Vortex Network - Mac Tracker Nearing Its End?

January 31, 2010 by sharky

It’s all the rage these days for private trackers to softly threaten their members into donating in order to keep the site afloat. This strategy isn’t entirely new, but the rising trend suggests that the onus is being shifted towards a majority of members who aren’t willfully donating. VortexNetwork, or "eye of the storm" is the latest tracker with one foot in the grave due to a lack of funds, and is scheduled to shut down as early as tomorrow if donation targets aren’t met by the end of January.

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Unique Topsite-Linked Service Provides Scene Releases, Not Torrents

January 29, 2010 by sharky

Scene Access - Coveted by many; enjoyed by few. While that statement isn’t entirely true, one of the most popular email requests we get here at FSF is from readers asking where they can find scene access. Our response is always the same: we can’t help you, not even point you in a vague direction. Until now, that is. We recently discovered a brand-new service offering direct access to scene releases (no torrents, no trackers) straight from the source: topsites. What’s the catch? Just as with private trackers that have access to the latest releases, any tracker sysop can tell you topsites that provide this content aren’t free - and neither is this unique new service known as Scene2Web. Many will dismiss this as being akin to P2L - and who are we to argue? However, this truly one-of-a-kind service offers some distinct advantages & security that not a single tracker can provide. And at just $10, it could even replace your seedbox.

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SilverSeed - A New ‘Scene’ Music Video (MViD) Tracker

January 25, 2010 by sharky

For those who are looking for music videos, we probably don’t have to tell you that most private trackers are not exceptionally resourceful. Unless you’re fortunate enough to have an account to a really good ’scene’ tracker like GFT or perhaps ‘niche’ Music-Vid.com, torrents for music videos are unusually hard to find. Not anymore. SilverSeed.net is a brand-new MViD tracker that’s a must-have for hardcore fans of music videos - and registration is currently open.

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ZeroSec Sold to New Owners, Site Falling Apart?

January 23, 2010 by sharky

ReeGed, the founding member of ZeroSec.ws and one the original 7 that defected from RlsLog.net nearly 18 months ago, announced a few days ago that ZeroSec has been sold to an unnamed buyer. More likely than not, this was the last nail in the coffin for a release blog that’s already been struggling lately to keep up with the scene. In addition to ReeGed, two other key ZS admins have also stepped down - and in fact all three admins have now been locked out of the site. It all goes downhill after that (no fault to ReeGed & Co), as new popup ads will surely repulse even the most devout readers. Somewhere nearby, Martin is silently smirking.

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EuReKA Mutinies Awesome-HD, Joins HD-Torrents

January 22, 2010 by sharky

Today, EuReKA announced he is leaving his very-own tracker in search of greener pastures. Awesome-HD never really did achieve the stellar popularity that he would have expected, thus he finally threw in the towel. EuReKA (aka Rabomil) has unexpectedly announced a partnership with HD-Torrents - well, sort of. Awesome-HD.com is was redirecting over to HD-Torrents.org - which in celebration of their newly prized arrival have decided to open registration for the next 4 or 5 days.

EDIT:   Awesome-HD is now located at http://awesome-hd.net

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Dup3.me - A PreDB With Extended Scene Release Info

January 22, 2010 by sharky

By now, just about everyone has heard about PreDB websites. In a nutshell, a PreDB is simply a giant indexer of scene releases (not the actual files, just the release titles & other information about each rls). PreDB sources may vary, although many are comprised from an aggregated listing of releases found on various topsites and nukenets (high scene stuff, not from public/private IRC #pre channels). Like anything else, PreDB sites come in different flavors of thoroughness & usability. Introducing Dup3.me - v4.0 launched yesterday - by far the most complete pre database on the ‘Net. Scene freaks, you’ll like this!

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Waffles’ Haiti Donation Drive a Smashing Success

January 20, 2010 by sharky

Waffles.fm (and their generous members) has long been known as a private tracker with a big heart when it comes to donation drives - whether it be their participation in the annual Toys For Tots program, or charity food / book drives. Yesterday, Waffles announced a new donation promo to support Haiti, and by the look of things - it’s on pace to easily eclipse any and all records for donation drives thus far in Waffles’ history. Thus far more than 1,500 Wafflers have now participated, bringing in an estimated $75,000 (USD) for Haitian relief - and the numbers are growing fast.

Updates (March 19th): This has now ended. Waffles raised $84,012 | TehConnection - $6,353 | Wunza - $390

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New Seedbox Providers (and Other Seedbox News)

January 17, 2010 by sharky

GGSHQ - 1 Gbit
SeedboxServers
Switchlink
Zazeen
Torrent-Remote
Seedbox4U
RapidSpeeds

Seedbox providers are similar to torrent trackers: both come and go, and only the truly great ones are able to survive in an over-saturated market. After sifting through various FSF seedbox articles, we tagged at least 30 as "dead" providers (listed below) but also came up with 17 new ones (at least 8 of which could be considered trustworthy). Plus, we’ve found a provider that offers a 1 Gbit port (with 250 GB HDD space and unlimited torrents/bandwidth) for less than £50/mo.

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BTRealm Torrent Community, Open For Signups

January 15, 2010 by sharky

In foresight it’s not always easy to gauge whether or not a new BitTorrent discussion (& invite) community will do well, considering the fierce competition from already well-established forums. Thus when a new torrent forum launches, they’re going to need to come up with three key criteria in order to be successful: active members, unique features and experienced staff. Fortunately for BTRealm.net, they possess all three. And unlike other recent startups, BTRealm is directly open for anyone who wants to register - that’s right; no IRC recruitment, no application form, no mandatory introduction post, no profile links or silly speedtests. Registration is scheduled to be open until the end of January.

http://btrealm.net/register.php?do=signup

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Wunza - The Rebirth of a Movie Tracker

January 13, 2010 by sharky

The new Wunza.ws is certainly a movie tracker to watch out for; forget everything you thought you ever knew about this Gazelle-based tracker. New staff, new coders, new IRC guru - Wunza packs some impressive features unseen elsewhere. Reopening as Wunza v2 merely two weeks ago after undergoing a complete overhaul of the design & features; signups are open - but only for a few more days.

UPDATE 1:   Wunza will be a ratio-free tracker as of Feb. 1st 2010.
UPDATE 2: (01/25/2010)   Registration will remain open until 6,500 members have been reached (just 400+ slots left)

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Private Tracker IRC Torrent Auto Downloader Made Easy

January 10, 2010 by sharky

For years torrenters have been using private tracker RSS feeds to filter out and download the latest torrents coming onto the site. While RSS may offer a distinct advantage over conventional ‘browse & download’ when it concerns jumping into a swarm early, it’s no secret that IRC autodl scripts easily beat out their RSS cousin by as much as 15 minutes (an eternity on What.CD or BMTV). Most trackers that announce new releases (torrents) in an IRC channel will offer a specific customized IRC script to accomplish this (IRSSI), but that’s not the topic for this tutorial. Instead, we’ve discovered a brand new plugin for ChatZilla that supports several different private tracker #announce channels for the purpose of downloading & filtering .torrents, and then it automatically sends these torrent files to a local or remote BitTorrent client.

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ScenePalace.org - A New ‘Scene’ 0day Tracker Launches

January 08, 2010 by sharky

ScenePalace.ORG - quite possibly the Internet’s first 2010 tracker, also happens to be one of the better ’scene’ trackers to emerge in recent history. ScP is purposely absent from our latest list of new trackers in order to avoid confusion with ScenePalace.com - and also to provide readers with a closer look into this brand-new 0sec/0day tracker. Already ranked #8 in pretimes for releases in both spam and non-spam categories, ScP is showing amazing potential - here’s a tracker not to be overlooked.

Update Jan 17th: ScenePalace is now closed for registration.

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Tracker Ratio Cheating ‘Online App’ Now A Reality

January 04, 2010 by sharky

Traders. Scammers. Invite Sellers. Cheaters. If there aren’t already enough ways to wind up banned at private trackers, there’s a brand-new online app that can help you achieve your goal. Move over, uTraitor - RatioCheat is a clientless webservice that allows users to upload their .torrent files to build fake ratio statistics on private tracker accounts.

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DVDRSource and TVSource Merge to Create New Scene Tracker ‘XNT’

January 02, 2010 by sharky

With 2010 being just a couple of days old, already two new trackers have dropped off the Internet - sadly DVDRSource.org and TVSource.org are no longer with us. While this could be considered a tragic event, we think you’ll agree that the outcome is better than the sum of its parts - both trackers have merged into one new "Excellent" tracker at www.xnt.nu. Gone are the old limits of just DVDR & TV releases; XNT is an impressive all-encompassing ‘general’ scene tracker that’s really taken off with a bang. Registration is currently open but don’t expect this to last forever.

EDIT: 2010-01-06 Public registration is now closed.

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TorrentLeech Invites Being Handed Out On IRC

January 01, 2010 by sharky

If there was a People’s Choice award for best tracker, few would argue that TorrentLeech is at the top of the list. For those last few holdouts who don’t yet possess an account at TorrentLeech, what have you been waiting for? TL is currently offering invites through IRC, but don’t delay; this is said to end in roughly 12 hours.

EDIT: TL Invites through the channel are now closed.

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