Title, I haven’t Yo ho ho’d in forever in internet time… What/where do I need to start again? I’m tired of ads and 3+ streaming services to watch stuff that’s interesting. Running windows. Thanks dudes and dudettes.

  • JadenSmith@sh.itjust.works
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    1 hour ago

    Grab Stremio, it’s a program you can download.
    Once you’ve downloaded that and opened it up, in any browser go to torrentio.strem.fun and click to install that to your client.

    In the program go into your settings and remove the official sources from showing up (like apple TV, Netflix, etc.) and et viola.

    You can use popular lists or search for series, and it’ll find the episode/movie from pirates sources.

    The fun thing about this is it’s all educational. Not the program nor the torrentio link are illegal, it’s only what you do with it. So all in all, I hope you enjoy searching for legal documentaries supported by creative commons licensing!

  • Mr_Blott@feddit.uk
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    3 hours ago

    Right, reading through the comments, you say you’ve got a couple of kids. I’m guessing that means you’re a bit older and don’t have that much time to binge-watch long pointless series etc

    To pare it down, ignore the comments about Sonarr and Radarr etc, they’re for people who are addicted to downloading as much media as humanly possible, or folks in the US with 1990s internet speed. I’ve tried them and didn’t find much benefit to them.

    If you just want to quickly download a film or a series, setup is very simple.

    In twenty years of torrenting, I’ve never needed more than a good VPN, a good BitTorrent client, and a good website for magnets. Plus a PC hooked up to the TV with the screen extended.

    Torrent client - Use Qbittorrent, for reasons explained later

    VPN - As others say, port forwarding is necessary. Use Proton, when you start it up, it gives you a different port number each time. In Qbittorrent, click options then connection, and change the port number to the one Proton gave you. Bit of a fucking about each time but worth it

    As for torrenting sites, I rarely need anything more than 1337x.to

    BUT, as stated, the search function on QBT is amazing for finding obscure stuff. You need to install Python on your PC first, then there are plenty guides online for installing the search plugins. It sounds complicated but is incredibly easy and stable once installed.

    That’s it. That’s all I use and have done for decades. With fibre optic nowadays, a 1.5gb film takes about two minutes to download, you don’t need an entire hard disk full of media, just plan ahead

    • Teppichbrand@feddit.org
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      1 hour ago

      This is great advice. I’m not at all interested in building and maintaining a library of stuff I won’t watch twice anyway. Resist the urge. I hooked an old laptop to my TV, put Linux Mint on it and use KDE Connect to remote control it’s mouse and keyboard with my phone. Bookmark some streaming sources in Firefox, install FreeTube for your YouTube needs, add an external harddrive for stuff your really want to keep and your have a great media center for zero money.

  • sodamnfrolic@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 hours ago

    I recently started paying for debrid services (I use real debrid, but there are others) and couldn’t be happier. Got an app called Stremio on my TV and after adding the credentials, everything just works - easy & fast like the streaming services.

    It also allows you to download torrents much faster than torrenting them, especially if not many people seed them.

    Oh, and if you ever need to download something from Rapidshare or whatever other websites like that it does that too.

    Honestly, I should’ve started paying for it earlier.

  • metaStatic@kbin.earth
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    9 hours ago

    if you’re in Australia ignore all VPN advice. Companies can only come after you for the cost of a single copy of whatever you pirate making it functionally legal here.

    Torrents are your best bet for now because they are super easy.

    Usenet is a paid service, absolutely worth it but you’re paying for at least 2 different services to make it work and setting up a whole bunch of software. Just steer clear of the Arr suite until torrents fail you (and they will)

  • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    44 minutes ago

    qBittorrent is probably the best torrent client for Windows

    Mullvad is a relatively cheap and trustworthy VPN provider (they unfortunately removed port forwarding, which is important for torrenting)

    AirVPN and Proton VPN are trustworthy VPN providers that support port forwarding

    Servarr is the way to go if you want to set up a server that automates everything for you

    Jellyfin is the best media server, far ahead of Plex and fully FOSS

    FMHY and the Champagne Piracy Wiki have lots of valuable information

    • emhl@feddit.org
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      9 hours ago

      A bit of topic but why the hell does the champagne wiki reccomend Edge as a browser citing it’s AI capabilities? Is this copied directly from MS marketing material?

      Edit: I am starting to read through it and there Is so much bad, outdated and just wrong information there:

      • they recommend to set a DNS level adblocker using an app that isn’t supported on the android version the guide is for and completely forget that you can just set the DNS server without any additional app on any modern android version (what is what the provider of the Dns server they recommend reccomends)
      • they tell you protonVPN doesn’t support Torrenting (maybe just bad wording) and recommended mullvad because of that

      I don’t really want to continue beyond before-you-begin

      Edit2: Uh why is there an extensive article on how to deal with addiction and how to do meditation in the piracy section?

      I don’t think I should continue any further

      Edit3: you can contribute to the wiki by sending markdown files in a discord channel. Wikipedia should switch to this model as well imo

    • Admax@lemmynsfw.com
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      9 hours ago

      Please could you elaborate about how qbittorent is a good VPN and why is port forwarding important for torrenting ? I’m kind of confused about those statement…

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 hours ago

        I’m fairly positive they meant “qbittorrent is a good torrent client” instead of “VPN”

        As far as port forwarding, I know it’s important for seeding but I don’t know why.

        • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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          4 hours ago

          It’s a poor analogy, but imagine a public IP like a hotel, there can be lots of guests (clients) at this hotel. Hotel policy is they won’t let any outsiders in unless you know the room number (port) of the person you’re trying to reach.

          Imagine you and a friend are staying in separate hotels and want to give each other copies of your favorite Linux .ISOs, but neither of you knows the other’s room number - you show up at the hotel and the front desk tells you to pound sand because you don’t have their room number.

          As long as one of you knows the other’s room number though, you can meet.

          Torrenting without port forwarding means you can only trade your favorite .ISOs with people who have port forwarding enabled (sharing their room number to the tracker), which makes you less effective of a seeder. Enabling port forwarding allows you to share with anyone (sharing your room number with the tracker).

  • Bigfoot@lemm.ee
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    11 hours ago

    The simple answer:

    Get Qbittorrent and use it’s built-in search engine.

    The fully automated gay space answer:

    • Look into selfhosting - (optional but makes it easier/coler)
    • Look into Plex (or Emby or Jellyfin) - optional but makes it pretty

    These are the apps you’ll need:

    • Radarr - Gets movies
    • Sonarr - Gets tv shows automatically as they come out
    • Prowlarr - the thing that does the searching for radarr/sonarr.
    • Overseerr - Makes it simple to request stuff
    • Qbittorrent - downloads things

    (There is also Lidarr for music and Readarr for books)

    If all set up correctly, you simply just request something with Overseerr and it shows up in Plex minutes later with artwork and metadata all pulled in and presented nicely. You can configure the apps to look for specific resolutions/file sizes/formats/etc. TV shows are downloaded as soon as a new episode is released. It’s better than any streaming service by leaps and bounds.

    • themadcodger@kbin.earth
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      7 hours ago

      Does overseer do anything besides let you request from the others? And where does Prowlarr come in?

      I more or less have this setup, but I start in Trakt (which I was using before I started with the arrs) and add something to my watchlist. Sonarr and Radarr regularly sync with that and check the indexers I have set up and download via sabnzbd. It unpacks and gets to where it needs to go, and I watch it in Jellyfin.

      It all works fine for me. So what I’m really asking, is am I missing out on anything by not using Overseer and Prowlarr or is it just another way of doing the same thing?

  • SteveNSFW@yall.theatl.social
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    11 hours ago

    Recognize that there may be some costs involved: hard drives, a raspberry pi, VPN/VPS/seedbox, even just electricity.

    Get a good VPN and use it for any torrenting you do from home. Nord is not a good VPN. (unless your government doesn’t care or you use a seed box, then do whatever)

    Use public torrent trackers if you have to but: If you have some private torrent tracker accounts from yore, try to get them re-activated. Surprisingly they may have your old info. This will probably require IRC. If not, look into interviewing with RED, OPS, or MAM to learn the ropes, then use them to get invited into movie/TV/general PTs.

    If you don’t like the sound of torrenting look into newsgroups. This will cost money in two ways: a newsgroup account and a news indexer.

    Check out the arr suite, especially radarr and sonarr, to automatically get what you are interested in.

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 hours ago

          I’ve been using it for a while and had no idea it didn’t support port forwarding! I know it’s important for torrenting, but my private tracker ratios are all 2:1 or more (my record is 6:1)

          I should read up on why it’s important.

          • Klopstock@feddit.org
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            4 hours ago

            The Problem with not having Port forwarding is that you can only connect to people which have port forwarding. That means If the seeds are also using no port forwarding you cannot download/upload.

      • Policeshootout@lemmy.ca
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        10 hours ago

        I think it’s mostly to do with their advertising tactics and misleading people in what their service is actually doing.

        They also had a data breach and did not handle it well.

        Maybe there’s other stuff I don’t remember… I’ve never used them, I’ve been on Mullvad for some years now but considering proton next.

  • Imprint9816@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    9 hours ago

    Real Debrid is probably the easiest solution.

    From there you can either go the stremio route or plex / jellyfin.

  • shaserlark@sh.itjust.works
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    11 hours ago

    Next to what everyone already said let me just mention I also returned recently after being out for like 10 years and the progress is amazing. If you’re willing to selfhost, Servarr is super amazing, my whole family got away from Netflix and I have a huge bullshit free library of stuff to watch.

  • Yodan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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    10 hours ago

    On a side note I’ve been using Google to find streaming sites by typing “free full stream” and then the title I want, and scrolling down the search to the DMCA Complaints. They have a lovely list of sites that have your movies and shows, thanks Google!

    • growsomethinggood ()@reddthat.com
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      12 hours ago

      Is this a community, or is this a circlejerk? I don’t think categorizing beginners who don’t know where to start as leeches creates the kind of environment people of all knowledge levels want to spend time in. You don’t personally have to educate them, but telling them off for asking is pretty rude.

    • Yodan@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      12 hours ago

      My guy, I am 2 kids deep since I last hit the high seas, I am absolutely lost on what plugins or sites or programs I need to even begin. Maybe be a bit helpful instead of insulting lost people? I’ll use the megathread link the other people posted.

      • Bronzie@sh.itjust.works
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        12 hours ago

        You’ll be fine mate.

        I re-hoisted the flag after a decade and two minions myself this year. The old ways still work fine, but there’s also a ton of new things to make life easier.

        Check out the .arr suite, burn uTorrent and get Qbittorrent and try out Jellyfin.

        Feel free to ask me directly if you need some pointers.