Any hints for an elder pirate trying to find a good torrent site? My buddy was kind enough to give me an invite to a decent provider but that was maybe a decade and a half ago...

My elderly ass just barely figured out linux, so you can see how behind I am.

[–] pocopene@lemmy.world 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Use qbittorrent. It has torrent search and download integrated.

[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh interesting, I have qbittorrent but have always just used it to on torrents I downloaded from a website. I'll look into this, thanks!

[–] pocopene@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago

I guess you have to change somerhing in the program options in order to make the Search tab visible

[–] tabloid@feddit.org 8 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Try Usenet and a Usenet indexer. There are multiple guides on the internet on how to set up and use it, even automatically with some r-apps on a home server.

[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

arr-stack is the secret weapon.

But for starters just a usenet client, a good usenet indexer and VLC are enough.

[–] bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago

Recommended Usenet provider: astraweb with a block account. Buy 1000 GB for 50 €$ and use it over time for years without any subscription necessary.

[–] pantherina@feddit.org 1 points 3 weeks ago

Usenet is very weird but funny in a way. As it is not actually decentralized and often involves fiat payment (non cryptocurrencies) I would prefer a good VPN provider (or even i2p) and torrenting

[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago

Neat, I've vaguely heard/seen the term Usenet but haven't looked into it, will do so! Thanks!

[–] lietuva@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

downloading torrents is very 2010s. Now we use Stremio app with torrentio plugin (or MediaFusion, or Comet). You get streaming from many torrent sites. Works on ios, android, many tvs, pc, whatever. There's tons of other addons too like trakt.tv integration, etc. If you setup RealDebrid (paid, but cheap) thats even better, it acts as one big server with massive library of torrents, but provides very high download speeds, so you don't need to worry about dead torrents or lack of seeders. I watch 4k movies without any problems.

[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Well that seems just wild! I'll be looking into it this weekend, thanks, much appreciated!

[–] wuzzlewoggle@feddit.org 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's an absolute godsend. It's a Netflix like experience for 3€ a month, only you get every content from every streamer there is

[–] MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 1 points 3 weeks ago

This seems so crazy good. I'm looking forward to spending some of this weekend researching and hopefully trying it!

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 3 points 3 weeks ago

The trick is to sign up to private trackers. Sometimes they have a open signups period.

[–] pantherina@feddit.org 1 points 3 weeks ago

Get a good VPN that allows port forwarding. I can recommend AirVPN
Use Linux (of course)
Install qBittorrent as the torrent client.
Enable the search tab, under plugins install the Jackett plugin
Install jackett (on NixOS it is easy, otherwise you can use podman or docker to run the container image (preferrably NOT from docker hub but this registry, use podman)
Open 127.0.0.1:9117 in your browser and set an admin password, copy the API key. Add all public torrent sites possible, it will take a long while and might make your computer go wroom.
Search for something in qBittorrent, you will get an error as you dont have the API key configured.
Open the description page, it opens the browser and explains where to find the configuration file. Add the API key here
Search things
More advanced shit

I will make a post about my setup

Basically, dont use the sites directly, use a search engine that scrapes them. You need flaresolverr for some sites using Cloudflare. Apply for some private trackers, join communities to get invites. Remember to seed as much as possible and avoid hit-and-run.