Poll: Where Do You Get Your BitTorrent Fix?
Written by Ernesto on May 03, 2009As the clampdown on the large public BitTorrent sites continues, private trackers could play an increasingly important role in the file-sharing community. While some people firmly believe that a good public site is all you need, private trackers have their fanatical supporters too. So, as it stands today, where do you get your BitTorrent fix?
Although private BitTorrent trackers have a much lower profile than most sites, they are not in any way ’safer’ than public ones. In fact, the only BitTorrent users in the US who have received jail time were heading a private tracker that was dismantled by the FBI. Nevertheless, after various crackdowns in recent years, people flood to these sites and their popularity continues to grow.
More recently, however, the pressure is being applied to the administrators of public BitTorrent sites and trackers who accommodate millions of users every day. At any given point in time 25 million peers are connected to The Pirate Bay’s trackers, which dwarfs every other tracker on planet earth while making the site the prime target of the entertainment industry.
If the Pirate Bay were to close, roughly 50% of all public torrents would be put to a halt, and many of the smaller public trackers would have a hard time in coping with the extra load and could even collapse under the strain. Meta-search engines like Torrentz would have much less to index too. That said, if you’re lucky enough to be a member of a private site, the show probably goes on.
What we’re interested in is how many of you rely almost exclusively on public trackers such as The Pirate Bay and what percentage get your BitTorrent fix mainly on private trackers. For clarity, we define a public site as one that requires no membership or logins and is open to all, while a private site is one you have to join and have probably been invited to. This leads us to the following question for this week’s poll.
Where do you get most of your material from?
Previously: Record Label Sponsors BitTorrent Site isoHunt
Next: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
252 Responses
FIRST! Private sites ftw
Private tracker ofc, why? because there they got seeders unlike tpb
Public FTW.
for many a year i used tpb isohunt mininove demonoid and all that crap.
that being said i never got caught or sent a letter.
get on a good private and realise why having multiple specialised private trackers are much better faster and safer.
fakes dont exist.
you get to know the peeps you share with.
seedboxes aplenty.
anyone who knows what a ‘pre’ system is will most likely say priv trackers are best.
what/waffles/finbytes/bitaddict/passthepopcorn.
Private usually. Private more or less always if we count Demonoid as private.
i use private sites xdcc and newsgroups
I can either never find what I’m looking for on public sites, have no seeders on what I want, or have what I’m looking for filled with viruses.
Private trackers that specialize in the content you want I find to be the best, and they aren’t hard to get into as long as you can seed what you leech, unlike many users on TPB.
Private is good, but the selection is so limited by comparison.
private for me.
I don’t mind public, seeds arent that big of a problem it just depends on what your downloading. As for viruss and malware, you have to know what it is you are downloading and know who the right people are (skull next to name on TPB) and read comments as well.
public,
free access to free information! ;)
Why do we need trackers at all?
Doesn’t DHT and that kind of decentralized tracking do the job nearly just as well?
Why can’t we all not just use some kind of Tribbler type of software which would host all the .torrents manage search and do that tracking on real peer-to-peer. With that in place as a workable and reliable standard, IFPI, MPAA and the other dinosaurs will have no one to sue.
The Pirate Bay FTW
All that traffic from the Pirate Bay peers could put all legal music shops out of service.
So, a DDOS of music stores endorsed by RIAA (iTunes, Amazon) would be fun.
Well I wouldn’t feel safe going to a private site after most the public ones close. Private sites are just as vulnerable.
needs an option for both :(
Public. Private trackers are flawed in many ways. Ratio tracking was never supposed to be apart of the bittorrent spec. Private torrents tend to have a major problem with over-seeding, which is very poor for swarm health. (Since there are so many seeders and very little peers, the seeders will stop the torrent because it “doesn’t help their ratio”, then the torrent dies due to lack of seeders) Private torrents don’t tend to last more than 6-12 months, while i’ve seen public torrents last a few years.
And, if TPB did go down, DHT and PE would help greatly in keeping most torrents alive for a while. (a luxury private torrent sites don’t have ;).)
I have membership in demonoid though i never use it. I use some google tricks to get what i want. But use TPB way more than the private tracker.
Both.
and Redbeard is right, the selection is very limited on private. Also, torrents that are released on private sites, are also released on public sites at pretty much the exact same time.
Good example is The Simpsons. The scene generally gets a good 720p copy of The Simpsons on bittorrent within 30 minutes of it being aired, and it usually appears on public and private sites at the exact same time, and the advantage with the public version is that there are more peers and seeders, so speeds generally can be faster than private.
And see, when people seed on private, their only doing it to keep their ratio up. When they seed on public, they are doing it because they are nice people who want to help keep bittorrent alive and well. Frankly, if someone is giving me something just because someone else told them to, I don’t want it.
It’s too bad there wasn’t a third choice because that’s where I’ve gone and I think a lot of others too. File-uploading services. It’s selfish, but damn, the download speed is killer.
I will 100% guarantee that the people who prefer “public” sites have never been on a good private tracker. There are tons of private trackers that suck but the ones that excel make TPB, MiniNova, isoHunt all look like the joke they are.
@ Mehmeh, correct. Private sites give a false sense of security, Just like Peer Guardian.
@12: DHT works, but it is much, much less efficient and therefore generally has fewer seeds/peers and so possibly lower speeds. Also, it is susceptible to poisoning attacks by media companies, flooding leechers and seeders with fake peers/fake information.
However, it does mean that if you avoid poisoning, your torrent is much more difficult to remove.
The best option is to add no more than 2 trackers (main + backup, to stop wasting bandwidth) and enable DHT. Best of both worlds ;)
Public. All of the private sites I’ve visited have horrific layouts and asinine rules that sometimes don’t even make sense.
Public trackers work just fine if you know how to do a little searching and it’s only the most obscure torrents that lack seeds usually.
Btw demonoid is NOT private.
all public, mostly due to laziness on my part
plus the rare times I download something illegally they tend to be torrents with over a thousand other people connected to them, so at least I wont go down alone if someone sues =)
I also download from both, use TheBox.bz for all my British TV and MiniNova and TPB for everything else.
what are xdcc, DHT and PE? (please excuse ignorance)
private tracker for music — the rare shit is actually seeded there :)
for tv shows and movs direct http
and for anime public trackers.
I use Demonoid, but when that fails me, which is a rare occurrence, I usually use Pirate Bay or isohunt.
I got sick of keeping track of ratios on private trackers. Besides, anything that appears there appears on pubs in a few hours and it’s gonna DL sooner or later. As for the fakes, I smell them from miles away.
IsoHunt does it for me in 99.99% of cases.
A good private tracker is hard to come by but when you have one you would never give it up.
Oh and if it is open to registration it isn’t actually a private tracker.
Mostly Demonoid. I’d call it public, I don’t think the ratio’s even affect download speed.
“17 May 03, 2009 at 23:12 by Hom3r
Public. Private trackers are flawed in many ways. Ratio tracking was never supposed to be apart of the bittorrent spec. Private torrents tend to have a major problem with over-seeding, which is very poor for swarm health. (Since there are so many seeders and very little peers, the seeders will stop the torrent because it “doesn’t help their ratio”, then the torrent dies due to lack of seeders) Private torrents don’t tend to last more than 6-12 months, while i’ve seen public torrents last a few years.”
that made no sense. people will stop seeding because there’s too much seeders and then there’s no seeders because everyone stoped seeding? that’s stupid. i think you have to try some good private trackers, not just some failed experiences
Private / Scene because I trust these releases.
Private. No fakes no bullshit
Private for me…I don’t like waiting an extra 2 days to get the latest releases commin in at 20kbps. Anyone who doesn’t like having to maintain a ratio (aka give what you get) needs to STAY on public trackers..leeching scum.
Private all the way, no fakes, more seeds, no cons.
What about the option “both”
Public for general stuff, because they dont keep records, and i dont have to worry about seed ratio (I usually seed more than 1:1 on public sites, but since everyone seeds on a private tracker, its hard to keep up).
Private trackers for rare stuff I can’t find anywhere else.
Private trackers have a much better selection than public ones, if you can get into the right sites.
@17
You are suggesting that swarms that are over-seeded are bad, but that is opposite of the truth. No matter how you look at it, over-seeded swarms are better than under-seeded torrents, and under-seeded torrents are prevalent on public trackers.
Sure there are some people who will leave a swarm when it’s over-seeded because it doesn’t help their ratio, but do you really think those people would continue seeding if they didn’t have to maintain a ratio at all?
Hmm pretty hard to say… I use private mainly for dubbing/subbing sites for everything else I use public ones…
So I am not vetoing as both options do not hold for me.
private – way quicker than public and faster download speeds – ever since I got on torrentvault, I have been so happy! Movies dl in 10 mins, tv shows in 3 – yes they have ratio rules, but it’s worth it!
Generally, BOTH (voted private though)
The priority to the torrent that has a better share ratio which in most cases would be in private trackers.
Also you have to know that most private trackers only allow users to upload scene releases where you have a less chance to find a fake (actually 0.0 % chance)
The torrents are being uploaded to private trackers within 2 seconds – 1 minute after pre while in public trackers the same stuff being uploaded within 30-60 minutes after pre.
Good thing about public trackers is that you have a bigger database to select from where you can find the rare stuff. However the people who are mebers in the elite private trackers (not me) will find everything they need in there.
Also i don’t care about whether or not private trackers log my stats, i’m sure i won’t go to the prison anyway :p
private tracker
too many of you are hating on private trackers cuz u got banned or another bad experience because u are a leech or hit and run
Bit of both
Private for everything + rapidshare account for music dumps
Well, I may go a little bit beyond what is needed, but I download only from private trackers. I download to a seedbox (actually have 3) in europe (also do all my uploading from them) then I download with SFTP to my house.
Why isnt there a ‘both’ option?
Oh well, private i guess…
I get most of my stuff from public, but am a big wrestling fan as well. Most of the wrestling I download is from private sites for that; the remainder is through WBB.
Wheres the option for both?
I find that prive sites (demonoid) have lots of stuff public sites don’t.
private for tv and most films and public for apps, cant seem to find them on the private site i am on – tv torrents, bittv and the box
I find the admins of *some* private sites to be complete egoistical assholes. Then there’s the fact that all the admins and mods of the site own seedboxes, meaning that you’re squeezed out of seeding torrents (you wait for a week and you still can’t upload anything since the incumbents hog all the sharing ratio). Finally, there’s nothing on private sites that I can’t find on a public torrent site – so why bother with private?
I was very pro-public and anti-private for many many years…
AND THEN I ACTUALLY JOINED A PRIVATE SITE LOL!
First private site was TorrentLeech and i’ve -never- looked back….
Some of you seem to think “Private” means you have to pay something…not true!
private all the ways. I use most of the best privates around. There is all the shit i want uploaded usually less than 2 seconds after pre and
seeded up to 8M.
However, i thinks those who prefer public just cant get into decent privates.
You are a dead set F#!cking Idiot if you use PUBLIC Trackers.
Here’s how my search goes, mostly.
1. Tpb
2. Demonoid
3. Mininova or ISOHunt
4. Frustration
IPT AND REVTT is all you need GO PRIVATE. PUBLIC SCUM.
If you want Viruses and shit talking kids Go Public … If you want No Viruses and a great helpful community actuallt with seeds GO PRIVATE.
Only the Dumb and the young use Public Trackers as they are not good or smart enough to use a PRIVATE TRACKER. Like RevTT.
Private=Quality scene releases
Public= Virus and Idiots.
Anyone who try’s to argue that Public is better than Private needs to burn there PC as they have no clue about torrenting at all.
Private is good for the general latest scene releases, but public has those (albeit at lower speeds) and more.
with a 25GB cap and uploads counted as well, i feel bad about leeching off private sites
so, i mainly use public, unless its something i just cant find on a public site, so i go to one of my private ones
after the 2nd DCMA notice from my ISP, I stopped using public trackers. If yer noid, get a proxy (try BTguard). Private tackers and proxies are the safest way to go.
There are some public torrent sites that are hard to find.
In effect making them private.
Then there are well known private sites.
In effect making them public.
Being a PSX-PSP uploader I use both private AND public trackers ;) But for my Wii games BlackCats all the way
public not private dial up sucks with private hell
anyway… public for the programs I want (haven’t got a single virus–can you believe)? and for music too. MOstly i use the uploading services too, though public is better in that you are not FORCEd to UPLOAD for 10000000000 hours and then you get these terrible layouts (all based off the same codebase) and lots of captchas (yes, tey are the worst things invented thus far because of lack of a propper way and an admin with the right mind who would put audio captchas) and also… lack of accessibility. private trackers are HARD to navigate using just te keyboard, because of allt he bloatted on mouse over things (you scroll them mouse and a menu pops underneath). THis kind of annoying technique renders screen readers useless. Then you go and post somehting about it to the forums and the clueless community tells you to get and use a different browser or give you the links directly (but direct links don’t work because its java and php, remember?) when they ignore the fact that the problem lies on the DESIGN of the site itself. Accessibility has always been a major issue on the over-praised private trackers. In contrast, Made an account on tpb, asked these guys for help and they complied more promptly than what i would have expected. At least they were smart enough to get these captcha issues solved. The biggest reason for ditching private trackers? lack of screen reader accessibility.
mostly on public trackers
private if I can’t find it anywhere
Use both.
i don’t use any trackers at all
i delete them out of the torrent file
and had no problems running this way.
Whoever uses Public trackers is just a noob and doesn’t know what private trackers are, or doesn’t know how to get into them.
I use a public tracker very rarely here and there to find a rare movie.
No option for both? :|
@11 I’m 100% with you on that!
Keep the infromation flowing freely ;-)
Notice how most of the pro-private people are the ones insulting others :P
Anyways I go public since unlike a substantial number of commenters Private held no benefit, I upload alot and seedbox’s by senior member would stop me and I assume others keeping a decent ratio, the last private I was on was funfile and my account expired due to lack of use since the admins decided that they wouldn’t allow me to use my client if I had the latest security updates. :/
I find it’s much easier getting shows of the groups who sub them in the case of anime, tpb or mininova for misc stuff and in the case of top gear from finalgear(they only do top and fifth gear).
Frankly I have never gotten speeds off a private tracker that I couldn’t have gotten off a public one.
That and now RSS feeds do half the work for me now :p
I used to run through a lot of private trackers but after a while I kinda gave up. As I never torrent as much as i used to and all of my accounts got deleted.
Private sites own public sites for one aslong as it is a decent site and they get a very fast pre
@20 xdcc is downloading with a chat client like mirc and loggin on to irc servers and downloading from xdcc bots which require NO seeding however you can have huge wait times and slow downloads and thats just the luck of the drawn really
private = public without the balls
http://www.h33t.com a public tracker ffs
Public for me. I can usually find any movie/software/etc I’m looking for, no problem.
The only issue with public trackers is music. Sometimes it’s really hard to find a good torrent, and most of the time they don’t even state bitrate.
I got invited to what.cd, then banned the next day for reasons unknown (I hadn’t even half way passed the grace ratio period =/). I wish they told you the reason instead of just saying “this account has been disabled”.
The other thing with private trackers is how to keep a good ratio? I was at a loss when I was on what.cd. I could seed for 10 years but it doesn’t matter because there is no one to seed to.
Public Trackers Are The Best !
public and public and public again!!!
what i reed here is a lack of culture of torreting of the people wo says private
first- because you people wo like private can say your oppinion without insulting the others, remenber wend you start filesharing you are simply a noob and now you simply insult what you are for some time ago
second- virus and others tings that you say in public remember the guys of anti-P2P. is the job of admins of the public trackers to teatch the noobs of this factors things that in private you dont learn, just dl and seed please!,
if you ratio is low please make a donation to increse your ratio to 15GB!!!! well done!!!
fileshare- share your files with love and dont complain if it is hit and runners
third- you say there is waist of time because have virus and stuff
dont you see what is fake or not?
i can. lots of people can!
so public and public
try this: h33t.com
go to forum reed and reed and reed again
see the torrents standards and then compare to the privates!!!!
both.
mut mainly using btjunkie as first search and google after that
for new stuff I use private tracker for older harder to find stuff public
what I like best about private tracker is SPEED!!!! ever torrent I download maxes out my connection. A lot of people on public don’t upload so at least with private everyone has to share
Try h33t everyone… you will feel the most safest way of downloading torrents unlike other torrent sites they have more viruses and gives more risks on your computer.
With h33t you get a 100% safe torrents to download with no viruses or whatsoever… !!
I only use private for stuff that be found on public trackers.
Public = sharing is caring.
private = share and kiss our asses or get banned bitch.
Both
You need to add a vote choice, Public/Private for sites like Demonoid
I voted Private because I use demonoid for torrents older than two weeks ;)
should have both as an option
my favorite is MPAAtorrents4everyone.com
I’ve found it extremely difficult to create a solid ‘ratio foundation’ on private trackers that have been around for awhile, perhaps have a small group of long-standing, well grounded users, and therefor have a really high seeding ratio overall. I’ve been faced before with having to jump on brand new torrents (regardless of interest) just to get the file and seed it, thus raising my ratio. I suppose this technically isn’t a bad thing, but it can be very frustrating, especially when faced with the often much more enticing selection found on private trackers. It just makes it exponentially more difficult for new users to get near the amount of ‘buffer’ that experienced users have and with which they can freely download anything, anytime (which is what this is all about anyway, isn’t it?).
Public all the way.
Moderated public sites are the wave of the future.
No ratios, No sharing of your IP and private information, and lots of quality torrents.
Public sites without good moderation are indeed a pool of virus and fake filled indexes until you weed them out and find trusted uploaders.
Visit h33t.com where quality torrents with excellent desciptions find a good home and viruses and trojans are correctly labelled.
Education is the key.
I tried h33t with a common search and found a torrent with 0 seeders and leechers. Forget it…
About the poll. I use both. First I check publics and if I can’t find something with good enough quality, I check the privates. Publics tend to have more to offer, while privates go for quality and s/l ratio.
Tough the speed isn’t really an issue. I can’t watch at the speed I download, no matter if its public or private tracker.
on a completely side note… most of the comments from private only people on this site seem to come off incredibly egotistical, arrogant, and child like.
I use public, because I dont know any private trackers, because I’ve never needed to know any private trackers,
and because I dont want to be associated with a large number of the posters in this thread
besides… I’ve never felt the need to brag to strangers about that super secret private internet group I joined
USe Both.Dont argue.
Go for public if you have a slow connection.
Private sites are also overrated.
Living in australia, which has horrible broadband infrastructure, and living somewhere without a phoneline, forced to use public sites, as there is no way i can seed after downloading files, since it would make my wireless too expensive.
Public. It’s just too difficult to compete for ratio (with 128k up) with those who can afford 1Gbps seedboxes.
Public and RapidShare. After reading the egotistical comments from many of the fans of private trackers, I’m not interested. Some people actually do have lives outside of torrents, something that most private tracker admins detest.
private trackers ftw
totally agree with reply #4, you get to know who you are sharing with.
i usually go for public for tv shows.
private ones, but I don’t care much for DLing the top-newest things anyway
what/scc/bitsoup/ is enough for me
Public trackers. Private trackers are mostly uptight and it’s hard to keep a good ratio because everyone is seeding, especially if you don’t have a seedbox or high upload speed.
Public.
Demonoid and isohunt usually have my fill of rare/unusual enough torrents. If I can’t find an album I’m looking for I buy it. I CBA begging for an invite or signing up for an ‘interview’ for a tracker like what.cd.
This Poll will be biased as I’m sure the “basic” BitTorrent users won’t be using private trackers, and that has to be at least 30% of the total BitTorrent population.
Amazing how h33t and the brainwashed cronies in their “upper echelon / staff wannabes” are touting their agenda. Shameless!
Public sites, no ratio to worry about.
i use privates due to the high level of moderation and the improved seeding speeds. it’s also kind of fun to watch a torrent i’ve downloaded seed to over 100gb xferred over the course of a couple months. yes yes i know that can be accomplished much quicker on the public sites, but that’s also a little more dangerous on the public sites as well.
tl, ip, sm, what FTW
whoa.. i cant believe people think public is better. thats a jaw-dropper. i used public sites for about 5 months. then i joined a easy to get into (then) private tracker… never looked bak. the was just the first stepping stone. 4 years later im on some amazing trackers with everything i need. knowing people & knowledge is all it takes. about the people complaining its too hard to seed on private; it is possible to maintain a positive ratio on any site without a seedbox. you just have to study the site with patience to see how it works. patience is a virtue. some of the leet trackers tho its almost mandatory to have a box.. but as i just said, its possible without a box if yer willing to study the site. sure , i use public like 3 times a year when i looking for something totally obscure.. but dont like to, because i know too many people who have received letters and fines for their downloading on public trackers. so moral of the story: private ftw.
In addition. From my experience, Public has more stuff in one place, is easier to access, and not a hassle to keep up your ratio. I seed 20:1 on Demonoid and 10:1 on TPB, and it’s 100x easier for me to do so there. On BrokenStones and Waffles I struggle to compete against seed boxes and a lack of leechers to keep a 1.0 ratio.
Private trackers have the great community. I got my ratio up into the green on Broken stones by uploading music that could be found elsewhere, then I stopped using the torrents all together. I just use broken stone for the community. If I have a problem with something I can get a response within 10min. And it could be a problem with anything, but I only use it for Mac/BitTorrent related stuff. And everyone’s nice, and there are not idiots.
In general you can get a better speed from a private tracker and I guess there are no fakes. But I’ve never come across a fake on public sites (maybe 1 or 2). And the scene releases come out a couple of hours earlier, but who cares. I’ve never been itching so bad to download something that I had to download it the second it came out. Plus if you’re going to snatch a torrent right when it’s uploaded you’re going to be waiting 5x longer for it to download than if it had been running for a day or so. There won’t be enough seeds to get a fast DL speed.
It’s not hard to spot a fake. It’s not hard to wait an extra hour. I usually only download when I sleep. It’s not hard to ignore stupid comments on torrents. It’s not hard to find what you want on a public tracker. It’s not hard to get acceptable or even excellent speeds on a public tracker. I just don’t think it’s worth the hassle to upload new torrents, download golen torrents i don’t need, keep an eye out for free leech days, and spend the money for a seed box to keep my ratio up on a private site. Bittorrent is meant to be handsfree. I have better things to do with my day. I seed, but I seed what I download, and it is so much easier to seed what you download on a public tracker.
honestly if your using public your prolly there for two reasons
A) you arent solid enough to get on a private one ( needing a invite or your too mouthy)
B) you were banned form a private one, or are a industry schill.
Private = faster downloads sooner with less junk
Public is for kids and Private for real torrenting peeps.
I use private sites like what.cd and metalbits.org for music, the rest is rapidshare..
There should be an option for newsgroups…I find newsgroups the best source for everything. Way better than Torrents since it isn’t as public.
To the ppl asking for a ‘both’ option, read the question again “where do you get MOST of your stuff from” – you can’t get MOST of your stuff from public AND private sites.
To those asking for a ‘newsgroups’ option, wtf? You get yr Bittorrent fix from Usenet? Lol
Private trackers have exclusive torrents you wouldn’t find on public ones and there’s always seeders a-plenty. However, many use systems where you have to seed in order to leech (which is only right and fair) on smaller trackers leeding to thousands of seeders just hoping some one will want that thing so I can get it off of my drive.
Private or public both have their good and their bad point since u dont need a tracker at all to torrent so neither is real better than the other
Public Tracker is the best choice.
@ 99
They are killing us out here, aren’t they? I want to become PM so I can fix it then say I’m resigning
private is best!!!
H33T is the Best torrent site
h333333333333333333333333t
H33T is the Best torrent site
h333333333333333333333333t
private is best, for the people who think the only reason people on private seed is bcuz of their ratio, your wrong. i dont download at all,i just upload torrents. thats definitely sharing :D
(is uploader at 3 sites)
Tpb > mininova > isohunt. I’m on some privates to.
EZTV ftw, ok they dont host the files theyselves but its a source i can trust 99% of the time
public……
http://rockbox.psychocydd.co.uk/ \m/
public sites are for n00bs!
They are like training wheels!
The day supernova died i joined a private site.After loki died i never touched another public site
public
demonoid (public-ish)/eztv/and TPB (even after the trial)
private
iptorrents/cinemageddon/tv vault/teh connection/scene pirates/bitgamer/underground gamer/tv torrents
no torrents
katz.cd is the BEST
East or west H33T is the Best
H33333t is bes torrent site i ever found…………
Private trackers ofcourse. Mainly because the speeds are great.
http://www.H33T.com is The BEST Torrent Site in this WORLD….
The simple fact that the debate is so hot should tell you one thing: bittorent is dying, not because of the MAFIAA or the likes, but because it’s simply not working that well.
What we need to save p2p: full encryption and to get rid of leechers, use something like a big crypted database like what freenet does (all files you download are crypted and the pieces of them are scatter in the base so you can’t just delete them like you can with bittorent) and if we could have that and the speed of usenet, it’d be even better…
h33t eats shit
Private = anal mods with superiority complexes…can’t do with the crap.
Public trackers for torrents, but I prefer a private Usenet server for most filesharing needs. :p
I go Public… It casts a wider net for starters, espically if your British and want small time British music… it’s not going to be on an American private tracker. Private Trackers typically require an upload ratio, which as much as I try it’s difficult with my connection. People like Axxo and the EZTV crew make Movies and TV easy as hell to get.
Basically I’d only use Private Trackers when it comes to porn so you get better screnes etc, no fakes.
Simple.
I dumped torrents some time ago. No need for them anymore. There are better ways..
I live in australia also, and suffer from an incredibly overpriced and slow-as-hell plan. I can only up 20GB /month (and apparently my download cap is the same) before it incurs additional fees, thus i’ve always had issues with private sites (not to mention my speed – 512kpbs both ways >.<). what frustrates me with private trackers is that their ratio rules are generally a “one size fits all” policy, which simply doesnt work with the broad range of internet plans out there.
I’ve never had a virus/fake/bad download from a public tracker. Ever. It’s much easier to find stuff on public sites, as I don’t have to try and get in to find they don’t have what I need. I don’t have to manage my ratio. And what 18 said is true.
Here’s what happens for you who don’t get it:
1) Somebody downloads something
2) There’s already a handful of users seeding it (w/ seedboxes or highspeed)
3) The user decides that there’s no point seeding it because competing with the highspeed uploaders wont help their ratio.
4) When the highspeed seeders move on (usually to something that’s got more leechers) there’s few seeders remaining.
BitTorrent was never designed to have people manage their ratio. What’s more is that by maintaining ratio’s above 1:1, it is made much difficult (and eventually impossible) to mathematically achieve 1:1 for every user. What SHOULD be promoted is seeding weak torrents. It’s much more useful to have 20 more copies of a 10MB file where only 1 existed b4, compared to 1 more copy of a 1GB file where 20 existed before.
Private trackers should award points to torrents depending on the rarity of each torrent. The more you seed rare torrents the more points you have. No more ratio management and no requirement of low bandwidth users to seed constantly
I’ve never had a virus/fake/bad download from a public tracker. Ever. It’s much easier to find stuff on public sites, as I don’t have to try and get in to find they don’t have what I need. I don’t have to manage my ratio. And what 18 said is true.
Here’s what happens for you who don’t get it:
1) Somebody downloads something
2) There’s already a handful of users seeding it (w/ seedboxes or highspeed)
3) The user decides that there’s no point seeding it because competing with the highspeed uploaders wont help their ratio.
4) When the highspeed seeders move on (usually to something that’s got more leechers) there’s few seeders remaining.
BitTorrent was never designed to have people manage their ratio. What’s more is that by maintaining ratio’s above 1:1, it is made much difficult (and eventually impossible) to mathematically achieve 1:1 for every user. What SHOULD be promoted is seeding weak torrents. It’s much more useful to have 20 more copies of a 10MB file where only 1 existed b4, compared to 1 more copy of a 1GB file where 20 existed before.
Private trackers should award points to torrents depending on the rarity of each torrent. The more you seed rare torrents the more points you have. No more ratio management and no requirement of low bandwidth users to seed constantly
@145: “Private trackers should award points to torrents depending on the rarity of each torrent.”
That doesn’t work! Because poeple who want to download older torrents, would also have to “pay” more points for downloading stuff.
I switched to using One-Click-Hoster like RAPIDSHARE.COM, they are much safer than Torrents, especialy if you are only downloading.
For the record:
Demonoid is public.
Public. Mostly TPB.
Once you go private you will never go back.
demonoid seems to do me fine. all the movies, tv shows etc get there fairly quickly. the search is excellent, and theres no porn, so my kids can use it to get their games music etc.
rapidshare megashares etc are fine, but the search is a pain.
until they close all the bt sites, torrents will do just fine.
Yep, once I went Private, I never looked back. THOUGH! Some things are not avail on private so, I also, use scrapetorrent, demonoid and WBB
Both. I treat private trackers the same as public, they are no more secure than public trackers but the speeds tend to be quicker as most private sites use seedboxes. Theres also ratio banning on most which helps stop hit and runners. This isnt guarenteed, but much better than the public ones.
A new torrent on public trackers gets hammered within the first few hours, so for my crappy connection speed theres no point me trying to compete with the Yanks super speeds as this leaves me waiting days to complete the torrent.
On private tracker I get good speeds from their seedboxes and complete in a few hours. Unfortunately the torrents die off much quicker so for older stuff I stick with public trackers.
Private all the way. I’d never use Public trackers at all.
Private, obviously. Great seeding, fast speed, great quality, no fakes, no viruses, and mostly great community.
But i still use public trackers, because you can’t always find what your looking for in private trackers: such as old music, movies, games and rare e-books.
Public is the only way to go
Its amazing the morons that still comment ‘private are safer’ right after reading the article clearly stating that they are not..
plus all the facts..
lets make this very clear..
If you think PRIVATE is 1% more safe then PUBLIC = You are a complete idiot.
Private sites for my day to day downloads…faster speeds and faster releases..
Older hard to find releases and software searches Public trackers -Always able to find anything your after as private torrents age so quick and die..
each have there own place in the torrent scene..
Public, obviously. Great seeding, fast speed, great quality, no fakes, no viruses, and mostly great community.
Yep, once I went Public, I never looked back.
You are a dead set F#!cking Idiot if you use PRIVATE Trackers.
public tracker are the only way
with h33t you are save
I can find practicly all i need on Isohunt. For certain exotic movies or music i just visit friends :)
H33t IS A PUBLIC TRACKER!
So after all the X-men whining,
see mediabynumbers dot com.
However, by the closest of margins we have our sixth consecutive “up” weekend with year-to-date revenues running 16.42% ahead of last year and attendance at a 13.73% advantage.
Enough with all the whining about attendance and filesharing.
You are just attempting to save your stinking mpaa butts from extinction. Get an honest job and stop leeching off people.
Lol wow I never knew so many people were dumb enough to use public trackers. I thought only dumb ass 10 year old kids used public trackers.
Public trackers because I can find anything I want. Private trackers got a limited number of torrents.
Private trackers are BAD!
Remember: Divide & Conquer!
If people only ticked public!
Would keep the heat away from private when MAFIAA reads this
I’ll go wherever the serve a weekly portion of Breaking Bad. This usually means Mininova or The Pirate Bay.
And speaking of Breaking Bad: WHY IS s02e09 NOWHERE TO BE FOUND? It aired like 16 hours ago!
I NEED MY FIX !!!!!!!!one!
Private.
if the childish abuse posted here from many of those advocating Private is typical of their members, i’m happy to stay with Public
@163: Lol wow I never knew so many people were dumb enough to use private trackers. I thought only dumb ass 10 year old kids and obnoxious egomaniacs used private trackers.
nether private or public tracker are better than one another.
A tracker is a server that assists in the communication between peers.
Private…
The guy who was talking about it being out in ~30mins after pre… Decent private trackers have TV Programs out in under a minute usually, sometimes 5mins if its leeched from somewhere else…
You have to know the risks of both, and Private trackers still have HnR’s, people abusing systems, etc… That wasnt meant to be apart of the spec (upload mulitpliers).
At the end of the day though, Public Trackers take most of the spotlight and some of the pressure away from private sites in legal cases and are normally highlighted more in the press (Take the OiNK case and then the TPB case for example) so really everyone has to except both and that both have their merits!
MeH
Mayhem excites Hell
Private trackers go against the sharing principle. Half the time they are begging for donations and trying to turn a profit which is wrong.
Only use public if i get from private or usenet. Public is last priority.
Pvt Tracker all the way…..Sharing what you get is the rule of the community. Enjoy it even if you go public :)
Both for the win but i use more the private one
@173
that depends on witch private tracker you talk about… there´s even those who don´t want donations at all… but most of the good ones don´t need to beg for donations, people donate of them selves…
Privates aren’t invulnerables see what happened to leechers liar.
Privates are good for specialized stuff (underground cinema or music) for the mainstream publics have more seeders and last longer.
Only public the torrent is free like public tracker
@22:
It’s not as selfish as you may think, since every file you download is giving the uploader points and/or money.
my favorite space to download is: http://www.h33t.com
I would totally use a private site, but I never seem to know anybody else on them, so i can’t register :(
Where is the option “Both” ?
Never public sites or scene sites…
What/Waffles/LzTr for music, e-books and comics
PassThePopcorn/goem/TehConnection/Karagarga/Cinematik for movies
BitMeTV/TV-Vault for television shows
fux0r for porn and BoxTorrents for anime
The only torrent tracker I’m on doesn’t keep IP logs longer than a few days, has great speeds, great community, easy seeding (on a 60kBps upload speed), nice layout, no fake, tiny pretimes …
Why would I go on TPB ?
BTW, I check out h33t … last week’s NCIS episode has 92 seeders and 2933 leechers. How is that awesome ??
both
how can you guys say there are no good privet sites that are good tts work well only want 1.1 or 72hs and most of the time you go fast and get 1.1 in no time great site great people.
Well yeah publics are fine if you want shit. On privates you get stuff 10mb/s+ too if your connection handles it, and for most people who use privates it does.
Unless you count crap like IPTorrents, Demonoid or Torrentleech private..
As an owner of a private site, I have to wonder where many of these negative posters were members. Everyone of the staff at our site is more then happy to help n00bs or anyone in general. Our minimum ration to download is almost non-existent and we give users a bonus for uploading torrents and for keeping a torrent seeded. A member gets over 100MB’s a day just for having a torrent available for someone else to download. Our community is a great bunch of people who actually get along and post in our forums. We are pretty easy going on torrents and our rules are straight forward; no benefit or pre-release albums and no racist or fascist bands. Other then that our users have free rein of the site. We run free leech once every couple of months and also have contests where members can win prizes. You can’t group on private trackers on your experience of one or two sites.
People seem to forget that its not just seeds that you download from. Leechers all hold different sections of the file too.
Even if there was 1 seed and 10000 leechers you could still potentially get a good speed, providing you set it up right.
@Emmanuel Goldstein:
If I could be made aware of private trackers such as what you’re talking about, I would happily revise my opinions. What you say seems totally fair. Fair ratio policies, with the occasional free leech to help the ratios of those on capped internets and dialups, a strictly voluntary donation box, nice and helpful community, I can agree with that.
Thank you for a balanced perspective on a private tracker.
Private or public is not the real issue, not for me anyway. It is the quality of the site that matters. And the best ones are, lets be honest; private.
I guess it depends on WHAT CD I want, or if I want a documentary from the Most-Valuable GROUP. Sometimes I just want some AUDIONEWS or a simple WAFFLE. But you cant argue with the fact that The bay hosts a very extensive collection of torrents, with an outspoken community.
Fakes and viruses, LOLicopters, not even with my eyes closed… And I have gathered digital information since DC++ was the shiznizz. (although I vaguely remember Kazzaa offering some fakes)
————————-
>–/Sharing\IS/caring\–<
————————-
@Kwork
Our donation box is strictly voluntary. You will never see a post or PM asking members for donations. A few core members of the site are happy to provide us each month with donations. On the months the donations don’t meet our server fees the rest comes out of my pocket. Our site has only been around two years, and we’ve just recently changed the design and domain name. Our previous site just became to bloated with crap. I wanted a simple site that was easy to navigate and wouldn’t frustrate our users. We have about ten help guides that I have either created or grabbed from else where to help all of our members with any problems that may arise. At any time of the day you can find a staff member in the shout box chatting with others or helping a new member out. At first I was becoming aggravated with n00bs with low ratios, but as time past I decided we had to find a way to help them out. The seeding bonus I think was one of the greatest additions to the site. Also you will always have hit and runners on private trackers, but you will be able to download most of torrents pretty quickly. Whether it’s a new torrent of the first torrent uploaded on the tracker. If the torrent isn’t being seeded there is a good chance that a member of staff has the file and will reseed if asked.
I know there are many private trackers where it’s easy to get banned, flamed or whatever. That is something we have tried to avoid with out site. We want everyone who joins to feel welcomed and to become a part of the community. We are a closed site but with open registrations. It’s just one small way to keep our site away from prying eyes, I’ve told staff many times that I would rather be a small tracker and community then a giant like TPB. It doesn’t make us immune from prosecution but it does help us to fly under the radar. Some of the older members and myself have been avid music collectors since the 80’s and members can find a lot of rare and unreleased material on our site. Granted we have limited ourselves to punk, ska, reggae, and hardcore but this is the music I listen to. I am sure there are certain things I could be doing better, but that is the main reason why I took down the old site and started anew. Hopefully this time I will get things right. I personally get my entertainment from several sites public and private. I also legally purchase a great deal of my collection, but I am happy to share with my members. It seems easier to find the more mainstream items on the larger public trackers then the private ones and who can forget about newsgroups. I remember back in the early 90’s downloading Windows for Workgroups from the newsgroups, and they still have there uses today.
Wow, even more stupid comments than usual.
There seems to be a directed “attack” on public trackers by private-tracker fanboys.
People who get viruses are idiots. It has nothing to do with which torrent sites you use.
I almost exclusively use public trackers and have never downloaded a fake, and have never been infected with a virus included in a torrent.
Reading the comments left on a torrent is all you need to do to spot a fake.
I don’t bother with private sites, because of the attitudes and the generally low intelligence of the people there. (See above comments for prime examples.)
Get over yourselves.
PS. The “scene” sucks. It’s outdated and redundant.
Public trackers, and private trackers which have nice people.
Also, to be successful in what.cd at all, you have to upload your own CD collection. It works far differently from most other torrent sites.
TorrentLeech – The best PRIVATE tracker in the World nowadays !!!
” Those who don’t have an account, they don’t know what it is … ”
Torrentleech – Rocks !!
WHO KNOWS BETTER ?
- THERE IS NO BETTER :)
@ DERP #189
Yeah, but those leechers are going to consume a certain rate of your maximum upload speed (oftenly 90%+ )which leaves you with no space to download at your maximum download speed. No? Also while they are downloading the torrent at certain download speed rate, there is no space for them to upload to you with their maximum upload speed.
What a load of crap, i have never heard so much rubbish from both sides, been a member of 3 private sites for over 4 years and never had a problem and also use public ones for the rare stuff i can’t find any where else.
private now. my ISP is throttling my bit torrent at all hours. 50kbps down is my max with about 70kbps up. get a seedbox, costs £10 a month, has 10mbps up and down, unlimited bandwidth, 50gb space. FTP it to your computer and avoid throttling
@196
Throttle your upload, then remove it when you seed.
Simple.
Here the 5 best torrent sites-
eztv.it
h33t
demonoid
tpb
lanzamientones
Public trackers way better should be for everyone to enjoy like h33t awesome
usenet
”Private is good, but the selection is so limited by comparison.”
you need a better pvt site my friend
always been a member of the best tracker in the world
small community
massive respect
:D
I think that the information on the internet should accesible by everyone, that’s why i like public sites more, and often seed 1:20 on public sites.
and fuck H’n'R bitche$!
Found this site a little while ago, pretty intuitive: http://www.torrentino.info
Public ftw
Private trackers are generally much faster and all the new releases get there first. If your one of those idiots who support public ones only because you don’t have access to private trackers then you might as well go f*** yourself.
If The Pirate Bay was private, the owners would’ve never got in trouble and that is the reason why private is safer (not because of viruses).
All the stuff that gets on public trackers usually is fetched from either private trackers of FTP’s so please take your whole “it goes against file sharing” idea and shove it up your ass.
good day
Why do people feel the need to be so rude ?
for me:
hdb/sct/what/waffles
The thing i dont like about privates is that is kinda against the ideology of pirating, which is “from me to everyone”. I know that in publics ones people doesnt always have a good ratio and just leech and leave, but im just doing my part for the comunity, it’s up to them to being good “pirate citizens” and doing their part too.
@Emmanuel Goldstein
What’s the name of your site?
Public 10 to 1
I’ve grown tired of waiting for an invite that never came. Started using a tracker checker and registered with a few private trackers… Only to find very few torrents, some even taken from public sites like TPB and the likes.
Public is the way. h33t has a great community and fantastic torrents.
hmm depends what im looking for, 80% its private. public still owns though lol
Private, but only due to the speeds. 99% of what I download is TV shows which don’t get the MPAA/RIAA after me.
I don’t have the option of seeding because in Australia, we pay for a download limit (which includes uploading), so we’re fucked over here.
Public.
Private Tracker are quiet slow. I have been downloading a file for ilovetorrent.com for a few week now and it has just reached 40%. A friend of mine got the some file in less than a two hours.
Private tracker communities usually provide quick download speeds and many quality virus-free torrents. On the other hand public torrent sites are not as clean. Public torrent sites do contain many fake torrents. The download speeds aren’t usually that speedy too.
If you don’t care about maintaining a ratio, public torrent sites are ideal.
http://www.seedboxup.com
Please provide your email address before possibly engaging in illegal activity against our site policy.
Also note: our viruses are embedded in rar files so that you won’t realize that it came from us as it’s a time released virus.
I have access to tons of private torrent site but honestly I still use public trackers for the majority of the time.
http://www.h33t.com is the best :) :) :)
Private, because there are no icelandic public torrent sites, and for everything else, there’s torrentleech
I’ll tell you all why private sites FAIL! It’s because most of them are capped at 20,000 people. You look at all the torrents and on AVERAGE, maybe 3 seeds. Some way more, some way less. Point is. No one wants to download cause they are all worried about a frikken ratio. Half torrent sites do happy hour. Hello, if you need happy hour, your failing.
I’m completely OK with ratio if I knew people would be comming behind me. With only 20K people, don’t get your hopes up. I got to keep this torrent up for 72 frikken hours cause this site capps at such a low limit of users. FAiL!
Bitsoup, demonoid, some others are awsome cause they allowed probly around 100k people to sign up. Pluse you don’t get admins begging for money.
I second 219 post!!!
I love how a portion of you idiots are saying ISOhunt is a tracker…
I shake my head in shame to say that I access the same internet as you retards. just because you don’t know how to SEARCH/LOCATE a quality torrent doesn’t make it the tracker’s fault.
As for the debate. I joined a private tracker.. I liked the community but the seed/peer ratio was insane was almost impossible to keep a good ratio. New users would almost immediately get banned after nabbing 1 torrent because they would leech and leech but noone could use that user as a seed, he wouldn’t make it before his ratio was beyond repair. OINK was bad for it too. almost impossible to achieve a non-bannable ratio.
I have demonoid membership, still just prefer tpb for content/speeds/numbers and layout
I should point out that the torrent that new users would nab first was a PS image torrent. 40 gigs.. they’d get about 10 or so into it and BOOM banz0rd. cause their ratios would be like .0003 or something. me tho I managed a paltry 12.65.
IPTorrents, SCC, Bitsoup, Torrentleech, TVTorrents
private 99% of the time, public for under the radar stuff like audiobooks, ebooks, comics, ect
Breaking Bad was finally released a few hours ago, there was some AMC airing glitch from what Ive read.
I downloaded it off torrentleech.org in a mere 7 minutes. Beats the hell out of a private tracker
Proof
http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/n88/hpi_2006/?action=view¤t=Untitled-1.jpg
Number one..
Public seems safer to me than private, since hearing about admins that give out details to authorities. Although I do use Demonoid.
Private trackers.
private trackers all the way they can not be beat by public trackers. there is no comparison in my view. Private Trackers will be the only way in the future !
i use both public and private trackers.
what always bugs me about public trackers is the high number of peers who (i assume) seem to have their clients misconfigured, or deliberately cap the upload at very low speeds.
example: tpb is giving me a dl speed of ~45kb/s on a torrent with ~150/50 s/l while i’m uploading at 130kb/s the whole time.
a private tracker would give me 2+mb/s dl speed with that s/l ratio.
i don’t expect a public tracker to have a huge amount of peers with seedboxes or ultra-high speed conns., but for a torrent like that i expect more than a sad 45kb/s.
Sal about Torrent Leech :)
Though for older releases i often use rlslog which , to anyone who doesnt know, is a public
Private trackers are overrated. All these comment by people who think they are better than everyone because they are what.cd or waffles. Who cares? is that all you have going for you in life? I use torrents.ru demonoid and tpb. No matter what ratio system the site has. Someone is always uploading when someone is downloading. You can’t change that. I think the ideal is somewhere in the middle. So demonoid is the closest to that and what I use the most. When you require a ratio, people download less. I doubt many people upload more. To max out my pitiful 100KB upload on torrents.ru usually requires me to seed at least 100 torrents. And even then only sometimes of the day.
Private trackers 100% & overseeas GB seedboxes. Downloading a very reasonable 4-5TB/month of stuff for a few years now.
ftn/sct/ftwr/fsc/scc/tl/hdb/what/waff
There ya go, i said it :))))
I’d say 20% content from public, 80% private.
lets put all the names of the sites we get our “torrentfix” from so they can all get wiped out!
I’ve always gone with public trackers ever since I began using BitTorrent about 2 years ago or so. I just haven’t really felt the need to want to join a private site, and passed up on a recent opening at Demonoid.
Unlike many public site users, I do try to seed to a 1.0 ratio, sometimes going as high as 2 or 3 if the torrent isn’t very well seeded.
I use mainly the biggest ones, TPB and Mininova, and sometimes BT Junkie, NyaaTorrents and Animesuki.
h33t just because it works just great. Private ??? who needs it
Public torrent is the only way!
Public tracker are the only way!
Ewww why would anyone in their right mind use public?!
Private FTW!!!
*high fives* to the private users
***DEMONOID***
<>
There needs to be an option to select both. Private sites have their uses, but in some cases are not necessary. Regular users need their fix too and it’s unfair to upload all torrents to private sites. A use a few private sites for specific things, but I would never upload a torrent to a private site that I know many non-internet-savvy users would love to have. I would feel like a dick.
Private FTW!!!
I’ve used only TPB, Demonoid and h33t for more than 8 years – no Problems no Faults – and the best is h33t.
i hate enclave torrent sites. Torturing kids with invites and such.
If you wanna share, share big. otherwise fukoff
H33T.com ,
The best torrent site there is.
Public trackers are the only way.
Public tracker is BIG on my list.
It is a waste of time searching for something on a private tracker, as it requires me logging into seperate accounts instead of using meta-search engines like speckly, scrapetorrent, btjunkie and others. Also multiple trackers fro public torrents can be aggregated to increase seed resources beyond that can ever be achieved by a typical torrent on private trackers. That explains why top results on meta search engines show seeds in the tens of thousands.
The resources on private trackers (i.e. the number of torrents) are always limited, and it is difficult to maintain the required seed/leech ratio as other members hesitate to download so as to prevent their own ratios from getting low.
Besides, most torrents on private trackers are also available on public trackers, unless you enjoy some specific category of torrents.
In short Public Trackers is the major reason why is still use bittorrent.
I’ve been around — seen this, tried that — yet continue to make my home with public trackers.
Some may think me a doddering old fool, but public trackers fit snugly into my vision of what the Net Republic is all about.
I think it takes more work to keep public trackers up and hummin’, but it’s GOOD work. For me, public trackers foster a true sense of community, and I’m comfortable in my home at h33t….
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