4 ms·

Torrents aren't that convenient anymore. The vast majority of available data is on private trackers, and the procedures for joining said trackers are extremely

Torrents aren't that convenient anymore. The vast majority of available data is on private trackers, and the procedures for joining said trackers are extremely byzantine, sometimes outright demeaning, and require vast quantities of time and effort. I'd argue that it's much more convenient to just pay Bezos, unless - as suggested - you're a teenager and don't have any money, or the rightsholders made it impossible for you to make the purchase (this has happened to me when trying to purchase music, of all things).

yummypaint 7y ago
The state of private trackers tells us about the amount of effort put into enforcement. Accessible trackers dont last long, so there is necessarily some hoop jumping to make it more profitable to go elsewhere and attack softer targets.
- cabalamat 7y ago
  > Accessible trackers don't last long The Pirate Bay is still up, even if they do have to keep changing URLs; one can Google on "pirate bay proxy" to get a list of whatever the latest hostnames are, then go to those sites. This is a slight hassle, and the time it takes is not really significant compared to watching a 2-hour movie. I suspect it is less hassle than trying to buy a DRM-crippled movie and playing it on my Linux box.
  - pteraspidomorph 7y ago
    Even before the pirate bay became a vague concept often repurposed by people trying to sell dubious VPN services or mining cryptocoins with your browser they had already ceased to be a tracker. Those are just indices! They'll suggest some actual trackers on the magnet URLs in their listings but you can get comparable results using a DHT search engine. You can intersect here "trackers" that are "public": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_sites
- Supermancho 7y ago
  Kickass Torrents has had to move around over the years to new domains, but they have been a reliable way to find torrents with new media (and software) for years. I wouldn't use TPB unless I was really desperate.
benhurmarcel 7y ago
For really popular stuff torrents are really fast and convenient. I wanted to watch the last GoT season and had access to HBO Online (a family member pays for it). Torrenting it just took a few minutes, after unsuccessfully trying to make HBO work on my Linux desktop.

yummypaint 7y ago

The state of private trackers tells us about the amount of effort put into enforcement. Accessible trackers dont last long, so there is necessarily some hoop jumping to make it more profitable to go elsewhere and attack softer targets.

cabalamat 7y ago
> Accessible trackers don't last long The Pirate Bay is still up, even if they do have to keep changing URLs; one can Google on "pirate bay proxy" to get a list of whatever the latest hostnames are, then go to those sites. This is a slight hassle, and the time it takes is not really significant compared to watching a 2-hour movie. I suspect it is less hassle than trying to buy a DRM-crippled movie and playing it on my Linux box.
- pteraspidomorph 7y ago
  Even before the pirate bay became a vague concept often repurposed by people trying to sell dubious VPN services or mining cryptocoins with your browser they had already ceased to be a tracker. Those are just indices! They'll suggest some actual trackers on the magnet URLs in their listings but you can get comparable results using a DHT search engine. You can intersect here "trackers" that are "public": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_sites
Supermancho 7y ago
Kickass Torrents has had to move around over the years to new domains, but they have been a reliable way to find torrents with new media (and software) for years. I wouldn't use TPB unless I was really desperate.

benhurmarcel 7y ago

For really popular stuff torrents are really fast and convenient. I wanted to watch the last GoT season and had access to HBO Online (a family member pays for it). Torrenting it just took a few minutes, after unsuccessfully trying to make HBO work on my Linux desktop.