piracy

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Morgikan, in Uhhh oh
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

Apparently some mods were running keyloggers on the community.

MonkderZweite, (edited )

Keyloggers? On an internet forum? What for?

7Sea_Sailor,

For logging keys, usually

MonkderZweite,

of forum messages? No danger.

Lemmchen,

In software posted there, not in the forum software itself.

murmelade,

Cool DM me your account passwords

malijaffri,

hunter2

CorrodedCranium, (edited )
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

I know they said the mods were deleting posts about whatever it was but do you have a link to the discussion or proof?

Morgikan, (edited )
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

Bare in mind what OP posted was from 4 months ago, but one of the mods mentions it here: reddit.com/…/some_controversy_going_on_at_this_su…

They acknowledge changes were made, so I would take that as confirmation, but that whole group/sub kind of cringey. Posts do get deleted by mods but users also make a lot of claims without any evidence. I get that most of those people don’t have a technical background so its hard to find evidence, but that also maybe is a good reason to make a claim.

EDIT: When I wrote my original comment, I used “Apparently” and “Allegedly” synonymously. I understand if anyone wants to call me out on that, but doesn’t seem right changing what I wrote (seems like that would be covering).

zaknenou,
@zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’d like to line with the “posts are getting deleted randomly” party. I mean the only thing not being deleted at this point is the memes, the cringe worthy memes. no discussions (unless very basic) or guides are flourishing on that subreddit anymore. and besides why stay on reddit in the first place if it is the reason they must act like this?

CorrodedCranium, (edited )
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

The tip toeing around stuff definitely does get tiring but I think some people just flock there because there’s a lot of people and Reddit still dominates search results

zaknenou,
@zaknenou@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I mean why didn’t the mods migrate the sub here? like dbzer0 did here.

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

There could be a few reasons beyond what I already mentioned. A lot of people thought the blackout on Reddit was a trend or unnecessary and that wasn’t helped when Reddit forced a lot of subs to reopen.

I’m not sure though. I wonder if they have a post addressing it

UprisingVoltage,

What the fuck

explodicle,

This sort of shit has been going on in the warez community for decades. It’s why I don’t pirate software anymore - even Empress has a strong incentive to sell out.

UprisingVoltage,

Yeah, I also don’t pirate stuff. I’d rather use open source software anyways. And luckily the games I like deserve the money and I can afford to buy them

deleted, in Several Piracy-Related Arrests Spark Fears of High-Level Crackdown * TorrentFreak

I’m not subscribing to streaming services.

I’ll ditch the idea of watching TV the moment my arr setup stop working.

brax,

I used to subscribe to streaming services but then they took all their content that I used to watch off - either to move to another streaming service or just “gone forever”.

If they don’t want the money I was giving them, why do they give a fuck if I pirate it? I tried to do things right and they told me they didn’t want my money.

deleted,

Exactly, I cancelled my Netflix subscription when I knew you can watch season 1 and 2 of a show but you must subscribe to another service to watch 3 and 4.

It was the dealbreaker to me.

cmnybo, in Piracy even when I can get it legally

Piracy is a service issue. If the streaming providers are going to punish me for using my preferred browser and operating system by limiting the quality, I will keep my money and get the video elsewhere.

There is also the issue of never knowing when the show will just disappear from the streaming service while you are in the middle of watching it because the licensing changed.

nttea, (edited ) in When a Torrent disappears from 1337x, how do you find out what happened?

The uploader deleted it so their drones can make social media posts claiming it was censored to generate more buzz and make sure everyone knows it exists.

Hyperreality, (edited )

Yep. Claim victimhood. Fascism 101.

Fascists are boring. It's the same strategy for almost a hundred years. Orwell on Hitler:

It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.

Today's mice are an incredibly marginalised and incredibly small sexual minority. But fascists will pretend they're not, that they're part of the elite trying to cause degeneracy. Not billionaire rapists like Musk or Trump.

Not as if fascists are going to actually fix the big shit, like the economy, the environment, or affordable housing. Not as if they're going to stand up to the countries actually threatening western values, like Russia or China. No. Now they've decided it's some nobody in the arse end of America, who feels happier wearing a dress.

People who fall for that shit are morons. Not that most fascists actually believe their own bullshit. They just do it shock and disconcert people, and because they hate those they perceive weaker than them. Just like their Dear Leader considers them scum, has regularly said he is disgusted by them, because they're so weak that they've chosen to lick his boots.

Outtatime,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

Weird. Cringe. Unhinged rant.

trackcharlie,

If you do any research at all into what was said you’d realize that this was actually a fairly based response.

Outtatime, (edited )
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

You think that was based? Unhinged psychotic rants about some politics? Ok. Weird

I thought this was a piracy board.

trackcharlie,

I said fairly based. The commenters preoccupation with the fascism connection was odd but the rest was pretty much on point for presenting a theory as to why the torrent had been removed and re-added. The commenter added additional commentary to present a parallel for what the torrent uploader was doing in order to obtain more public interest.

In reference to your last line, you realize that the vast majority of the political sector is financially vested in ‘taking action’ against piracy, right? And by financially vested I obviously mean bribed by corps like MGM or UMG et al.

Outtatime,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

I guess when I browsed a piracy board,I wasn’t really expecting a psychotic rant about Trump and other political shit. I don’t mind reading about some current court cases involving some piracy news and whatnot.

The Internet is saturated with orange man bashing and today’s current outrage bait. I’m bored of it. It’s not even remotely interesting anymore. Apparently, judging by the upvotes that person got, I’m in the minority.

trackcharlie,

I can understand where you’re coming from but it’s not like the commenter lied. Both musk and trump have court cases involving sexual assault in various countries and our adversaries are getting one over on us because of the incompetence of every politician, not just left or right.

Perhaps I am seeing it in a different light but it sure seemed to me like billionaire and politician bashing as opposed to ‘orange man bashing’.

Hackerman_uwu, (edited )

Aaw shaaaame. Now you’re the victim after attacking someone else and calling them “psychotic”.

Lol.

You refuse to address their points deferring rather to a strategy of misdirecting using the name of the community. Any meat on your “psychotic rant” assertion? Nope. “This is a piracy board” …so you can dismiss thoughtful commentary on the topic that OOP has raised out of hand with nothing more than baseless accusations?

You want to hide behind etiquette and staying on topic but your posts in this thread are the most worthless meta commentary in the thread.

Outtatime,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m bored of you now. Goodbye

AVincentInSpace,

and I happen to agree but it is incredibly bad form to pass judgement on the basedness of one’s own post

splendoruranium,

What you write on argumentative strategy absolutely pertains to the topic and I’d say it also holds true. I just don’t really see what it has to do with fascism. Aren’t you conflating a couple of things here?
Even when “Fascism traditionally employs that rhetoric” holds true, there’s no way that “Someone employing that rhetoric must be a fascist” can ever follow from that. A fascist might be a very special kind of moron, but it’s dangerous to then start calling every moron “fascist”, because it lessens the impact of that term, devalues it, if that makes sense. It makes undermining actual fascism much harder.

Godric,

No, deleting torrents is literally fascism, OK sweaty? Do you think Hitler had a positive seed ratio???

AVincentInSpace, (edited )

Deleting a torrent is one thing. Deleting a torrent and then telling your follower base it was censored by the radical left is a different story.

splendoruranium,

Asking the real questions! 😄

Hyperreality, (edited )

Their leader calls journalists vermin and they go on about the 'Lugenpresse', his followers shoot up synagogues, allied media spread Nazi/far right inspired anti-semitic canards like Cultural Marxism ('Kulturbolshewismus'), they go on about how the '''left wing intellectual elite''' are trying to undermine western values and cause a decline of morals and degeneracy ('Entartung'), they're afraid of difference, they hold the weak in contempt, they abhor nuance so use a limited newspeak vocabulary to limit critical reasoning, they're obsessed with plots, and on social media many of his followers spread the Q-anon conspiracy which is a reworking of the antisemtic blood libel canard.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is a duck.

Here's a Sartre quote that's also increasingly relevant (again):

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

splendoruranium,

Their leader calls journalists vermin and they go on about the ‘Lugenpresse’, his followers shoot up synagogues, allied media spread Nazi/far right inspired anti-semitic canards like Cultural Marxism (‘Kulturbolshewismus’), they go on about how the ‘’‘left wing intellectual elite’‘’ are trying to undermine western values and cause a decline of morals and degeneracy (‘Entartung’), they’re afraid of difference, they hold the weak in contempt, they abhor nuance so use a limited newspeak vocabulary to limit critical reasoning, they’re obsessed with plots, and on social media many of his followers spread the Q-anon conspiracy which is a reworking of the antisemtic blood libel canard.

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is a duck.

I presume we’re no longer talking about the movie’s marketing department…?

Here’s a Sartre quote that’s also increasingly relevant (again):

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

What I’m reading here are things in the lines of “Good faith anti-Semitism doesn’t exist” or “anti-Semitism is intrinsically confrontational and quarrelsome”. I don’t quite think that’s a tenable position as it would be trivial to disprove. Am I misreading this? What is your take?
Are you sure the line is concerned with anti-Semitism in general and not only with a very specific kind of anti-Semite (e.g. mid-century, mid-Europe, Bierkellerputsch-y types)?

shani66,

Wouldn’t surprise me, with pirates generally being pretty permissable and that being the only trick right wingers seem to know.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod, in Disney is gouging customers with a near doubling of subscription costs.
@Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social avatar

This is rich coming from the company that literally wrote "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"

PunnyName,

It was the first thing that popped into my head, too.

krimson, in Amazon clearly lying about "ownership" on Prime.
@krimson@feddit.nl avatar

Did you click on it? Maybe it links to a torrent :D

DebatableRaccoon, in "Piracy is a service issue.." (Image is a real story btw, link in post)

Problem isn’t just on Linux’s side for a change. Louis Rossmann did a video on Netflix’s bullshit some weeks ago. Seems it’s far from uncommon to not get what you’re paying for with those shitbags

Lev_Astov,
@Lev_Astov@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I fell for this once a year ago and was dumbfounded to only get 480p when I paid for “UHD”. Never paying again. Great job, bean counters.

fjordbasa, in And that's why you shouldn't pirate kids.

Why would I pirate kids?

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

I emphatically would NOT download a child.

weeahnn,
@weeahnn@lemmy.world avatar

They have small hands, good for fitting into pockets. Turn them into little pickpockets.

DebatableRaccoon,

Not to mention they fit into crawl spaces so much easier than adults too. The possibilities are endless.

Restaldt, (edited )

My chimney has never been swept

Because of child labor laws? Or because i dont have a chimney.

You decide

jjagaimo,

I prefer to pirate adults

Crackhappy,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

Lenny pirate your butt

rostby,

Gimme yur booty

rostby,

I mean treasure ya know

Oka,

Cause they cost too much to commit right away. If you dont like what you got, either you go through the hassle of trying to get a refund, or if you pirated it, you just get rid of it.

Sharpiemarker,

Can’t even give them away

Karlos_Cantana,
@Karlos_Cantana@kbin.social avatar

And if you drive them blindfolded to another state and drop them off in the middle of nowhere, you go to jail. It's a no win scenario.

moreeni,

And that’s why you need punctuation kids.

floofloof,

I do use those but, they keep putting commas in all the wrong places.

LocustOfControl,

Unless you want engagement! 90% of these comments are about the missing comma.

Xylight,
@Xylight@lemdro.id avatar

you wouldn’t download a child

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Oh Jesus no. I have enough of those.

JoMiran, in [Louis Rossmann] Piracy is COMPLETELY justified: Louis tries NetFlix and remembers why
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

Me: This guy looks and sounds like the dude that fixed my old Mac Book Pro.

checks Google

Me: Well I’ll be damned…

Excrubulent, (edited )
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

If you go through his old videos you’ll see him doing exactly that. There’s a non-zero chance your computer’s guts are in there in excruciating detail.

jasondj, (edited )

Id feel weirdly awkward and embarassed seeing my computers innards posted in a YouTube video, and I don’t know why. Like if my middle school yearbook photo showed up on Facebook.

That actually happened to me recently. My grade school best friend posted a pic from a field trip like 30 years ago and I’m naming off every person in it like I just saw them yesterday…then I see one person in it and I’m like “who the fuck is that hideous looking child? Is that me??? Shit that’s me”

Fisch,
@Fisch@lemmy.ml avatar

It was probably more embarrassing for the guy who had cum in his macbook

Asudox,
@Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

What

JackbyDev,

Where else do you put it? :(

Fisch, (edited )
@Fisch@lemmy.ml avatar
Asudox, (edited )
@Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

You aren’t fooling me with rickrolls

Edit: oh well, its real. damn

NeryK, in What is the motive behind private trackers?
@NeryK@sh.itjust.works avatar

I would say it is more of a practical consideration. Private trackers generally enforce upload/download ratios. This ensures the health of the sharing pool stays good.

alvvayson, (edited )

Also, they curate the collection so that it doesn’t get filled with low quality garbage.

Part of preserving and sharing knowledge is doing quality control.

vilibix535,

Do they ensure that each torrent is seeded? Do they have a problem of dead torrents?

yote_zip,
@yote_zip@pawb.social avatar

Usually torrents remain seeded because private tracker users are encouraged to seed everything forever. In addition, often if a private tracker has a bonus system they will offer extra bonus points for seeding low-seed torrents, and some even automatically mark torrents as freeleech if they’re below ~5 seeds, encouraging people to revive its seed count in a targeted manner.

Bear_with_a_hammer, (edited )

Don’t know what are you talking about, I was seeding on Rutracker, NNMClub for 5 years, giving 10-15GB day sometimes, I’ve seen many profiles who share 6-10-15 TBs a day, just a couple days ago a guy was asking on qBittorrent discussion how he could improve his 18Tb home seedbox, he had to open different instances of qBittorrent Enhanced, because at 10-15k torrents it was bugging out.

Their moderators contribute relentlessly, there are annual topics with competitions for best drawn picture, sang song, written poem, word games etc…

There’s a thing called Torrentovka, when people from Rutracker meet and camp, telling stories, many couples were found and married this way, Rutracker is basically a family forum.

Hell, my girlfriend uses NNMClub, we were both seeding Kaleo once at the same time :)

Health comes with morality, it shouldn’t be mandatory.

lukas, (edited )
@lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

They’re talking about the good seeder to leecher ratio on private trackers, compared to the poor seeder to leecher ratio on public trackers. You and a couple of others might be good seeders on public trackers, but the majority aren’t. Private trackers try to filter out leechers.

SnotFlickerman, (edited ) in It's joever | Tachiyomi
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

This is how FOSS dies.

Where the living fuck are the EFF’s team of lawyers?

I know they generally focus on US cases, but god damn, you’d think the egregiousness of this would get their asses involved.

MomoTimeToDie,

I mean the eff can only do so much to defend people who didn’t even fucking bother in the slightest to defend themselves and just rolled over at every turn

cloud_punk,

I feel like eff has bigger cases then a manga app dying

RobotToaster,

Was the case issued in Japan? From what I’ve read the legal system there is famously one sided, criminal cases have a 99.8% conviction rate.

ReluctantZen,

Kakao is Korean, but no cases have been issues yet right? Only threats

CJOtheReal,

Yes but thats enough for people with no money…

ReluctantZen,

For sure. I just mentioned it since the person I’m replying seemed to say a case already existed.

pjb,
@pjb@lemmy.spacestation14.com avatar

IANAL but since they used the word “threatened” instead of “I’m getting sued”, no case is being filed.

Pretty sure that if they were actually getting sued they’d already be radio silent.

nincodedo, in [Humor] Dunkey's Guide to Streaming Services
@nincodedo@kbin.social avatar

I honestly thought the Pokemon part was fake. It is not.

Rentlar,

The dunkey bit writes itself…

Confetti_Camouflage,
@Confetti_Camouflage@pawb.social avatar

The Pokemon part fucking killed me. No need to write your own jokes when reality writes them for you.

Nima,
@Nima@lemmy.world avatar

holy shit that’s absolutely insane. easier to use an ad riddled pirate site instead. at least it will have a full catalog most times, and you can just block ads.

yamanii,
@yamanii@lemmy.world avatar

Reality will always be stranger than fiction.

Crow, in Apps that shouldn't be Subscriptions
@Crow@lemmy.world avatar

There’s only two reasons an app should be a subscription.

  1. The app requires constant server connection that is an active cost to the developer.
  2. The app requires constant updates for maintaining functionality/ relevancy.

There are a few subscriptions I pay for (Nabu casa for one). There’s real merit in the subscription model, but it should only be about 1% of things not 80%.

themurphy,

You could also argue apps that uses some kind of licensed content the app pays for.

I’m not saying I’m a fan of Netflix and Spotify, but they do use alot of money to keep their content available, and not only for server costs.

They still overcharge tho.

PM_Your_Nudes_Please,

Yeah, paying for content streaming is different than simply paying for an app that runs locally. Spotify proved that people will be willing to pay for music, as long as it is easier than piracy. Netflix’s early days (when it was actually a one stop shop for all of the available content) proved the same with TV/movie streaming. They proved that piracy largely isn’t an issue with cost, but rather convenience and accessibility.

But with a local app, that all goes right out the window. There’s no reason you’d need to pay a subscription for an app that runs everything locally and only gets sporadic updates. There isn’t any licensing to worry about, or third party systems to pay off. The only reason to have the subscription in this instance is pure greed.

drunkensailor, (edited ) in I just deleted my entire library and redownloaded it.
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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).
Greyfoxsolid,

Excellent info. Thank you!

solitude, (edited )

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”
CmdrShepard,

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.

solitude, (edited )

Yeah, Mullvad stopped offering Port Forwarding as well, along with iVPN (I think) and some others. I believe AirVPN is the recommended VPN which still has PF (I may have iVPN and Air mixed up). I understand one of the reasons why they stopped supporting PF (it allowed sick f*cks to share illegal child content with others), but it also pretty much destroyed my ability to find and complete a download of old/er files that I normally didn’t have a problem with, and, like you mentioned, I could no longer seed back. It’s the sole reason why I started using usenet. I could have tried one of the other VPNs I mentioned (Proton & Air, which I believe both have PF) but I chose to stick with Mullvad and add usenet instead, which I’ve really liked.

Blue_Morpho,

Is this new in the past few months? I was using mulvad with qbitorrent a few months ago and it was uploading.

solitude, (edited )

I can’t recall when it actually stopped working (maybe around 3 months ago?), but here is the announcement: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports

Fairly soon after they removed PF, I searched for a show that was less than a year from release, rated over 80% on TMDB & over 8.0 on IMDB, and pretty popular. I couldn’t complete a full season of it on any one format (720p, 1080p, x264, x265). Probably around 10 incomplete versions in qBit. Never ran into something that bad before, on a somewhat recent show. Started using usenet and had my files within an hour or so, in the format I wanted. I understand and support their decision, but it was a very good feature to have. If your looking for new material, PF won’t affect you. I’ve read people suggest Tailscale as a way to supplement Mullvad (if you’re running a server and want to remotely access it), but I know little about it.

Blue_Morpho,

That was lucky timing for me! I was updating all my media around June.

rambos,

You can download and upload with no port forwarding. For some torrents you might not find peers, but whats even worse you will seed less

CmdrShepard, (edited )

Yes I was actually sad to leave Mullvad, and the developer was pretty cool about giving refunds, so I’d definitely go back if things changed in the future.

AirVPN does have port forwarding and is what I wound up switching to. So far, everything is working fine and there are a decent number of servers available.

solitude,

Glad that worked out with AirVPN, they’re the main alternative to Mullvad that I was considering back then. I may still try them in the future. Yeah, I was shocked that Mullvad was so cool about handing out refunds. I’ve read about many other VPNs that wouldn’t consider that. I guess with Mullvad being the official rebranded Mozilla VPN they can afford to let some people go and still have a smile about it.

drunkensailor, (edited )
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Most quality VPNs will have a killswitch built in and enabled automatically, with nothing to setup, but they are notoriously unreliable and can fail.

Fair. I do all of my setup manually these days (networkmanager on linux, openvpn client app on the rare occasion i’m on windows, not a mac guy so no clue there). I implement one using a firewall but that is more complex than most people want. Still, as long as it is done in addition to the qbit network interface bind, then it’s not bad to also set a VPN killswitch.

The key term people want to search for is “bind.” You want to bind qBit to your VPN.

Agreed. This is what I was referencing in the first bullet about network interface

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 - Fair points. TBH, I had my doubts about that initially but have been with them the whole time (before and after kape acquisition). FWIW, I have not seen any change in PIA service quality. In fact, I have seen them add Wireguard support and release all of the code as FOSS (see here). I agree that Kape did some sketchy shit in the past but from what I have seen over the last several years, they are not doing anything sketchy in the VPN/technology sector part of their business (aside from maybe advertising which I consider to be separate). I don’t even really think about Kape anymore tbh. If they were ratting me out, I would have had enough dcma notices to start a bonfire with by now.

2 - I had not been aware of that. I haven’t used them in a few years. Any sort of data breach definitely sounds bad but since I haven’t reviewed the details, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions either.

I like Mullvad from a tech and privacy standpoint but IMO they are a bit on the expensive side compared to some of the other options. Nord and PIA you can usually get multiyear deals on periodically and that can drastically lower the overall cost ($80 for a 3yr VPN plan = monthly about 2.22 USD/2.04 euro vs 5 euro/month for mullvad). Not saying price is the be-all-end-all or that Mullvad is unaffordable but it is going to be a consideration for many, especially people that already don’t want to shell out for a paid VPN over the free ones. With that in mind, I think there is still value in PIA (and possibly Nord - I haven’t reviewed the details of what exactly was breached - e.g. vpn service vs blog server vs etc, what data was exposed, what steps they took to address, etc). There are many other no-logs vpn options besides Nord, PIA, and Mullvad out there, I just don’t have any personal experience with them.

EnderofGames,

I have qBit bound to my VPN (Nord), but it basically stops every few minutes. So I had to stop and use killswitch.

This, I think, is actually an issue with qBit. But maybe it only ever happens to me.

drunkensailor, (edited )
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

every few minutes is a lot. havent been on nord for a few years but even when i was on them i dont remember getting drops that frequently. i suspect it is likely not an issue with qbit as many others use it without running into drops like that - including myself.

probably an issue with either nord or your isp. if you are on wifi, there are also some routeres with known issues when it comes to dropping wifi signal - but there’s too many different models and firmware versions to really guess this accurately without detailed info (and sometimes it only happens in specific versions of firmware on specific routers).

i get occasional drops on PIA but its usually after running for something like 3-7 days straight. i’m not using the official pia client app but instead download manual ovpn file configurations from pia and import them into generic client. under windows, you need the openvpn free community client for this. under linux, you can import them into networkmanager. iirc, nord has manual ovpn files too but they make you select a specific server and download 1 config file at a time.

alternately, if you setup wireguard that might also work better but haven’t tested myself

EnderofGames,

I used Nord proxies when I still used uTorrent, never had issues. I’m definitely hardwired, and my isp is shit, don’t get me wrong, but the only change I can see is qBit and proxies. I tried every server they had available, and the issue just stops when I don’t use their proxies. Maybe I should try proxies from some other service, but I’m not really in a place to shop around… and I don’t know that free vpn services have proxies that you can try.

I also say “stops every few minutes”, I should clarify, it stops and doesn’t resume. I have to close qbit and reopen.

I don’t know enough about ovpn or wireguard to know how that would help me… Is that not a VPN/tunneling that you have to have both sides to use? So I would go to a server that has another VPN running on anyways?

drunkensailor, (edited )
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I don’t know enough about ovpn or wireguard to know how that would help me…

OpenVPN and Wireguard are different protocols that VPN providers can use. Technically, there are also groups and client apps of the same name for both too. I think there are other protocols too (pretty sure there’s one called IPsec and maybe some others) but OpenVPN and Wireguard are 2 of the most common. Wireguard is newer and generally is regarded as faster than OpenVPN protocol but there are some privacy issues with it if using the unmodified version. Some VPN companies use a modified version of WG that address those issues (Nord and PIA). But since customers can’t inspect the server configs, I would definitely recommend only using VPN companies that have undergone a third party audit to confirm that they keep no logs and have a server configuration without privacy issues (off my head: PIA, Nord, Mullvad, expressvpn, surfshark, cyberghost).

Is that not a VPN/tunneling that you have to have both sides to use?

Yes, if your VPN provider doesn’t have servers configured with Wireguard, then you can’t use it. And even if they do, it probably won’t be all the servers so you need to choose one with it. So if say your provider was Nord. Nord calls their modified WG as “NordLynx”.

If you wanted to connect to Nord’s WG (aka NordLynx) servers, AFAIK you have to use the official Nord client app. Some providers might release a WG config file that you could use to manually set it up but last time I checked Nord only offers manual config files for OpenVPN (here’s an old reddit thread basically saying the same thing). This is annoying if you are trying to have a setup where you can switch between multiple providers and protocols easily (like me) or in places where you can’t install client software (like routers) but probably not a big deal to most users connecting from a computer/tablet/phone/etc.

For PIA, it is similar although they don’t rename their Wireguard as something else. But again, they don’t provide manual WG configs and you have to use their official app to use it. However, they do have some github repos and more technical users can run some scripts to generate temporary manual configs (my understanding is that unlike the OpenVPN manual configs, these will eventually expire and you will need to rerun the scripts again at some later time).

I used Nord proxies when I still used uTorrent, never had issues. I’m definitely hardwired, and my isp is shit, don’t get me wrong, but the only change I can see is qBit and proxies. I tried every server they had available, and the issue just stops when I don’t use their proxies. Maybe I should try proxies from some other service, but I’m not really in a place to shop around… and I don’t know that free vpn services have proxies that you can try.

Not sure. Hard to debug without concrete details and I’m probably not the best for that anyway. Could be proxies; I connect to vpn servers but not via socks proxies so not sure how those are different speed wise.

If not that, could be qbit settings or version (several years ago some various builds of qbit could be hit or miss but I thought that was more or less done with nowadays). If you are interested in working it out, my recommendation would be to take some screenshots of qbit settings. Then create a post asking about improving qbit speeds and also list a) who the vpn provider is - nord or whatever you use now, b) how you are connecting - nord app or proxy url etc, c) if you are testing with same torrent in each, then what kind of approx numbers you are seeing in qbit and what you expect based on network test. That would probaby be enough info for folks to help you get it sorted and would be a good resource for anybody else having similar troubles.

solitude, (edited )

I should have also mentioned that I otherwise thought your initial post was good.

then it’s not bad to also set a VPN killswitch

At least with Mullvad (and I imagine the other three I mentioned), there is nothing to set. It’s already there in the app, and automatically enabled after install. The only thing that can be done is to turn it off.

This is what I was referencing in the first bullet about network interface

Understood. I was just providing the specific term (“bind” or “binding”), used by VPN companies & users, for anyone else who wants to search for instructions on properly connecting qBit to their VPN.

I agree that Kape did some sketchy shit in the past

It’s not my place to fault or criticize you or anyone else for choosing to go with Kape/PIA (or Nord). I just think people should at least know of their past. For me, there is zero chance of me returning to PIA. Someone tells me the girl I’m interested in cheated on their past boyfriend, or tried to somehow spy on or sabotage him? Zero chance I’m getting involved. Too many other good/better options available. My brother has had no issues dating cheaters. To each their own. None of my business why others make the choices they do.

Any sort of data breach definitely sounds bad but since I haven’t reviewed the details

It’s not necessarily that they had a data breach, it’s how they handled the situation that many people found troubling.

Nord and PIA you can usually get multiyear deals

Same with this. I don’t fault you for trying to save some money. Everyone has their own situation to deal with, and I’ve been “there” before. For me, I’m not rich or a boomer, but I’m old enough now and have enough disposable income that I make decisions that work for my privacy and reliability requirements. I see something that cheap now and I ask myself, “why is that so cheap?” It could still be a good product, but I know enough to at least ask the question & research. I also don’t pay for long term, multi-year deals anymore (I had about six months remaining on my PIA deal when I “noped” out of being a part of Kape’s acquisition), but I still try not to be an idiot and just give away money either. As an example, I buy the Mullvad gift card, with a scratch-off code from Amazon, $29/6mo ($4.83/mo) or $57/12mo ($4.75/mo). No euro exchange rate or transactions fees, etc. My preference is to incentivize my favorite companies to stay in business, providing the service and continual upgrades that I want and expect, like the following:

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/we-have-successfully-completed-our-migration-to-ram-only-vpn-infrastructure

-and-

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/moving-our-encrypted-dns-servers-to-run-in-ram

When people talk about “zero logs,” I’m not aware of anything better than having everything run through RAM. Going out to lunch/dinner or watching a movie is roughly $10 to $20/person these days. I’ll happily pay a couple extra bucks a month for a VPN with this kind of privacy and continual upgrade in service, or from the other three I mentioned (and I believe Mullvad is still even the least expensive of the four). No criticism from me on your choices though.

SkyezOpen,

Any setup required? I tried it out and my speeds were in the tens of megabits max. Pretty sure nothing was capped in settings.

drunkensailor, (edited )
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Maybe? Been awhile since I’ve messed with my setup and while I don’t like slow, I prioritize security over speed so my settings might not be what you want anyway. so I’d recommend just looking up a guide; it is an extremely popular torrent client and there should be tons of guides out there. Or if you not sure which guide to use, just create a new post here - lot of people use it and probably have set it up from scratch more recently than me. I know some people say to open ports on the router but i’ve never liked the idea (I view it as less secure) but some people swear by it.

I can recommend that you test the following:

  • make sure you are using a VPN server that isn’t too far away. If you were in say San Franciso and selecting a VPN in New York or Europe, your speeds will be less than if you selected one in Seattle or Los Angeles
  • do a speed test off your vpn vs on it (e.g. speedtest.net). ALL VPNs will be slower than regular non-VPN due to the encryption and having less hops. But you can see how much difference it makes when you switch servers and if you have more than one VPN service, then you can find servers in the same city for both and compare which service is faster.
  • If your VPN has a modified WireGuard service (PIA and Nord both do IIRC), then that should be faster. I say modified bc the unaltered Wireguard spec has a privacy red flags so if you have a VPN service that offers it, make sure you read up or at least skim some reviews and whatnot to make sure they handled those issues that in a way that doesn’t leave your identity exposed. PIA and Nord both did that (I think Nord’s was called something else not actually WG but idr).
  • make sure you do your testing on popular torrents - but if it is anything you could get in trouble for, then you should do all the leak tests I mentioned above FIRST. Only mentioning, bc I had a friend that was testing his shit on some obscure thing he was looking for and saying it was slow but when i helped him configure his settings, we tested with something popular (i think whatever the current hottest show was) and he was actually getting a lot better speeds than he thought.

edit: just searched on dbzer0 and wasn’t seeing much on this. I did find a reddit post and a makeuseof guide that both mention stuff about improving speed. For the reddit one, I think the patched exe they are talking about is likely a dev build and since that was from a few years ago, whatever fix is probably already merged in and no longer needed. will compare the other settings vs mine and post back


edit2: are are the differences i have from the guide:

  • makeuseof has (Tools > Options > Speed) “Upload and download rate limits are set to infinity by default, and it’s recommended not to tinker with these limits. Most often, users limit the upload rate to save bandwidth and get faster download rates, but the torrent client’s choking mechanism compromises download rates when upload rates are limited, making the download process much slower.” - on mine, i had infinite down and was restricting upload. But I kind of think MUO’s advice is better and increased my upload amount. Mine was 100 KiB/s, now 1000 KiB/s. Only reason I don’t put it on infinite is I am on a capped internet and tend to leave my downloaded stuff around for sharing so I want to avoid uploads consuming too much of my monthly bandwidth and I don’t leave my client running 24/7 so not sure how reliable bandwidth settings are.
  • makeuseof has (Tools > Options > BitTorrent) "In the dropdown menu next to Encryption mode, select Allow Encryption. " but on mine I have it as “required Encryption” - probably this would make mine slower than the suggestion tho
  • Tools > Options > Connection settings I have “TCP and uTP” (same as MUO) but that old reddit thread was recommending only TCP.
  • MUO has (Tools > Options > Connections) : "Ensure the box beside Use UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding from my router is checked. " - as I mentioned, I don’t do port forwarding so I leave mine unchecked but there is probably a speed hit for this.
  • There was also something about "Don’t download multiple torrent files at the same time. This will then allocate all available bandwidth to downloading a single file, resulting in a faster download. " - I generally ignore this but there IS some truth to it. I have had hundreds of things queued before and gotten awful speeds. I recommend just not going overboard with how many you are running at once.
  • Tools > Options > Advanced: Find the network interface and select the one that corresponds with your VPN. If you aren’t sure, for most Windows users you can connect to VPN then find from command line using ipconfig /all and look for something that is NOT disconnected and probably has TAP-Windows Adapter Vx if using OpenVPN-Protocol (most VPNs) but might be different for wireguard. For Linux users, to show network interfaces run ip -4 -o -br addr - usually in linux ethernet interfaces start with an E and wifi interfaces start with a W, lo is localhost, and 99% of the time the vpn interface will be named tun0 if you are using a VPN with OpenVPN-protocol (most of them) but might be something different for wireguard or if you have customized things.
Holyhandgrenade,
@Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world avatar

You didn’t even mention QBittorrent’s best feature: it has a search engine that searches across lots of different torrent sites, so you don’t need to check each one!

overzeetop,
@overzeetop@lemmy.world avatar

Wait, really? I’m going to have to go check next time I log into my torrenting box.

Holyhandgrenade, (edited )
@Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world avatar

IIRC you have to enable it separately, but it’s not very difficult to do. Just google it if you run into trouble

drunkensailor,
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I agree that that is a very nice feature. So are the rss feeds.

But to me “best” is anything that makes it easier to avoid getting caught so the network interface binding is still my favorite 😉

deweydecibel,

If only qbittorrent hadn’t had that idiotic redesign that made it look like a fisherprice toy.

odium,
drunkensailor,
@drunkensailor@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

not really sure what you mean (maybe i didnt notice or it was before i started using it?) but to each their own I guess?

filister, in Z-Library Blog: "Unprecedented seizure of our domains with books on rare languages"

This eerily reminds of books burning.

amio,

Well, the files are intact, it's "just" registrar douchiness. Not that that makes it good, by any stretch, but it's not all Alexandria either

ashok36,

It’s more like if a landlord canceled the leases on a bunch of properties that a chain of privately owned libraries was renting.

“keep your books but you can’t keep them here” in a way.

Cannacheques,

Book burning bad, literally Roman style war crimes…

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