September 10, 2009 by sharky
Prelude: Searching for Magazines
Look to Torrents: Torrent trackers are mainly hit-&-miss. Most private trackers don’t offer magazines (aside from specialized eBook trackers which may or may not provide anything related directly to magazine scans; case-in-point - BitMe.org which has very little mainstream content). Private eLearning/eBook trackers should not be necessarily bundled with the word "magazine". However, public trackers are a much better source. Mininova has a decent magazine section here, and in particular one exceptional uploader named malestrom provides nearly 50% of all Mininova’s magazine scans. Great peers on the torrents, too.
Just Blog It: Sincere Scene Blogs don’t usually cater to magazine releases, since most release groups shy away from content that is so easily attainable. You won’t see releasers on topsites or IRC prechans racing to get out that latest issue of Maxim Mag - this just does not occur. Nonetheless, other blogs are very much active in these smaller non-scene releases - which we’ll get to later.
Warez Forums: An absolute goldmine for eBooks, magazine scans and the ilk. Problem is, most are disorganized & visually unappealing (it’s a forum, after all) making it difficult to sort through incoming content - aside from using the search function. Despite this, forums are a great resource.
FileHoster / RapidShare Search Engines: Truly not the best way to search for specific magazines (or anything else for that matter). Ever used RapidLibrary.com to search for the keywords Playboy or Maxim? - the results are utterly useless. Uploaders at Blogs & Forums which post relevant, working links to magazine downloads will never use the word "playboy" in the title of the download link - this spells absolute disaster.
Use Google to Search FileHosters: Perhaps overly sophisticated, and even then likely won’t provide the desired results - but it does work to some extent. In the example below (for RapidShare), the search will show results that contain files from RS LinkLists which have been created by both free and premium members. We won’t delve into it too deeply - since Google operators extend far beyond the example, but here’s a rudimentary explanation on how it works:
As an example - to search for "maxim", paste the line below into your browser’s Google search window (not the address bar):
maxim site:rapidshare.com -filetype:zip OR rar OR pdf
Note: Generally there are three criteria that can be adjusted when doing this search:
- filename: Replace "maxim" (without quotes) to a different name.
- site: This can be changed to other filehosters, to search specific hosters.
- filetype: Can be customized to include/exclude certain file extensions.
More Sites to Download Free Magazines & eBooks
Many of the sites listed below offer much more than just magazines & eBooks. We attempted to list these in order of our own personal preference which pertain mainly to magazines, starting with the best user experience.
http://gigapedia.info
Site Format: Uncategorized.Content: Everything
UPDATE: 09/20/09 - At the time of publication, Gigapedia was still open, but is now just an eBook search site that uses Google operators. RIP Gigapedia - you were one of the best. Use http://gigle.ws now instead.
http://magbooks.org
Site Format: Blog.Content: Mostly mainstream mags
About: Easy to peruse Magbooks.org has been online since October ‘08 and currently lists more than 850 magazines in all. Most of the content pertains to mainstream English magazines, without overdoing it on the computer/IT releases. The categories are easy to browse, and the onsite search works perfectly - further testimonial to an already sharp-looking blog.
http://ebook30.com/magazine/
Site Format: Blog.Content: Everything
About: Simply put; very-popular eBook30.com is an amazing source for magazines & eBooks. As with all categories on the site, magazine releases are broken down into sub-cats for easy browsing. While you won’t find this statistic on their site, eBook30 lists a whopping 12,600 separate articles just for magazines alone.
http://get-magazine.blogspot.com
Site Format: Blog.Content: Mostly adult
About: We’ll cut to the chase - if you seek the latest Playboy/Penthouse scans, you’ve hit the right blogspot with get-magazine.blogspot.com. Not much else here (aside some Maxims), but in their defense, they’re offering older issues republished with fresh DDL links. Take it or leave it.
www.free-ebook-download.net
Site Format: Forum.Content: Everything
About: FED is a general eBook forum, but the most popular section is their "Magazine Subscriptions" with over 3,350 different threads, which also contains a subforum for adult mags. Registration is not required to view threads or download the links.
http://knowfree.net
Site Format: Blog.Content: Mostly IT/computer
About: We’re not certain where KnowFree is headed, since they haven’t posted a new release since August 24th. In any event, KnowFree serves up mostly IT & computer-related content, which makes up for more than 80% of the site’s total 10,000+ posts. Just don’t expect to find any Maxim, Cosmopolitan, Playboy or Cross-Stitching-Weekly. OK, we made up that last one, but certainly there must be cross-stitching magazines.
http://west-magz.blogspot.com
Site Format: Blog.Content: Everything
About: This Blogspot site offers a little bit of everything, and even offers magazine titles in their categories list. While some of the content is multi-national, their English section currently boasts an impressive 1,125 magazines.
http://www.freebooksclub.net
Site Format: Blog/DDL.Content: Everything
About: Listing over 6,450 separate releases, FreeBooksClub has an eclectic array of content, including more than 2,100 different magazines to choose from (tons of mainstream - entertainment - adult content). Their onsite search performs without a hitch - you’ll be needing it to hone in on specific magazines.
http://www.ccebook.cn
Site Format: Blog.Content: Mostly eBooks
About: While traditionally a Chinese blog for eBooks & mags, there’s an option to select English on the site - as most releases are English anyways. Indexing nearly 10,800 different titles - books have extended info such as price, description, publishing company and ISBN numbers. To make a snatch, you’ll need to click the "Download eBook" tab that’s shown above the title of each release. While not well-known as a magazine website, CCEbook does offer a generous helping in their free magazine newspaper scans area.
http://www.b213.net
Site Format: Uncategorized.Content: Varies
About: www.b213.net is one of the oddest (or interesting) magazine/eBook sites we’ve ever come across, but worthy of taking a look at. Presented much in the style of a Dupecheck or DDL indexing website which displays a plain list of entries - although the difference being that at B213 each release is directly clickable to a filehoster (RapidShare is used mostly). You won’t see any screenshots or reviews - just titles; although the displayed categories and site search both work great.
http://ebookhouse.org
Site Format: Blog.Content: IT/learning
About: eBookHouse is almost exclusively devoted to learning eBook/magazine (IT/computer & sciences), with almost no mainstream (entertainment) content. Total topics listed ~2,500.
www.centralddl.com
Site Format: Blog/DDL.Content: Everything
About: We couldn’t possibly list all the DDL sites & blogs that have magazines. To name just two, CentralDDL has an impressive selection of over 1,500 in their mags section. Avaxdownload is another great site, and lists over 2,000 mags with browsable sub-categories. NOTE: The search function for both of these sites is only available to registered members - so you’ll want to login/create an account to get full access.
http://freeonlinebookstore.org
Site Format: unknown.Content: Non-Fiction/eLearn
About: FreeOnlineBookstore caters mostly towards non-fiction books & magazines and lists more than 5,000 individual titles. Nearly everything is hosted off-site and is ‘legal’ to download.
Other Sites:
http://www.topviewed.info — Mostly techie and science, but has a magazine section - here. Site is somewhat difficult to browse, and their site search uses Google. Apparently the .rar files are password-protected, but we saw no signs of this in our tests.
http://downarchive.info/ebooks/magazine — A DDL site/blog that lists more than 660 different magazine releases.
http://magazinload.org — A German site with mainstream stuff (not to mention mostly-German magazines) however, take a look in each category - as their are language/country flags listed next to each magazine.
http://www.gfxtoday.org — You won’t find much here that isn’t related to IT - this blog focuses exclusively on graphics (3D models, clipart, Photoshop etc).
http://www.updatebooks.com — Mostly IT-related (design, web, programming) as well as sciences and general eLearning releases. However, does have a few magazines found here.
http://www.wpspot.info — Offers IT/computer content, as well as video training.
http://www.bookitplus.net — Another IT-related eBook & magazine blog.
http://www.ebooksz.biz — Yet another mostly IT/science/engineering site, but offers a small magazine section - found here.
http://pirateking.pi.funpic.de — A somewhat strange place with exceptionally old content, but loads of it - so if you’re searching for something pre-2006, give it a shot. It’s unknown if registration still works at their homepage - so this may or may not assist you (so just click this link to gain access instead).
http://cnx.org — No magazines here, but worth mentioning anyways. ConneXions is a growing database inclined towards shared knowledge related to eLearning, sciences and other user-submitted content - a great resource for brainiacs.
http://www.journal-plaza.net — A Russian site, also contains some English magazines. At last check they listed over 4,500 entries/posts.
http://freedowns.net/magazine/ — Contains more than 2,300 ‘posts’ in their magazine section.
http://www.retromags.com — Forum-style site that requires registration. Currently lists more than 39,000 downloads.
Enjoy the mags! - Sharky
Archived by FSFmirror
