbplanet, but there are lots of others like Nzbgeek.
      4. Then its a lot like torrents. You download the nzb file off the indezer and import it into your downloader. and it will max out your speeds. For example, all my content averages a download speed of 57MB/s (that is mega-bytes not mega-bits). And I have it throttled. It will max you out.

      Once you get that far, then you can move on to the best part, How easy it is to plug in sonarr and radarr. then everything just auto-downloads for you and you dont have to do anything.

      To me, if you are using a VPN to torrent, great, I have one too for obscure stuff. But most people are far better off using Usenet. It is way safer and faster, and is easier to automate.

      • PeachMan@lemmy.oneEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago
        • 57 MB/s isn’t especially fast. I have plenty of torrents “max” my connection, you can easily download a popular torrent at gigabit speeds because they’re often well seeded. But the speed really isn’t that important to me. The difference between a 5 minute download and a 10 minute download is insignificant.
        • Torrent downloads can be automated. If you have a favorite uploader you can easily subscribe to their releases.
        • I don’t see how Usenet is inherently more secure than torrenting with a VPN…You’re just downloading files from somebody else’s server, it could easily get taken over and become a honeypot, or the owner could serve you malicious files. Both torrents and usenet are potentially vulnerable to that sort of thing.
        • Torrents have the advantage (and disadvantage) of being decentralized. As long as a torrent has seeders it’s nearly impossible to take down. You’d have to individually attack each seeder, and there might be thousands.
        • idle@158436977.xyzEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          My point was every single thing i download maxes out, the 57MB wasnt the point. Not every torrent will max out. Only the well seeded torrents, and on public trackers it will not max out. I’ve tried. Private torrents sure, but unless you have a seedbox, you’re ratios are going to be all out of whack. I do both Usenet and torrents, I’m well aware of all the advantages of torrents, and im well aware it can be automated. Usenet is just easier. No symlinking to maintain ratios.

          And of course its more secure. 1st off, no VPN disconnects. Second off, point me to one single case where someone has been prosecuted for downloading off Usenet. Most of us here are probably from r/piracy, and see every day the dozens of “I got the letter” posts from torrenting. I’ve never seen a single letter from usenet.

          Torrents are really great for obscure stuff that is really hard to get though. That’s pretty much all I use it for.