Before I say anything further, yes I know how much the recommended VPNs cost. I can read. Please do not interrogate me about it.
I’ve been wanting to get into torrenting for a while, particularly contributing to private trackers related to music (and to a lesser extent retro games, though I don’t have much original stuff to put there as it’s harder to find rare games than rare music). FMHY recommends RiseUp if I must get a free VPN while I’m working on my financial situation, though I’m not sure whether it’s been tested in court. What are my options, if any?
I mean you can avoid all that. If you’re just interested in music and retro games then just use soulseek and use the rom megathread. both of which are going to be either peer to peer or direct downloads. no torrenting.
Rom megathread (web search it) has quite literally everything. no need to search, no need to torrent, it’s all right there. And soulseek with Nicotine+ just works like napster. sign up, be sure to share your music library, and then have at it.
I use slsk, I’m just trying to find more places to upload the rare music I have to so it’s less likely to become lost.
right so you just keep your music folder open so people can do just that. More audiophiles are going to be on soulseek than some random torrent tracker.
I don’t understand why you insist on torrenting when you can’t safely do so. You’re going to get way more traction sharing your rare stuff on soulseek than you will torrenting it I can guarantee that.
It’s not that I’m trying to switch away from slsk, it’s that I’m trying to do more in addition to slsk.
Its not a big thing with trackers anymore unless you get into one of the exclusive private trackers dedicated to music, but this requires previous history with other trackers, good upload speeds, etc. I would just stick with slsk for now.
What’s not a big thing with trackers?
Music
Look at newsgroups - some indexers are free, others have a lifetime fee that’s reasonable. I moved to nzbs and haven’t looked back - I can’t get dinged for sharing copyrighted stuff if I’m only downloading, never uploading.
there exists a free newsgroup indexer that contains binaries?
There’s a few - but typically the free ones have limits on the number of downloads per day.
Nzbfinder and bin search used to be okay.
Which ones are okay now?
any specific lifetime fee indexers you recommend?
Nzb geek and planet are two good ones.
this is like asking how to safely hook up with strangers at the bar if you can’t afford condoms to help protect you from STIs. if you can’t afford a VPN, you can’t afford to get disconnected by your ISP for three strikes, let alone afford a settlement because some copyright troll logged your IP as a downloader. just don’t do it until you can properly put some safeguards in place.
Public WiFi exists and it’s also pretty easy to get free condoms.
Why does this anti poor bullshit have so many upvotes? Public WiFi exists and it’s also pretty easy to get free condoms.
hey hows about you go fuck yourself
No u
fair enough
Pro tip: Never use public WiFi without wearing a condom.
You can get into private trackers and trust them. Not recommended, but some do.
Generally speaking, the copyright trolls only target public trackers and DHT. There have been some instances of them making way into TL and others. Your ISP could also identify torrenting on private trackers if they wanted to, even with mitigations. In my experience and from what I hear, most ISPs do not go to these lengths.
So, there a risk doing the above. Whether or not it’s worth it until you can afford a decent VPN is up to you.
Aside: Please do not use a free VPN for torrenting (or tor, for that matter). They are either like RiseUp and run on donations for people who really, really need them, or Proton which is commercial and specifically try to block or slow down the traffic. Either way, if ruins it for everyone else.
Either way, if ruins it for everyone else.
How does it ruin it for everyone else? One slow peer does not ruin the network.
I meant in the context of the VPN. It slows down the network for everyone on one which is run by donation. For commercial companies, it incentivizes them to further lock down what users can do or what speeds they get.
free proton blocks p2p connections anyway
You can use torrent to direct link services like seedr.cc, however they have max size limit.
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I just do it “raw”, using an IP denylist built into my client KTorrent. No problems for a while. But, I mostly do different media than you. (I do TV.)
If you can share the cost of a VPN with one or more other people (most allow multiple devices to connect at the same time), it’ll be much cheaper. Or if you can’t afford that either, try to find someone who will let you use theirs for free. Maybe you can even find someone who isn’t tech savvy who will pay you a few bucks a month to cover the VPN in exchange for you downloading Linux ISOs for them.
Others have mentioned private trackers, it’s not a perfect defence by any means, but dm me and I can send you an invite to one (torrentleech)
Uhmm, I know that it might come off as begging, but may I also have an invite? I’ve been using RuTracker for 5 years at this point, but some stuff is just isn’t there.
Thanks in advance!
Find a friend in a less shit place you can proxy through.
i2p.
I’d go for usenet. Only downloading, no uploading. Torrents are shit.
Much of what I want to do is uploading though. Also IIRC Usenet isn’t any better in terms of price. The prices aren’t bad gor Usenet or VPNs, my finances are just in the shitter.
I believe there are free VPN services. Maybe Proton has a free version? I know they offer a basic free version for Vivaldi browser. Just make sure they provider doesn’t log traffic.
Now is black Friday, some VPN services are 75% off, that may be an option if you have at least something to spare. Sure, it’s money, but a fine for illegal downloading costs much more.
Otherwise public wifi spots but speeds are probably shit.
Another option is installing Tails on a bootsble USB stick and connect through tor. But then speeds are also shit.
Proton VPN’s free tier doesn’t let you forward ports and generally doesn’t like torrents. And you’re really not supposed to torrent via Tor.
Doesn’t Proton have a free VPN tier? I think it doesn’t support port forwarding so your connections would be limited, but that might still work?
Otherwise, check the megathread and go with direct downloads. Those happen over https so completely encrypted.
What music DDL sites let you contribute FLACs?
Hmm I’m not sure about contributing. You’ve presented yourself as someone too broke to afford a VPN so I didn’t think you were buying CDs and ripping flacs. Sorry if I misunderstood your goals. I was more focused on the goal of obtaining files.
Edit: ps, not sure if you saw yet, but I pm’d you about another possible solution.
I do sometimes buy CDs, though many of my CDs are from before my financial situation was quite as bad as it is now. They’re all from thrift stores though, so none of them are more than $1.99.
Use a free VPN.
Its being a while for me but windscribe and seedr had totally usable free tiers
