Private Trackers
For more in-depth discussion of private trackers: /r/trackers
#Private trackers
To start off, bear in mind that buying invites will result in a very high chance of you getting banned from the tracker. It is very easy for trackers to catch you, since invites that are sold are harvested from stolen/compromised accounts. Not only will this result in wasted money on your part, it is hugely detrimental to the health of private trackers. Also note that begging for invites is highly frowned upon due to the fact that members are responsible for the people they invite. If the invitee gets in trouble for any reason, it reflects back upon the inviter, potentially affecting their ability to further invite people, and if the offence is serious enough, then both users may get banned from the tracker.
As a result of the above, those familiar with how private trackers work will know not to beg for invites. Consequently, the only thing beggars are achieving is indicating that they are terrible candidates for receiving an invite.
► What is a private tracker?
Private trackers are loosely defined as private torrent sites where a membership is required in order to download their torrents. An accurate description would separate private trackers into 2 parts: the tracker itself and the website that accompanies it. A torrent tracker is a server that tracks peers in a torrent swarm and assigns/connects peers to each other based on its own internal criteria. The tracker then reports to the website which, on top of providing a download link to the torrent file, will display all relevant info for that torrent, including peer/seed counts and optionally a peer list if the website operator chooses to include it.
Unlike public trackers, these are not a free-for-all buffet. You need to contribute back (by uploading) a certain amount proportional to the amount you have "taken" from the tracker. This arrangement can vary a lot from tracker to tracker. Private trackers track this balance of contribution by a "ratio", which is simply a ratio of uploaded data, divided by your downloaded data. If you downloaded a total of 2GB and uploaded a total of 4GB, that would make your ratio a 2.0. Trackers will sometimes have different methods of maintaining an acceptable ratio, either by offering bonuses the longer you keep your torrents seeding, to providing "half-leech" or "freeleech" content. Freelech content is the most commonly used method, which means the torrent that is marked as freeleech is free to download, meaning it does not count against your Download stats, giving you an opportunity to gain upload from it without sacrificing any "download buffer". Some torrent trackers are "ratioless", meaning they don't require you to maintain any sort of ratio in order to keep using the site, they just require a minimum seed-time on all downloaded torrents (which is usually also a requirement on ratio pure trackers, but typically the seed-time isn't as lengthy as on ratioless trackers).
► What are the benefits of private trackers when compared to public trackers?
Better speeds and longer seed retention. Private trackers tend to offer better speeds and retain seeds for much longer periods of time than public trackers, so they are especially useful for older and non-mainstream content.
Better organization and curation of content. Trackers tend to have a specific focus (ie. movies-only, TV shows-only, music-only), which gives them the ability to carefully curate the content that goes on their tracker and weed out low quality content. Many of the high tier private trackers are able to provide much higher quality content than can be found on public trackers. Many good trackers have a "trumping" rule in place that allow a particular movie for example, to be replaced by a higher quality release. For example, PTP (the #1 movie tracker) allows a certain number of slots for each specific format (one 576p upload, one DVD slot for each PAL and NTSC, two 720p encodes, two 1080p encodes, one remux, etc), which allows a listing for a specific movie to only have the best releases listed in order to allow ease of use so that users don't have to spend time choosing which release is the best -- the tracker already lists the best for you. Here is an example of a listing for a popular movie on PTP, which also shows how much better organized private trackers can be.
Better security. You don't have to worry about downloading malware as a lot trackers have staff members dedicated to checking the validity of torrents uploaded to the tracker. Another aspect to better security is the vast decrease in the chances of receiving a copyright infringement complaint from your ISP, since anti-piracy suits will prefer to target the low-hanging fruit, namely the publicly and easily monitored public torrent sites like TPB/1337x/rarbg, etc. which have millions of daily users.
Requests. Private trackers will tend to have a dedicated "Requests" section where you can request for missing material relevant to the tracker.
Keep in mind that many trackers are considered "starter" trackers, meaning the requirements to get into these isn't very stringent. A lot of these won't have much content to speak of and will typically have even less content than public trackers. Many of these trackers have open signups from time to time (see /r/opensignups). Higher tier trackers will have a larger selection of high quality content, and as such, will have much more stringent requirements before being able to join.
Some more discussions regarding this topic:
Why are private trackers so much better than public ones? [Reddit Thread]
Public vs Private trackers [Reddit Thread]
► How do I get started with private trackers?
You won't get into any tracker (especially the elite ones) by begging for invites. If the invitee gets in trouble for any reason, it reflects back upon the inviter, potentially affecting their ability to further invite others, and if the offense is serious enough then both users may get banned from the tracker.
Option 1:
The best way of joining private trackers is through recruitment threads (invite forums) on other trackers. In order to access a tracker's invite forums, you need to rank up -- each tracker will have diferent requirements for ranking up, but will include uploading new content in some capacity. "Power User" is typically the rank required to access a tracker's invite forums. With this in mind, it seems like getting into that other tracker requires you to have a presence in the 1st tracker. That 1st tracker is called the entry tracker which you can join with no prior tracker experience.
There are a few starting trackers but the advice most veterans will give you is to start off with RED (Redacted), which is a music-oriented tracker that gives you a chance to interview with them to join (interviewfor.red). It is an elite-tier tracker so other high tier trackers will recruit at RED's invite forums.
RED may be the starting point from which you can get into other high tier trackers, but it has a difficult-to-maneuver ratio economy, which might be exceedingly difficult for newbies who have never been in a private tracker before. If you find yourself to be one of those users, it is recommended that you try your hand at the 2nd best starter tracker, MAM. It is one of the easiest trackers to maintain ratio on.
Then, once you feel comfortable, you go to apply at RED. The reason to do this is because you are only allowed 1 account per lifetime, so if you are a new user inexperienced with maneuvering around a private tracker, there is a high chance that you will mess up with RED's difficult economy (and therefore getting your account disabled due to low ratio) and lose your chances at joining other elite trackers.
However, a lot of the trackers that recruit at RED will require an account age of 6-12 months (on top of the Power User or Elite rank requirements) before you are eligible to be recruited. To get the clock ticking on your RED account age as soon as possible, it is recommended to apply to RED first, and if you pass the RED Interview, forget about using the tracker for a while (aside from logging in once every 4 months to avoid being pruned for inactivity), while you practice with another ratio-pure tracker, as we stated above. TorrentLeech is recommended (sometimes pops up at /r/OpenSignups), since it has a somewhat difficult economy and you will develop the necessary knowledge. Once you're comfortable with how private trackers work, set your focus back to RED and work on ranking up.
Option 2:
If you don't have any intentions of joining any elite trackers because you feel the requirements are too stringent for you, you may take an alternate route in order to join other respectable trackers with a very good catalogue of material (Check the bottom section of this page for the categories these trackers excel at). This method is the same as the above, ie. get your feet wet with an /r/opensignups tracker, once you feel comfortable moving on, use your ratio proofs from that tracker and apply to MAM (MyAnonaMouse), which is an ebook/e-learning oriented tracker and is much easier to work with than RED. MAM is a very good tracker in its own right, so many respectable trackers do recruit there.
Alternatively, Blutopia, PrivateHD, BeyondHD, and MTV have open applications from time to time (/r/opensignups tends to announce open applications as well). So instead of applying to MAM, you can wait for news regarding these 4 trackers' announcements of open applications (applications will typically require ratio proofs from other trackers), then apply to get access to a large amount of content. They will require ratio proofs from other trackers (at least 2) in their application.
Keep in mind that ratio proofs from public trackers are worthless. There are a few private trackers whose ratio proofs are also equally worthless due to those trackers' tendency to be very hostile towards other trackers, going as far as ddosing them and attacking them in other ways, which is why they are referred to as "The Insidious Six" or the "scum6" by the tracker community, or alternatively, "The IPT mafia" because they are all owned by the IPT operator. Some of these trackers are IPTorrents, TorrentDay, TorrenTing, speed.cd, SceneTime and Deildu -- no respectable tracker will care about your ratio proofs from these trackers, and as such, being part of the aforementioned 6 trackers will not benefit you in any way in regards to advancing onto better trackers. If you choose to join any one of these (the only one worth joining is IPT, however), make sure to not interact with the community (No posting on forums or commenting on releases) to keep any sort of spotlight off yourself, as people have been known to be banned for very little reason from these trackers.
Option 3:
Use this option if you cannot use the other 2 for any reason at all. Couple of examples -
Trying to join trackers where there is no recruitment threads or any application system (e.g. PTP, BTN, HDB etc)
If you don't have access to RED/MAM's or to their invite forums for any reason at all.
So here you get involved in the community and start "networking", in forums and irc (and/or more). Slowly you will develop contacts which will invite you top trackers. This includes PTP, BTN, HDB etc which currently cannot be joined through options 1 & 2.
There are some drawbacks. Here is a list -
You'll be spending more time. Going through invite forums is faster most of the times.
There is a high degree of unpredictability and luck involved. Progress might be very slow or fast depending upon your internet social skills and luck.
You'll be joining through user invites. You seriously don't want that. If the user that invites you makes trouble, you might get in trouble. There is no such risk with official invites
You're more prone to "collecting" trackers, especially when compared to option 1. Using 1, you just go for whatever tracker you want, you don't have to jump through multiple trackers.
Overview of tracker categories
► Elite/High Tier Trackers:
HDBits, PTP, and BTN are the end-game trackers most people strive for in regards to Movies and TV, as their selection of content and quality is unmatched by any other private tracker; the requirements to join these trackers are very high and take a long time to achieve. HDBits is the source of a lot of the content that ends up being uploaded to PTP and BTN, so even members of BTN and PTP find it exceedingly difficult (even impossible) to join HDBits. Since the content uploaded to HDBits end up being uploaded to PTP and BTN anyway, many choose to stay and enjoy the vast content available in the latter 2 trackers. HDBits does also specialize in a few other categories that PTP and BTN do not offer a category for, namely x265 1080p encodes by HDBits' extremely talented group of encoders (No, Tigole isn't up to par) and a selection of audio tracks that are offered as separate downloads from the movie, offered as "alternative language" audio tracks. These categories are considered niche though, so the attention given to these is not as extensive as that what is given to x264 encodes. This is to be expected, as x265 is still an incomplete encoder compared to x264.
Bibliotik and TheGeeks are the best trackers for books and e-learning content, respectively. These have very high requirements to join as well, though luckily, unlike with the above 3 elite trackers, there are other trackers that have very good content that can serve as very good alternatives and have much more lenient requirements to join, namely MyAnonaMouse (MAM) and BitSpider.
For Music, RED is the best music tracker and considered to be an elite-tier tracker, which is why so many other elite trackers choose to recruit there. Luckily, they offer an interview process so that users who have good standing in other trackers (trackers that are not the scum6) or have an upstanding passion for music, have a good chance of joining.
► Tracker categories:
General trackers are considered jacks of all trades, and while they are a good way to get most type of content, they will not excel in any specific category. Specialized trackers with a specific focus will naturally have the best type of content for that category.
The following is a list of different categories, followed by trackers (in descending order, in regards to quality and amount of content) that are the best in that category. Trackers in bold have very stringent join requirements.
Full BDs: HDBits, PTP (Movies), BTN (TV)
Remuxes:
Movies: HDBits, PTP, PrivateHD, BeyondHD, HDTorrents
TV: HDBits, BTN, PrivateHD, BeyondHD
Movies: PTP, HDBits, BeyondHD
TV: BTN, HDBits, BeyondHD
Music: RED, Orpheus, JPopsuki (Asian)
Games: GGn, PixelCove
Books: Bibliotik, MAM, TheGeeks
E-learning: TheGeeks, BitSpider, MAM
Anime: AnimeBytes, BakaBT, AnimeTorrents
General: IPT, TorrentLeech, FileList (Romanian), AlphaRatio
If you do not have the patience to get the requirements to join the Elite trackers, the following trackers also have a very good selection of content and you may join a couple/few of these in order to make up for the content that the Elite trackers offer:
Remuxes: PrivateHD, BeyondHD, HDTorrents
Movies: HDTorrents, PrivateHD, BeyondHD, Blutopia, UHDBits, TorrentLeech, FileList , IPT
TV: MoreThanTV, PrivateHD, HDTorrents, Blutopia, TorrentLeech, FileList , IPT
Music: RED, JPopsuki (Asian)
Books: MAM (Has open applications)
E-learning: BitSpider, MAM
► Tracker abbrevations:
Tracker's name | Abbreviation
:--: | :--:
MyAnonaMouse (myanonamouse.net) | MAM
Redacted | RED
Nebulance | NBL
GazelleGames | GGn
PassThePopcorn | PTP
BroadcastTheNet | BTN
Cinematik | TIK
HDBits | HDB
► Exclusive content:
Only a couple of private trackers like TIK and HDB condone making torrents exclusive, and would enforce the breaking of that rule. Rest of the trackers do not accept this behaviour and you're free upload that content anywhere you like
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