this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
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Piracy
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I’ve been out of it for over 15 years, I don’t even know where to go and what precautions to take anymore :(
https://fmhy.net/beginners-guide
For music I like to use squid.wtf to download high quality music from qobuz
Same. I used to have invitations to private sites for music and movies, then I just gave into streaming. Now I want to go back to torrenting.
It's gotten a little better actually!
You can set up qbittorrent to search multiple places and download them. You should have a VPN so your ISP doesn't get grumpy with you but it's easy to set up. Here's a short video tutorial:
https://youtu.be/nksLKqotTys
And if you want to get really advanced and turn an old computer into a piracy server I would recommend looking into YAMS. Admittedly this is much less easy, but once it's set up you legitimately have a streaming platform better than any other
Yeah I use Jackett with BitTorrent on a raspberry pi that I permanently connect to a VPN (set the interface in QB to the VPN). If you commit and pay for a year or more of VPN you can get deals around $3/month. Have had no issue getting most of what I want, except for rarer music, which I use Soulseek to grab.
I also rip blurays from the library sometimes, guarantees a perfect rip, sometimes I have codec issues with what I can find on QT.
Jackett seems to give people problems so I don't suggest it for newbies. I find the plugins on qbittorrent replicate what old pirates are used to and are most plug and play by design
What do you use to rip Blu-rays? I have a collection I wouldn't mind backing up but I don't know a good way
MakeMKV. You can perpetually acquire a beta key for free to use it, but I used it so much I just decided to pay for it. Rips discs bit-for-bit, which guarantees a perfect rip, the downside being scratched disks sometimes refuse to rip.
I remember Jackett having a little bit of setup but once it was running it was super easy to add various trackers, including private ones if you have access to those (I don’t).
Huh did not know QBittorrent can search. I always use 1337x.to, which weirdly isn't blocked on my ISP and hasn't been for years, despite them blocking almost every other side. Also nyaa.si for anime stuff.
The thing that always worries me is that QBittorrent and VLC are surely full of security vulnerabilities... I did check the torrent library that QBittorrent uses and it at least has fuzzing set up but still... Makes me nervous. Haven't been hacked ever and I haven't heard about any infected files tbf. Honour among pirates perhaps.
Before I say anything I'm about to say I want it to be known I know absolutely fuck all about digital security. That being said:
My understanding is that pirates are more technologically literate and that "hacking" systems is now generally not worth the time and effort. The return on social engineering and phishing is so much higher and easier that they want easy prey instead of difficult. Obviously use common sense and don't click Endgame.exe but it's more profitable to steal from grandma on Facebook than Steven the pirate
Yeah potentially, but I think pirates are also more likely to have bitcoin stashes available for stealing.
You're probably right though - it's just easier to use societal engineering.