November 20, 2009 by sharky
In our Part I on scene trackers, we conclude that most torrenters can easily attain the majority of scene releases provided by the Top Three. Each being somewhat different in what they provide, but collectively they’re invaluable assets for an overall portrayal of scene content. While scene is the standard, there’s also a wide appeal for non-scene (P2P) content found on general/0day trackers. In fact, the most popular trackers aren’t ’scene’ at all - which brings us to our list of the Top Three general trackers for 0day, scene & P2P releases.
Multiple Scene Trackers — There’s really not much point in having membership at two dozen scene trackers, since most will just mirror the same content anyways to a certain degree. ScT, SCC, GFT and TorrentVault are considered the go-to trackers in terms of thoroughness for both spam and non-spam scene releases. Arguably there are alternatives that might be more community-oriented, yet in terms of content these four aptly get the job done. But there’s something that scene trackers are lacking - and that’s non-scene P2P releases & user-uploaded content.
Multiple General/0Day Trackers — Using the same reasoning, it’s unnecessary to possess accounts at a multitude of different general/0day trackers. For the most part, torrent redundancy is widespread and pretimes mean much less at this level. Retention, peers & speeds are more important - as well as access to both scene & P2P releases, internals and exclusive uploaders. While there is some discrepancy based upon which general trackers are considered to be the best, most will conclude that TorrentLeech, RevolutionTT and IPTorrents are the top three.
| Torrents: | Daily Torrents: | Members: | Online Since: | |
| IPTorrents | 91,500 | 380-450 | 100,000? | April 2006 |
| RevolutionTT | 29,300 | 150-200 | 49,500 | April 2006 |
| TorrentLeech | 24,300 | 225-300 | 180,000 | January 2005 |
TorrentLeech - Why you need it:
- • Loads of fresh content. — TL adds anywhere from 225 to 300 new torrents daily (upwards of 8,000 torrents each month). Content is diverse; and consists of scene releases, P2P releases & internals.
- • Amazing uploaders. — TL has some decent sceneaxx, but their strongpoint is in the uploaders. Just about every ‘non-spam’ scene release will make it to TL, as well as special non-scene P2P encodes that are just as popular.
- • Great feedback on the torrents. — TL’s forum isn’t worth writing home about, but member comments through torrents is quite stellar. Feedback from the uploader is often included, and comments in torrents are taken seriously (and moderated by a team).
- • Fast browsing. — Apparently TL uses 14 servers (it’s not known if any of these are used directly for hosting ’seedbox’ torrents) but browsing TL’s site is always impeccably fast.
- • Subs. — Offers subtitles for the majority of releases.
- • Has open registration (sort of). — TL often will open the door through IRC recruitment, which is intentionally unannounced.
- • Low-ratio OK. — TL requires members to achieve & maintain a global ratio of 0.4 and a per-torrent ratio of 0.4, which is quite lenient. (I’ve H&R’d many torrents and never received a ‘warning’ - which suggests this isn’t exactly a top priority, although I don’t suggest you tempt fate).
- • NFO ASCII. — Inside torrent descriptions, ASCII-art from NFO file is correctly shown.
- • Unique Browse Categories. — Appz (PDA); 10 Different Games Categories; Movies/Retro; Documentaries; NonScene/BRRip-x264; NonScene/BRRip-XviD; Movies/Foreign.
TorrentLeech - Why you need a secondary 0day tracker:
- • Low retention for older releases. — Despite the number of members, TL’s retention tapers off drastically after the first two months - which is not uncommon for 0day trackers. TL adds approximately 6,000 - 8,000 new torrents each month, but only lists ~25,000 total active torrents at any given time (which suggests an average torrent lifespan of 3-4 months). Older torrents - especially scene 0day-apps are particularly hard to find.
- • No request system. — Not entirely true; there is a request thread in their forums, but it’s not a system that is directly associated with the tracker (with bounties, notifications, voting system, etc). Filled requests are never announced as a "tag" on upped torrents, so members’ only hope is to watch the forum or repeatedly query the tracker for the title of a request.
- • Doesn’t index adult torrents. — You’ll need to find a different tracker for your pr0n torrents, TL is a family-friendly tracker.
- • Desolate forums. — Amazingly, TL’s forums are devoid of life. 118K total posts among 180K current members can only suggest that most aren’t visiting the forums.
- • Needs "pack" categories. — Aside from TL’s applaudable "Episodes/Boxset" category for TV releases, all other ‘packs’ (and there are many) are strewn randomly throughout other categories. For example; TL has some great movie packs, but they’re shoved into the "Movies/XviD" cat.
- • "VIP". — VIP could be better, and is inclined towards new TL members. Donators get just 3 months of "VIP" which includes 2 invites and no slot/wait time restrictions regardless of ratio or class - so you’ll be able to download as much as you like & not have to wait out the time limit on torrents. Also, there’s a special VIP forum area.
- • Needs more User Classes. — There’s just User, Power User and VIP/donator available to regular members. No incentive to transcend in user class once you make it to PU, aside from VIP.
- • No HTTPS site, no HTTPS tracker. — Tl should at least offer an option for SSL on the website, if not the tracker. This is a topic that’s been brought up before at TL and went nowhere.
- • No Freeleech torrents. — Seeding is a breeze anyways, but it can be difficult for new members to remove the slot restrictions & wait times. Having zero freeleech torrents is not an accident, and promotes donations - and TL isn’t alone in this.
RevolutionTT - Why you need it:
- • Good request system. — Can’t find it? Then ask for it. More likely than not RTT uploaders will find a release for you. Members can also fill requests and vote/comment on them. Torrents filled as requests are tagged by [REQ].
- • Fast TV Pretimes. — RTT is well-known for their TV releases (lists 9,280 TV torrents in various categories), with great pretimes on individual episodes.
- • HTTPS (SSL). — RTT offers an optional HTTPS site & tracker.
- • Pack Categories. — Music/movie/TV packs can be found in their own browse categories (RTT currently has 1,300 packs).
- • Adult content. — RTT has most of the major ‘non-spam’ scene adult releases (XviD, DVDR and HD) without the junky siterips & imagesets.
- • Decent Retention. — The average life of a torrent is about 5½ months, longer than most 0day/general trackers.
- • Unique Browse Categories. — Handheld/PSP; TV-DVDR; XXX-DVDR; XXX-HD; Movies/Non-English; multiple pack categories.
- • Donate Options. — Members can either choose to donate for VIP status or for upload GBs (but not both through the same donation).
RevolutionTT - Why you need a secondary 0day tracker:
- • Oops, you’ve been deleted. — Inactive accounts are pruned too quickly if you forget to login. You’ll get a 48-hour notice before this happens, although if you haven’t checked that particular gmail account recently, you may be out of luck. So be sure to login to RTT (on the site) at least once a month, and just because you’re actively seeding torrents doesn’t make you exempt.
- • No auto-invites. — Invites are not automatically granted to qualifying members, and will need to be requested in a forum thread (usually for a max of 2 at a time).
- • Strict Ratio Rules. — RTT is somewhat strict on the allowable minimum ratio for members (although seeding is easy). Anyone under 0.29 will be automatically disabled; under 0.5 and download privileges are removed; all Power Users are required to hold a ratio above 1.05; and even VIPs (donators) need to keep at least a 0.9 ratio to avoid the wait times. All members who fall below 0.8 (after downloading 10GBs or more) will be automatically banned.
- • No Freeleech. — Like many general trackers, there are no freeleech torrents at RTT.
IPTorrents - Why you need it:
- • Request system. — Similar to RTT, IPT has a great request system.
- • High Torrent Count. — 91,500 active torrents says it all. IPT has added 800 new torrents in the past 48 hours (and 12,500 in the past 30 days).
- • Bonus Points. — Members are rewarded for seeding ‘complete’ torrents with bonus points which can be swapped for upload GBs.
- • iPod Content. — IPT has an amazing assortment of TV/Movie releases (MP4s) for the iPod (6,665 torrents combined).
- • Freeleech Torrents. — Currently lists more than 4,400 freeleech torrents. TIP: The only way to filter the torrents to show freeleech is to do a site search for "FreeLeech".
- • Adult content. — IPT indexes 8,700+ adult torrents.
- • Sports. — Unlike most general trackers, IPT has a section devoted to sports releases (which lists 2,450 active torrents).
- • Appz Searching. — Whereas TL & RTT offer daily 0Day Packs for appz, it’s impossible to search for releases that are listed within these packs (we tried). Since IPT lists each 0day-app release as it’s own separate torrent, it’s much easier to search for smaller hard-to-find 0day releases.
- • Decent Retention. — The average life of a torrent at IPT is about 4 months.
- • Unique Browse Categories. — iPod/TV; iPod/Movies; Kids; Mobile; Audiobooks; Movies/FLAWL3SS; Movies/Non-English; Sports; Pics/Wallpapers.
IPTorrents - Why you need a secondary 0day tracker:
- • Junk in XXX. — While there are adult scene releases & nice packs, the majority of the content here is just random user-uploaded small clips, imagesets & siterips.
- • Small Torrents. — 50% of IPT’s torrents are under 272 MB in size. While IPT indexes more than 13,100 torrents in their Appz/Misc category, less than 2,300 of these are larger than 50 MB. Lots of crap can be found which includes individual fonts, unlockers, keygens & cheats - which overinflates IPT’s torrent count.
- • Slow DL Speeds. — It goes without saying that popular torrents are very fast, but in comparison to other general trackers (TL & RTT), DL speeds are generally slower for torrents that have few seeders.
- • Few NFO files. — Unless the uploader has included part of the NFO file in the torrent description, most releases don’t contain viewable NFO files (aside from downloading them in the actual torrents).
- • Descriptions. — Since IPT is an uploader’s tracker, the quality of torrent descriptions (torrent ‘details’ page) can vary - some are well done, others not so.
- • Redundant Content. — Of all the general/0day trackers, IPTorrents has the highest redundancy rate for similarly-named releases. As an example, there have been 20 torrents added for the new movie "2012" since November 16th - we can assure you that half of them you won’t have a clue as to who the so-called "P2P Group" is. That’s a problem for any tracker that has dozens and dozens of uploaders.
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