January 30, 2008 by sharky
A ‘7-Step Guide’ to finding anything and everything.
| Part I | Introduction & BitTorrent. |
| Part II | “Crack” websites. |
| Part III | “Proper” releases with NFO websites. |
| Part IV | “Warez” / DDL websites. |
| Part V | IRC for illegal content. |
| Part VI | Usenet / Newsgroups. |
| Part VII | Advanced Searching/Search Tips. |
In search of the illicit, illegal or copyrighted? Good! So are we! The Internet is a vast place with many teeming possibilities - copyrighted material is distributed freely everywhere. This article doesn’t necessarily pertain to where one should look for pirated content; rather, more of a how to look for it. The following guide candidly demonstrates a non-exhaustive list of strategies for procuring just about anything. However; if you’re looking for a specific ‘cookie recipe’ or ‘cross-stitching’ chart, (copyrighted or not) this guide likely won’t be of any service.
Without a doubt you’ll have employed some of these methods before - and you may even know of a few that aren’t listed. Private FTP sites (& TopSites), FXP Boards, BBSes, F2F networks, etc. were all overlooked. Our attempt is to fine-tune and elaborate on the existing publicly accessible schemata for the attainment of all things copyrighted.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for with these procedures - then it probably just doesn’t exist on a public level.
Introduction to Advanced Searching
The first step (which we don’t count as a step) is to identify what it is you are looking for.
Is it something that a piracy ‘Release Group’ would come out with? - and more importantly, would it have any value to others on a sharing level. All ‘warez’ would fit into this category (movies, software, games, music, etc.).
Is it something that is recent, or is it older? This has a factor on the availability - but not to every extent. Something classified as “old” might include Black Sabbath’s - Paranoid; or even an old TV show like “Diff’rent Strokes“. While you’ll be sure to find Ozzy Osbourne howling in his heyday, you’ll likely not be hearing Gary Coleman say, “Whatchoo Talkin’ ‘Bout Willis?” anytime soon (unless you subscribe to some elaborate cable TV package).
Is it something very specific or more generalized? Would it be considered ‘rare’ or more easily attainable? (An example of specific would be last Saturday’s hockey game between the Canadiens and the Devils. Less rare could include the DVD release of “Lost, Season 2″).
Not that any of this particularly matters: it’s either out there, or it’s not. But by classifying what it is will likely make it much easier to find. Technically the steps below are not in any particular order, although we did our best to organize it. Nor are the steps relevant to any one particular genre, such as movies or music; but to any and all. (Although we offer tips from time to time during the steps, and we may expand specific searching to cover each genre of pirated content down the road). Let’s get started!
Part I. Advanced Searching with BitTorrent.
If you know anything about anything, it’s highly probable that BitTorrent isn’t new to you. Most have heard of the top 5 BitTorrent sites such as mininova.org, thepiratebay, isohunt, torrentz, maybe even btjunkie and others. The top sites are there for a reason: they get all the newly released stuff and have other specific features that give reason for people to come back over and over again. Big or small; public or private - here are some BitTorrent search tips pertaining to all.
Browse the ‘Categories’ offered by BitTorrent websites.
Aside from conducting outright searches through the BitTorrent websites, people often overlook the listed categories of torrents that many sites have to offer. Not all search engines are created equally - and some are downright horrible (*cough* - thepiratebay - *cough*), while others such as Isohunt and Mininova excel. But at least by browsing through the categories you know for sure you’ll catch stuff that wasn’t reported by their search engine, and you’ll also be able to hone-in on a precise genre of torrents. Below are some examples of available categories at the popular Bit websites:
Open Your Horizons to new BitTorrent websites.
A good place to start is at our Top 100 BitTorrent websites page. Here you’ll find sites you’ve never even heard of - and just by looking at some of the titles one can gauge what’s being hosted there. Click, browse and search away! (Note that many are private tracker sites - we’ll get to that below). Another huge list of torrent hosting websites can be found at TorrentKing.org (read more below).
Use ‘Private Tracker’ BitTorrent websites.
Anyone who’s familiar with BitTorrent doesn’t have to be told about the benefits of private Bit sites over public ones. Of all the new torrent websites popping up, private ones are leading the pack. Why? Because of all the junk/fake/dupe torrents on those public sites!
If you’re looking for something specific, say for example, the latest NBA basketball games or wrestling matches, you’ll likely not find these torrents on many or any public site. We highly recommend using TorrentKing to browse the categories of (private) trackers and decide if they’re worth joining or not. Here you’ll be able to find specialized trackers for:
Note that not all the sites are considered private, but most ’specialty’ sites indeed are. TorrentKing presently lists 786 different live working trackers - that’s a whopping 686 more than what we got on our Top 100! Additionally, since new Bit sites open up all the time, most make the list at TK - check their “LATEST” tab for all the newest ones.
You now have 786 BitTorrent websites to search! Get back to us when you get through ‘em all!
Use ‘MetaSearch’ BitTorrent websites.
BitTorrent MetaSearch sites simply use the search engines of other torrent hosting websites, and usually display the data in an aggregated fashion all on one page. This can save oodles of time when searching for specific release titles. Just make sure that you use a good one (see our link above). A few that stand out above the rest are:
Torrent-Finder.com
TorrentScan.com
ScrapeTorrent.com
Search for .torrent files in a Web browser.
There are a few different approaches to this - certainly we’re going to be missing many advanced search options. Regardless, it’s pretty much fruitless to google-search for torrents as-is.
Another solution is to use Google itself, but manipulate the search by using operators. One such operator is “Filetype” - especially designed to help find a specified extension. It works like this: You type in this line in your browser’s search box (or on the Google page, as shown below). Where it says (put something here) simply enter your own criteria - without the brackets. Google will now show only you the results for items that have the *.torrent file extension. NOTE: Use this sparingly - there is almost no information given about the torrents aside from the hosting site.
And here’s a great search tip for finding private BitTorrent trackers that are accepting new signups. In the Google search window, type in one of these:
- /signup.php?code= torrent
- /signup.php?code= tracker
- /account-signup.php?code= torrent
- torrents inurl:signup.php
- tracker inurl:signup.php
Google will now search torrent sites that are currently displaying a signup page (and thus accepting new members). At last check, it came back with over 1,000 results. (No longer must you fumble around with ‘Tracker Checker 2′.)
And if you can’t find what you’re looking for on any BitTorrent websites, why not try our next tip - Search a ‘Crack Website‘ for it.
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