November 24, 2007 by sharky
We’ve included this list of release groups specifically for the purpose of searching. Users can enter a “name” in a BitTorrent website to see what this group has released. This is particularly helpful for narrowing down specific searches, and for filtering out the junk torrents from the good ones. These groups are highly-esteemed and respected, and they back it up with solid working releases. Note that some of these RGs are presently inactive. Nevertheless they still generate good search results with active torrents. These lists contains mostly RGs with proper ’scene releases’ only. Stick with releases from these guys, and you can’t go wrong!
Movie Release Groups
These are the main groups who are responsible for almost all of the pirated movies available anywhere. Some of them are specific to pre-release types such as CAMs and DVD Screeners (PUKKA, mVs) and some of them are more partial to older releases like SiRiUS and AR. But most RGs prefer the ‘race’ to be the first group to release brand-new movies.
| FxM | aAF | AFO | AR |
| AXIAL | UNiVERSAL | PFa | SiRiUS |
| Rets | BestDivX | NeDiVx | SER |
| ESPiSE | iMMORTALS | QiM | QuidaM |
| COCAiN | DOMiNO | JBW | LRC |
| WPi | NTi | SiNK | HLS |
| HNR | iKA | LPD | DMT |
| DvF | IMBT | LMG | DiAMOND |
| DoNE | D0PE | NEPTUNE | SAPHiRE |
| PUKKA | FiCO | aXXo | VoMiT |
| ViTE | ALLiANCE | mVs | XanaX |
| FLAiTE | PREVAiL | CAMERA | VH-PROD |
| BrG | replica | FZERO |
Software Release Groups
This list of groups release pirated software specifically for the MS Windows OS. Also note that by the time most software makes it to P2P, BitTorrent, etc., the name of the release group (tag) is sometimes dropped from the title of the release. Software search results are much better served by searching for the name of the software, not the RG.
| CORE | CRD | ARN | ViRiLiTY |
| FOSI | HERETIC | ECLiPSE | BRD |
| FMR | iNFECTED | TNT | NeoX |
| BLiZZARD | TFT | CHiCKNCREAM | EMBRACE |
| F4CG | iNViSiBLE | Lz0 | DVT |
| ZWT | ZWTISO | NOPE | CYGISO |
Games Release Groups
This list only includes groups that release large pirated “MS Windows” games (mostly DVD releases). Popcap/BigFish and other smaller-type games groups aren’t listed here. Also note, do not limit your search to just these RG names. Conduct your game searches primarily with the title of the game, and use these RG names as a backup plan. Games released by these RGs will always work, that is why their names are listed. These RGs are responsible for almost ALL of the major game releases found anywhere.
| RELOADED | ViTALiTY | HATRED | FLT |
| PROCYON | Razor1911 | DAGGER | JFKPC |
| DEViANCE | dopeman | Unleashed | iND |
| ToeD | Skullptura |
Note that sometimes the .NFO file is located in the actual ‘image’ of the release (inside the .ISO file or .BIN file etc.). So if you download a large game/application and don’t see the .NFO, ‘mount’ the image, and check in its root folder.
TV Episodes Release Groups
These groups release episodes of popular (and not-so popular) TV shows primarily as soon as they come out, or ‘Air’. More popular episodes can be found the following day after the first original airing. To find complete SEASONS of TV Shows, it’s best to search for the title of the TV program, not these RGs.
| XOR | Caph | LOKi | NoTV |
| LOL | aAF | RiVER | CRiMSON |
| HALCYON | FQM | MiNT | SYS |
| CTU | OMiCRON | 2HD | SAiNTS |
| SFM | YesTV | STFC | CT |
| CAMERA | SDH | 0TV | HV |
Music Release Groups
Without intending to take away the importance of release groups and music, it is not a technical issue of one group being superior to another - this is arbitrary. Music is what it is: music. The fact that music originated from a release group or not is of little value or service to the general downloader (unlike movies and software - where this is vital). The importance lies more upon the bitrates (quality) of the music files found in a search, so the most appropriate method should be to simply search for the Artist name or Song title, and browse the results.
However, one major role of music RGs is to offer music well before it is available at the retail level. Here are just some of the release groups that offer these “Advance” and “Promo” albums/songs:
| RNS | FNT | MTD | SAW |
| KzT | uF | FM | pLAN9 |
| RTB | ESC | XXL | OGC |
| UBE | TALiON | RAGEMP3 | SSR |
A great resource for finding MP3/music release groups is at http://www.nfodb.com/.
Additional resources:
A list of all known release groups can be found here. This list incorporates many RGs (past and present).
Here’s another good site to browse release groups (and their releases). Again, there’s no links to torrents or available sources for their listings - that legwork is up to you to do on BitTorrent sites, IRC or the newsgroups.
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