this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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A lot of my files were shitty 480p versions of movies from the Napster days. Now they're all 1080p, with a few 720p exceptions (mainly tv series episodes). All in all 500 something files in total. Now just watching uTorrent slowly download them all. Hopefully my VPN keeps the eyes off of me...

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[–] [email protected] 241 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You re-downloaded your media to get better quality files.

I re-downloaded my media because I misconfigured Radarr.

We are not the same.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Also, pro-tip: When configuring Radarr (or Sonarr for that matter), be sure to define a recycle bin.

I woke up the next morning with all my media wiped. That was in June/July. I'm still recovering.

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[–] [email protected] 115 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (11 children)

Now just watching uTorrent slowly download them all. Hopefully my VPN keeps the eyes off of me…

  1. qbittorrent is better in many many ways compared to utorrent and hasa very similar interface. qbit is open-source, utorrent isn't. qbit doesn't have ads or malware, utorrent has or has had both many times. qbit allows you to bind to a specific network interface (e.g. you VPN connection instead of regular ethernet one) which offer better protection if your vpn drops. feel free to do your own research here or elsewhere on the web if you doubt any of my points.
  2. if your VPN is a free one, that wont protect you at all. those guys will squeal and turn over server logs with ip address at the drop of a hat. Even a lot of paid-for VPNs are shitty lying bastards. So picking a good vpn can be challenging there are probably posts here covering recommendations but generally you want ones that have either been taken to court and were unable to provide logs OR ones that have been audited by a respected 3rd party firm that can confirm they are truly a "no log VPN". I can recommend PIA, NordVPN, and Mullvad as some ones that are highly unlikely to turn over any logs (bc they don't have them) but there are others and doing your own research isn't a bad thing. The site torrentfreak.com does an article once a year or so that covers a few of the more popular VPNs and different aspects of thier privacy but they don't declare a "best vpn", just rate them on varius privacy and security aspects.
  3. Even if you have a good VPN, check that you aren't leaking your real IP via dns lookups: ipleak.net or dnsleaktest.com
  4. Check that you torrent client set up not to leak: search for 'torrent ip leak test' and do one of the torrent ip leak tests. ipleak.net hasone of these if you scroll down on the page; look for "Torrent Address detection" and click "Activate" button and it will give a magnet link to start test with
  5. additionally, you can set up a "vpn killswitch" to prevent traffic from going over regular internet if you vpn drops. If you using qbit, this probably isn't strictly required but many people here like to have this as an additional safety. i can't really provide details on this bc the process varies widely. A lot of VPN client apps have this feature built in. But even if they don't, you can set something like this up in most firewalls but exact steps will vary depending on OS (Windows/Linux/Mac) and which firewall you are using (or I guess whether or not you even have one installed).
[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

you can set up a “vpn killswitch” ...... A lot of VPN client apps have this feature built in.

Most quality VPNs will have a killswitch built in and enabled automatically, with nothing to setup, but they are notoriously unreliable and can fail. The key term people want to search for is "bind." You want to bind qBit to your VPN. If your VPN isn't working, qBit doesn't have a connection. Most decent, privacy first, "no log" VPNs (Mullvad, Proton, AirVPN, iVPN, etc.) will provide instructions on binding. This is above and beyond their built-in killswitch.

I can recommend PIA, NordVPN

I'm not saying you shouldn't recommend these, or that people shouldn't use them, but IMO, people should at least be warned to search for the following, so they can make an informed decision:

  1. “kape technologies malware” (Kape owns Private Internet Access, which is why I switched to Mullvad years ago when Kape bought PIA)
  2. "nordvpn data breach"
[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (7 children)

NordVPN also doesn't have port forwarding so you're unlikely to be able to seed anything back. This'll get you banned from private trackers and goes against the whole concept of torrenting.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Excellent info. Thank you!

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 11 months ago (3 children)

People still use that malware of a client???

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

uTorrent 2.2.1 Build 25154 is good. There's a few builds of uTorrent that are fine.

But yeah, qbittorrent is the default "why didn't you use it?" client.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

It's good in the sense that it's the last version before it got enshittified by ads, but the now nearly-legendary v2.2.1 is also 5 years behind in security patches. It was an awesome, fast, stable client and I miss it, but I don’t think it's worth the risk. Like you and everyone else has been saying, OP should be using Qbittorent.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Which would your suggest? It's been a long time since I've had to do a little pirating.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (1 children)

qBitTorrent is one of the standard clients.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks! I'll give it a go after this is all done downloading.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Tixati, Deluge and Transmission are also good, modern clients

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

A lot of the private trackers I use specifically block its usage.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Radar and sonarr would just automatically upgrade those for you. No need to mass delete and redownload.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You really shouldn't use uTorrent. There are a number of safer and better open source alternatives out there.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Qbittorrent is my favorite client but there are a couple of great alternatives like Transmission or Deluge.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Can confirm Transmission and Deluge are both solid

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago (4 children)

You have triggered me by mentioning uTorrent.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

My apologies. I'll be discontinuing it's use after this project is done.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Pretty easy to do with just 500 fies. That's just 2/3 of the Simpsons.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (21 children)

Should probably switch to qbtorrent. What VPN are you using?

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

I raw dog my torrents with no VPN

Can someone tell me the actual risks involved? I always thought it was so you didn't get your ISP up your ass and shut you off, my power company is my ISP and they don't give a shit

What really am I risking here?

Edit: US

[–] [email protected] 41 points 11 months ago

Depends where you live. In some countries nothing. In other countries fines. In some death penalty.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago

Me, Germany, 20 years of no VPN = nothing ever happend Friend of me, also germany, downloads Minecraft once without VPN = 800€ cease and desist letter So yeah. Pretty much a gamble.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

One of three things, one your ISP doesn't give a shit and nothing happens. Two, you get nasty-grams telling you to cease or have your service cut, three your information gets forwarded to the copyright owners company and you possibly are fined or worse brought in by a lawsuit.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Depends on where you are. Depending on country it can range from no one giving a shit, over to getting letters from your ISP, over to getting smaller fines, up to getting railed for your life.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (4 children)

And all of that wouldnt be possible if you legally purchased all of this

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (16 children)

Sonarr/Radarr will do this for you automagically for most TV and Movies, never have to visit a dodgy torrent site again.

Started setting it up years ago and over time re-downloaded all those shitty yify rips with full fat bluray remuxes wherever available and the highest quality possible otherwise. Hit 100tb pretty quickly lol.

I have my rig set up to automatically upgrade to bluray remuxes when available, then once they are older than 1 month and over a certain filesize they get automatically compressed with a fairly slow, low crf H265-10bit encode with FileFlows to cut their size roughly in half while still being visually perfect on the normal TVs, all 4k content stays untouched for the main theatre.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

that would take me awhile. im up to ~30,000 episodes of 'shows' and 2,500 movies

ive been recently doing the same..grabbing the 4k versions of stuff that matters.

my fav config is gluetun+deluge for a containerized seedbox

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Don’t radarr and sonarr download better versions automatically? Seems these measures were drastic.

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