Post copied from STT news

> Hi everyone > > Its with a heavy heart that i make this announcement that STT will be closing, with everything that has been going on with me in my personal life and other things for me recently i have made this tough decision. > > I want to thank all you for making STT a great place to meet new friends and for building such a great community for grabbing new and old movies. > > i will miss this, perhaps in the future we can bring it back when im under better circumstances and can spend more time on the operation of the site, in the meantime i just feel encoding and uploading is enough for me at this time. > > I havent decided yet when the site will finally go offline, but will be soon, in the next week or so is my best estimate > > For tv content STC will still be your #1 choice and hope you continue to support us there > > For those of you interested i will still be contributing my movie content on Swarmazon and i have also spoke to the owner of OE+ (OnlyEncodes+) and he will be accepting refugees from here to continue to grab new and old movies that i will still continue to release. > > For uploaders here please reach out to me if you would like to continue to upload your content on either Swarmazon and/or OnlyEncodes+. > > For all other users please send me a pm if your interested in joining either Swarmazon or OnlyEncodes+ to continue to grab great new and old movies. > > It has been fun and i will miss you guys, hope for the best for all of you. > > GRiMM >

HUNO - OPEN SIGNUPS In celebration of the hawke-one community turning 5 years old this month, we're opening up signups to HUNO for the weekend! Despite the popular belief prevalent in PT circles of open signups being bad, they're actually an effective tool to scale a diverse community if done the right way. They've brought the best community members into our wider ecosystem with further checks in place within our tier-based...

And there's global free leech while signups are open

Initial reaction from one of the main admins was that if in 12 hours there had been no news they'd nuke the servers, seems like they're not gonna do it anymore. Many domains registered by one admin were seized at the same time, so might not even be aimed at the tracker. Waiting for more news.

Update: Looks like the DNS registrar itself was the one that went down and took lots of sites with it, TorrentFreak article: 100s of Pirate Sites Go Dark as .TV Domains Placed on ServerHold - TorrentFreak

Bad news - another case of a missing admin with the only keys to stuff.

From a reddit post:

> Just seen this on IRC:

> "the TLDR is basically: Best case, site comes back up we continue and change things in the backend, okay case, site is down for a little bit while we rebuild backend with likely a new domain, and worst case we close out and refugee you all elsewhere (we might still do this last part too hook up the community even if we are working on the backend"

> ETA: IRC admin wrote "I'm currently trying to set up a place where refugees can go to"

> ETA2: As far as I understand, someone went away and I quote "without the return of (this person), AR's continued existence is up in the air, we are attempting to work on solutions but he unfortunately seemed to hold more keys to the castle than we were fully aware."

TL has been returning 1004 errors all day, however their staff are aware of this looking at a discussion thread on a certain site.

Hopefully it gets fixed soon - posted here just in case others are having issues with the site and its mirrors

>Break out your drumsticks, it's our 7th Birthday! During the year, we passed over 1.5 million unique releases on Redacted. This wouldn't be possible without you, our amazing users. As such we'd like to do something special to round out this year. To kick off our Birthday Celebration, torrents with 3 or fewer seeds have been marked freeload. After meticulous analysis and careful consideration, Staff has also selected an additional set of torrents we know you're going to love. To clear up confusion, the seed count of the latter category was irrelevant to the selection. All these torrents will be freeload through the end of the year (Ending January 6th 23:59 UTC). As a reminder, all freeload torrents can be found here, and users who were seeding such torrents within the last week will still receive credit for their upload during the event.

Freeload Tweaks:

>Earlier this month, in preparation for this event, we deployed a tracker change to prioritize freeload seeders. Now, when you start downloading a freeload torrent, we serve a modified peerlist that only includes the seeders who were present before this announcement. This custom peerlist is only served in response to your client's initial announce. Once you have snatched the torrent or 10 minutes have elapsed, your client will receive the full peerlist. If the freeloaded seeders aren't connectable and time is of the essence, force re-announcing the torrent will cause the tracker to immediately serve you the complete peerlist. No changes to your client are required to enable this functionality; it is managed entirely by the tracker.

Freeload definition:

>Freeload behaves like Freeleech for those who were already seeding before the event, and Neutralleech for anyone who downloads it during the event. It reverts to normal for everyone when the event ends.

Digitalcore appears to be having open signups.

Registration open on AvistaZ, CinemaZ, AnimeZ & ExoticaZ [NSFW] all this weekend.

Disclaimer: We've been getting a lot of basic questions about trackers so this is just a primer for people wanting to see what it's all about. Skip if you are already well versed with trackers, unless you want to read just to contribute or correct me on anything.

What is a private tracker?

Let's start with what it isn't. Chances are you are familiar with infamous torrent trackers such as The Pirate Bay and 1337x. These trackers are what's known as public trackers. "Public" means anyone can visit them and download whatever they want to their heart's content. This is all fine and dandy, but it does introduce some problems.

• While you are downloading your file, you are known as a leecher. Once the download is finished, you become a seeder, which means you are done but will continue to upload the data you just downloaded to other downloaders who come along after you. The problem here is that on public trackers, most users stop the torrent, remove it, or close the BitTorrent client as soon as their download is complete. The end result? You have many more leechers than seeders, which equates to slower download speeds and a longer time required to download your files.
• A peer is another term that can be used to refer to either a seeder or leecher. The swarm is the sum of all peers on a particular torrent. Since anyone can effortlessly access and download files on a public tracker, it leads to unwanted parties gaining access to the swarm and its data, such as copyright holders or their agents. Why is this bad? When you are part of a swarm, you can see the IP addresses of other peers within it. Unless you use a service such as a VPN to mask your identity, your IP address uniquely identifies you on the internet. With this data, parties representing the interests of the people whose content you are pirating can monitor the downloads and issue copyright infringement notices to your ISP, resulting in you receiving nasty letters, having your internet shut off, or possibly facing worse consequences depending on your local laws..
• Torrents are decentralized, meaning the data isn't downloaded from a persistent, dedicated location; instead, they rely on the users, particularly the seeders. As mentioned earlier, if you abandon a torrent after finishing, you are no longer a seeder. If enough people do the same, the torrent could end up with zero seeders left, also known as a dead torrent. This means it becomes impossible to complete the download, as the entirety of the data isn't available in the swarm. Unless a previous seeder decides to return and seed again, nobody will ever be able to download the torrent again. Consequently, a significant amount of niche or older content is lost with the passage of time.
• So, where do these torrents originally come from? The uploader is the initial seeder of the torrent. On most public trackers, uploading content is almost as easy as downloading it. This large volume of uploads makes moderation difficult. The result? Poor-quality content, fake/mislabeled content, or even viruses.

Private trackers seek to solve these problems by restricting access to the site. Not just anyone can waltz in and download or upload a torrent; you have to be a member. Think of it as the VIP lounge of the pirating world. Here are some of the advantages of this approach:

• Users are incentivized to keep seeding torrents they've downloaded. This means the seeder/leecher ratio is much higher than what would be found on a public site. On a good private tracker, you'll notice that a majority of the downloads will utilize the full speed of your internet connection and download in the shortest amount of time possible for their size.
• For the most part, the companies and interested parties mentioned above, who would love to spy and tattle to your ISP about what you download, are completely absent on private trackers. I've been using them for over a decade and haven't encountered a single issue. This means you don't have to take risks, spend time configuring and updating IP blocklists, or invest money in a VPN.
• Due to the number of dedicated seeders on private trackers, torrents tend to stay alive much longer, if not indefinitely. This makes private trackers a treasure trove of content. There is a lot that you will only find here. Want to watch some obscure indie film you saw once when you were a kid back in 1989? They've got you fam.
• Due to the controlled nature of private trackers, the content tends to be very well moderated and curated. You can be sure that what you are downloading is exactly what it claims to be, and the quality is excellent as well.
• Private trackers are more than a download site, they are a community. Many are packed with helpful forums, and members who generally care about the scene and helping one another. Managed to find something that's actually no on the site already? Many trackers have request systems built in where you can ask the community to find it and upload it for you, and believe it or not, chances are pretty good that someone will!

Ok, but what's the downside?

Just one really. Your ratio is the amount of data you've downloaded on a site compared to how much you've uploaded. So, if I've downloaded an 8 GB movie but continued to seed it after finishing until I had uploaded 16 GB to other peers, my ratio would be 2.0 (16 ÷ 8). If I downloaded a second 8 GB movie but didn't upload any data, my ratio would fall to 1.0 ((8 + 8) ÷ 16). Most sites have rules about the ratio you must maintain to encourage people to keep seeding torrents they've downloaded. This means, unlike public trackers, you will want to keep seeding after your download has finished so that you can maintain a good ratio and continue to download more content as you please.

So how do I get in?

Private trackers recruit in a variety of ways:

• Open Signup - The easiest trackers to get into are the ones where you just have to sign up to become a member. Some trackers have what's known as limited open signup, which means you can't sign up anytime, but they open signups intermittently when they see fit.
• Official Recruitment - Some trackers have official representatives who recruit in the forums of other trackers. To qualify, you often have to be a power user on the tracker where the recruitment is taking place. The requirements to achieve this rank vary from tracker to tracker, but typically include uploading a certain amount of data at a minimum.
• Invites - On many trackers, members who meet certain requirements are given invites to pass out to whomever they want. If you can get someone to give you one of their invites, you're in.
• Interviews - There are trackers that conduct official interviews. If you interview and they like you, they'll let you join.
• Additionally some trackers will let you buy your way in. I don't encourage this because for one it's usually unnecessary, and second because it's the shadier trackers that usually offer this route anyways.

I'm making an ongoing series of posts where we discuss something as a community, then I add it to the mega-thread for future reference. This has been an reoccurring question so figured I'd cover it next.

Where do you guys go for news and updates regarding open signups?

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The two places I'm aware of:

Opentrackers.org - Updates have seemed a little lacking lately with many open signups being posted with a long delay or not at all.

OpenSignup Telegram Channel - Much more up to date but with the downside that sometime it gets flooded with junk/ads/spam.

Hey yall, just for fun I had the idea of making our own community tier list for trackers. Lumping them all together regardless of category, just rating them on how well they do what they do.

Commit if you have any changes or additions and I will update!

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S-Tier

• HDBits (HDB) - Movies/TV
• PassThePopcorn (PTP) - Movies
• BroadcasTheNet (BTN) - TV
• Redacted (RED) - Music
• GazelleGames (GGn) - Games

A-Tier

• Anthelion (ANT) - Moives
• Nebulance (NBL) - TV
• BeyondHD (BHD) - Movies/TV
• Blutopia (Blu) - Movies/TV
• MoreThanTV (MTV) - Movies/TV
• Orpheus - Music
• AnimeBytes (AB) - Anime
• Bibliotik (BiB) - eBooks
• TorrentLeech (TL) - General
• Empornium (EMP) - P0rn

B-Tier

• Aither - General
• Alpharatio (AR) - General
• FileList (FL) - General
• IPTorrents (IPT) - General
• MyAnonaMouse (MAM) - eBooks

C-Tier

• Bit-HDTV - Movies/TV
• Nyaa - Anime

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/6722126

> Invitation Code: FLREFUGEE

Nothing more to add, ptp is back up after about 2 months offline.

Highly recommended general tracker AlphaRatio now open for signups for a limited time!

alpharatio.cc/register

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/2661680

> After a discussion and co-operation with PTP senior-staff, We would like to extend a limited time opportunity to all PTP users for a chance to apply for an MTV account. We fully expect PTP to come back stronger than ever, but we understand this may be a difficult time. PTP holds a special place in our hearts as it does for the community as a whole, and we are excited to see their return :ptplove: :mtvlove: > > We are extending this as a courtesy to the community. Please do not abuse this or it will disappear :( > > The more information you include, the more likely your application is to be accepted. MTV is in no way to be a replacement for your PTP usage upon their return. Just add it into your rotation as they will compliment each other. Don't forget after getting accepted, to view your security page to add your 2 factor authentication and/or create an API key for direct input into your *arr instance. > > Note: Ensure you use the same exact email address you use with PTP > > Apply at https://morethantv.me/application > > We expect you to act as you would on PTP they are watching ( ͡◉◞ ͜ʖ◟ ͡◉)

Hi folks, recently I've been contemplating the idea of an AV1-only tracker. Just out of curiosity, do you think you'd find use in something like this? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

• I remember when Demonoid was my favorite tracker ever (RIP)
• I remember checking constantly to see if there was a new post on the FileShareFreak blog (also RIP)
• I remember when it was a fad for private trackers to be extremely exclusive and hard to get into, then you finally got in and found out they just sucked
• I remember there was that one "uber" site that loaded up to generic looking white pages search, and you had to search for a specific dude or something to unlock entrance. The content was so bad I forgot the name.
• I remember when invite forums were all the rage, and there was like a "secret" second tier invite forum that recruited in private from the places everyone knew about. Basically everyone there had every tracker they wanted, even the dumb hard to get into ones lol, and they ran out of things to ask for. Think it was called inviteZone or some shit??
• I remember when x264.me used a browser exploit to check peoples histories and banned everyone who had even visited an invite forum (glad that place is dead).

Anyone have an update?

Posted on https://ptp.trackerstatus.info

What’s your favorite general use tracker and why?

Invite Giveaways

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Do you have any invites you want to give away to the community? This is the thread for that!

• Please edit and update your comment once your invite(s) have been given.
• Make sure you've read and abide by the community rules.
• Follow the rules of your tracker.

🚧 This thread under major construction as I create and add new content 🚧

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Wiki

1. New to private trackers or just wondering what this is all about? → Trackers 101
2. Want to check out some tracker recommendations? → Tracker List
3. How to get into private trackers guide coming soon. See Additional Resources/#Tracker Info for now.
4. Want to learn even more in the meantime? → Additional Resources

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Helpful Resources

• Private Tracker List by -HDVinnie-
  • Extensive private tracker list with fairly up-to-date community submitted statistics and join methods.
• The Graph by inviteroute
  • Keeps track of what trackers host official recruitment for other trackers. So you can determine the path to get to your desired tracker based on what you are already member of.
  • Can also be used for tracker discovery and exploring your options by using the "any" option on the dropdown.
• Opentrackers.org
  • See what trackers are currently having open signups.
• /r/trackers
  • The community I wish to recreate here, but it's still an archive of great information.
  • Used libreddit to avoid giving Reddit traffic.

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Got any questions, contributions, or critiques? Comment below.