If you missed the last time PTN opened external invite applications, there is no reason to worry. They are open once again and probably will remain open thought the entire weekend (sitewide 2X upload is enabled at time of this post as well and will remain so for another 12 hours). As you might already know, PTN is a ratio free movie/TV/OST tracker with lots of packs and exclusive torrents. Unlike many other private Bittorrent sites, PTN does not focus entirely on the content – it’s community based tracker where everybody knows everybody.

As of (31/5/2009), PTN currently tracks over 5200 torrents and their userbase comprises of 2200+ registered members. Content on this site includes Movies, TV shows and official Soundtracks. This is definitely one of the best private trackers for movies packs – there are over 200 of them. PTN layout is easy to use and is packed with nice little extra features such as arcade, blackjack, pirate galleries, pirate’s notes box, gold system with 2x, 3x, 5x gold and random category bonus, three separate browse pages for movies/TV/OST, requests system, staff picks and so on.

Being a private community, PTN is almost never open to public signups. You can however get into this tracker through an invite from an existing member, via tracker recruitment threads on various Bittorrent forums or by filling the external invite application form that is occasionally available (such as right now) at a special URL. PTN invite application was explained and discussed in some detail in our previous review of the site. We suggest you read the comments to that article which includes responses by users as well as PTN Staff.

Site Name: PTN

Invite Application URL: http://*********.***/comeandplay.php (do not use ‘www’ in the address)

Note: PTN tracker rules prohibit displaying full tracker URL in public so only the location of the invite application was given (../comeandplay.php). Do not ask for full tracker URL or post it here.

Read the rest of this article...

Popular General/0day tracker CZTEAM (formerly known as CZONE) has opened free signups for the last time. Once registration closes down this time around, the only way into this great general tracker would be via invites from existing members. The previous open signup of CZTEAM was speculated to be the last as well. This decision however was changed after 5000 users were disabled due to breaking tracker rules/being inactive. Following notice regarding the open signups is quoted from CZTEAM homepage:

After lots of requests from our beloved users and after about 5k accounts disabled due to breaking the rules we decided to give one more chance and UNLOCK the gates for the last time.

Therefore call you friends and give them the news: The Last FreeSignup on CZTeam has STARTED!

Remember to read the rules, faq and be active on the tracker. Inactivity leads to the deletion of your account.

The countdown has begun....

Everything that there was to be discussed about CZTEAM tracker was discussed in our recent review of the site (You can find screenshots of the tracker there as well) so it will not be repeated here. In addition to the information already posted, let us tell you this – don’t break rules or cheat on CzT (or on any other tracker for that matter) - the staff will hunt you down and disable your ass.

Site Name: CZTEAM (http://torrents.czteam.ro/)

Signup URL: http://torrents.czteam.ro/signup.php

Read the rest of this article...

Final build of Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (update KB948465) ) was released to the public by Microsoft two days ago. I’m not sure if it’s available via Windows Update yet (i don’t use the service) but direct download links for SP2 final are now available. Some of the notable features included in Service Pack 2 include Bluetooth 2.1 feature pack, Blu-Ray media record support, Windows Search 4.0, better streaming capabilities for HD audio and video, a sh1tload of security and reliability updates and many other smaller fixes and enhancements. Both 32-bit 64-bit editions are available.

Although Vista SP2 Final was officially released to the public on the 27th of May, leaked versions have been available on BitTorrent trackers as early as the 13th of May. Warez scene group ZWTISO (ISO division of Zero Waiting Time) even released SP2 integrated untouched versions of Vista ISOs way before the official release.

The effects of installing SP2 on a pirated (cracked) version of Vista is not known. It does not seem to include the hotfix that can detect and disable some BIOS emulation cracks (KB94510). This update has been available on Windows Update for some time but the full list of Vista SP2 features available on Microsoft TechNet does not include kb94510 in the list. I guess pirates are pretty safe in this case.

Anyway you need to have Vista Service Pack 1 installed before you install Service Pack 2. Also, you need to uninstall any pre release builds of SP2 before the installation.

Download

Following are direct download links that point to files hosted on official Microsoft servers. No 3rd party links are included. Vista SP2 standalone installer size is around 350MB.

[Click Here] to download Windows Vista Sp2 x86 (32-bit) Standalone Installer

[Click Here] to download Windows Vista Sp2 x64 (64-bit) Standalone Installer

Read the rest of this article...

Many BitTorrent users would agree with me when I say that TTi.nu (The Internationals) was one of the best General/0Day trackers that were around. TTi was one of the many private trackers hosted in Sweden which was once considered a safe heaven for file sharing. However. The Pirate Bay’s defeat in court changed everything and TTi too were caught in the storm – they decided not to index any copyrighted material and become a ‘legal only’ torrent site. Needless to say this wasn’t a very popular decision among the site’s users. However the good news is that normalcy has returned to TTi – they are now tracking scene releases and zero day material  just like in the good old days.

As we reported earlier, this change was on the cards for some time. Public signups,which were open since TTi became legal only, closed on the 28th of May and by 29th Requests and Offers features of the tracker had been implemented again. And by today (30th of May), TTi has begun tracking releases made by scene groups. All former torrent categories have returned and it’s expected that TTi will go on to become that great general tracker with tons of packs and exclusive releases it used to be in no time.

Image: Old torrent categories have returned to TTi 

As for new registrations, they are closed : “Update: Signups are now CLOSED! You can still invite people though, but who knows for how long? “. If you’ve been reading FILEnetworks Blog, you might have already created an account on TTi when you had the chance - we warned in advance that signups would close soon (in our previous article). There is no reason to believe that this tracker would open its door to the public in the near future. They already have a 20K+ user base and it hardly ever opened up when it was in full swing anyways. Finally best wishes for the ‘new old TTi’ from TEAM FILEnetworks.

Related Articles

• TTi.nu – back to the good old days?
• Download Legal Music Torrents from TTi Tracker
• SoftMP3, SweDVDR and DarkSide trackers to shut down, TTi policy change

Read the rest of this article...

Sweden’s private tracker community which collapsed like a pack of cards following TPB’s defeat in court, is definitely recovering. Trackers such as SwePiracy, PirateTorrents and SceneHD have already returned with the likes of TTi.nu set to return to normalcy soon. In the meantime, two very popular trackers, SweDVDR and SoftMP3, have released their source code to the public so that new tracker admins may use the source to build their own trackers (see related URLs section at the bottom of this article for download links). This article discusses DVDRSOURCE, one of the very first private torrent trackers to use SweDVDR’s source code.

Just like SweDVDR (now defunct), DVDRSOURCE is a specialized untouched DVD-R tracker. You can find DVD5/DVD9 versions of popular movies and TV shows along with original menus, languages, subtitles, bonus DVD features and soundtracks. As mentioned above DVDRSOURCE is a Swedish tracker; Interface language is Swedish and lots of indexed DVDRs are those released in the Nordic region. This doesn’t mean this is a useless tracker for English speaking users – most indexed DVDRs have English audio with optional Swedish subtitles (NORDiC tag usually does not mean they are dubbed). You can double check this by going to the torrent description page and checking under the ‘Audio’ section which usually mentions spoken languages.

DVDRSOURCE might use SweDVDR’s source but it still is a brand new tracker that has to build the torrent index as well as the user database from scratch. They’ve only been online for four days and the progress so far has been quite amazing. As of 30/5/2009, DVDSOURCE has 1850+ registered members and 70+ torrents (they seem to have got quite a lot of publicity in a very short time). Almost all of the torrents are of course very well seeded.

For those who wish to check this tracker out, good news is that DVDRSOURCE is currently open for signup. You can easily create a free account and a confirmation email is not even needed (use the translation below if you don’t understand Swedish). It still has a long way to go but who knows, this could be the next SweDVDR!

Site Name: DVDRSOURCE (http://www.dvdrsource.org)

Signup URL: http://www.dvdrsource.org/signup.php

Signup page translation:

Swedish	English
Önskat användarnamn:	Desired username
Kön	Gender
Ålder	Age
Lösenord	Password
Skriv lösenordet igen:	Repeat Password

As for the interface, clicking on ‘Nytt’ will take you to the torrent index (aka browse page). Rest is self explanatory.

Related Links:

• SweDVDR source code download: http://mintorrent.se/t5ibSa/swedvdr_source_rar
• SoftMP3 soure code download: http://mintorrent.se/EOA1vz/SOFTMP3_rar

Read the rest of this article...

If you were wondering whatever the hell happened to PTFiles, here is an update. As you may already be aware, the domain http://ptfiles.org no longer points to the BitTorrent site – it just leads to a parked page with lots of irrelevant keywords. There is however little reason to worry – PTF is alive and well. Both the site and the tracker can now be accessed using the new URL http://ptfiles.net. User database and the torrent index has not been affected by the move – all data including torrents and user ratios are intact. If you were not an old member of PTF, you can still check this site out – signups are currently open.

PTF IRC channel now carries the following topic:

ATTENTION WE HAVE A NEW DOMAIN

ptfiles.org is now ptfiles.net. Please edit the announce url in your clients to reflect new URL or redownload the .torrent file for any torrents you may be seeding/leeching

THANK YOU :)

If you have never heard about PTFiles (formerly known as Phoenix-Torrent) before, it’s a promising General/0Day tracker with a great community. You can read more about site features and view screenshots in our PTF review which can be found here.

Site Name: PTFiles (http://ptfiles.net)

Signup URL: http://ptfiles.net/register.php

IRC Channel: irc://irc.p2p-network.net/phoenix-torrents

Read the rest of this article...

Note: This post has been bumped to the front because StB closed signups just 1-2 hours after the article was originally posted. This time around signups will remain open for 24 hours.

Although we usually post about at least one private torrent tracker everyday here at FILEnetworks Blog, it’s been ages since a specialized mobile torrent tracker was featured. When it comes to mobile trackers SyncTheBits (StB) is as good as it gets. From its humble beginnings back in 2008, StB has grown on to become one of the largest BitTorrent sites (in terms of content) for mobile content currently in existence. From appz/games for popular mobile platforms such as Symbian, Java, iPhone, PalmOS, BlackBerry etc, StB even tracks mobile optimized multimedia including re-encoded movies and TV shows.

As of 28/5/2009, StB has an active user base of close to 1800 members. Inactive accounts are very frequently disabled on this tracker – the admins seem to want very active members for the site. SyncTheBits currently tracks a little over 3000 active torrents. This is a pretty huge number, specially for a private tracker that focuses ONLY on mobile content.

Speaking of content, StB is no longer the mobile appz-only tracker it was back when it was started. The site has further expanded and it now tracks mobile optimized movies, TV shows, E-books and other media as well. The following screenshots will probably help you get a better understanding of what can be found on StB:

Image: Category icons at StB

As you can probably see from the above screen, there is a category titled ‘Packs’ in the list. The packs section contains over 40 torrents – all exclusive torrents unique to StB.

Image: Part of the torrent index at StB

StB is closed for signups most of the time. However the good news is that public registrations are currently open. Even better news is that free leech and double upload has been enabled for all indexed torrents (global freeleech and 2X upload). We do not know for how long open signups will stay open so get in while you can.

Site Name: SynctheBits (http://syncthebits.com/)

Signup URL: http://syncthebits.com/signup.php

Categories:

• BlackBerry Apps
• BlackBerry Games
• E-Books Fiction
• E-Books Non Fiction
• iPhone Apps
• iPhone Games
• Java Apps
• Java Games
• Misc
• Nintendo DS
• StB Packs
• PalmOS Apps
• PalmOS Games
• PSP Games
• SymbianOS Apps
• SymbianOS Games
• Windows Mobile Apps
• Windows Mobile Games

Read the rest of this article...

About two days ago we conducted a free invitation giveaway to the specialized HD torrent tracker Awesome-HD (AHD). We received close to 400 requests within 48 hours but could only invite around 100 members since we had a limited number of invitations at our disposal. If you were one of the readers who submitted for an invite request and still haven’t been invited, here is some great news. Awesome-HD has opened its doors to the public for 48 hours – anyone who is interested in becoming a member of this tracker can now create a free account.

Following notice is posted on the site homepage regarding open signups:

The next 48 hours we open our doors for everyone interested in high quality High Definition encodes.
Open registration closes on Friday at 23:00 (UTC + 2 hours)
Your Awesome Team

In the meantime the number of registered users at AHD has rocketed past 4400 members – this figure was hovering around 3000 just two days ago.

Anyways we have covered pretty much everything about AHD in our previous article (including screenshots and content details).If you need to know more information about AHD, we strongly recommend you read our previous article.

Site Name: Awesome-HD (http://awesome-hd.com)
Signup URL: http://awesome-hd.com/register.php
Stats: ~4500 users and ~180 torrents
Full Tracker Review: Click Here

Read the rest of this article...

Some of the best games I’ve ever played in my life were released  for the MS-DOS platform (Prince of Persia 1, Dangerous Dave 1 to name a few). These games were so good that they can still be enjoyed now, even in 2009. Unfortunately, modern operating systems such as Windows Vista does not include full support for legacy OS such as MS-DOS. DOSBox is an application that can really help you in such cases – it’s an MS-DOS emulator that’ll allow you run all your favorite DOS games and applications on operating systems without native DOS support (Windows Vista, Linux, Mac OS X and a number of others).

Now we’ve posted about this application here on this blog before - Reason why we are mentioning it again is the release of DOSBox v0.73. This release includes a number of new features, enhancements and bugfixes and is a must have upgrade for any new old or new old DOSBox users.

Most noticeable changes:

• Support for more graphics modes and cards.
• Improved Vista support.
• New OPL emulation cores.
• Sound fixes and improvements for Mac OS X.
• Lots of compatibility fixes.
• Lots of cdrom detection improvements.
• Lots of memory (EMS/XMS) improvements.
• Various fixes and enhancements for the recompiling core.
• Support for evdev.
• Lots of DOS fixes.
• Slightly faster!
• More stable.

Download

[Click Here] to download DOSBox 0.73 from the official download page (includes separate installers for multiple platforms including Linux, Mac OS X and Windows)

[Click Here] to read our tutorial of DOSBox if you are a beginner at using this application

Read the rest of this article...

About two weeks ago we posted an article about TorrentVault – a decent general/0day tracker with lots of TV torrents. Since signups were open only for a very small amount of time many of our readers were not able to get in. If you missed out on this tracker earlier, this could be your lucky day. TorrentVault is having a three day long open signup exclusively for readers of FILEnetworks Blog. Although TorrentVault is reaching their maximum user limit threshold, we’ve been told that each and every new signup through the promotional link will be given a new account regardless of the user limit.

Site Name: TorrentVault (http://www.torrentvault.org)

Special Signup URL: http://www.torrentvault.org/FileNetworks_limitedPromosignup.php

Stats: 11300+ active torrents

Since most of the information about this tracker and its content were posted in one of the previous blog posts (which is only two weeks old as of 28/5), we won’t repeat the same here. For a a mini review, screenshots and user opinions about TorrentVault, read the previous article which can be found here. We strongly recommend you read it if you are interested in becoming a member of this tracker.

Special thanks to – TorrentVault administrators/staff

Read the rest of this article...

Who hasn’t got a FaceBook account these days? Besides being a useful social networking utility, it could be a real time waster if you get addicted. Due to this very reason, most workplaces and educational institutes prevent users from accessing this service. faceoffIM is a useful little software that’s ideal for FaceBook addicts who want to access the service from office or school without getting caught. It’s basically a standalone FaceBook chat client with limited FB browsing features. The software comes complete with a ‘panic button’ as well as an interface that resembles internal systems at most workplaces.

Developer Description

faceoffIM is a free, standalone application designed to let you use facebook chat, without a web browser having to be open. Ever been mid-conversation with a friend but your boss/teacher came along and you had to quickly close your web browser, leaving your friend wondering why you suddenly went offline? With faceoffIM, at the touch of a button your conversations will instantly hide, but all still be open for you to continue whenever you are ready.

Features

• Quick-hide "panic button"
• Full tabbed chatting for as many conversations as you like.
• System tray icon which lights up upon new messages.

Download

[Click Here] to download faceoffIM 0.9.4 beta from official server (requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 to run)

Read the rest of this article...

Bitme.org is considered by many as the world’s best E-Learning torrent tracker. With over 18500 torrents in the index and 19000+ registered users, its also one of the largest E-learning trackers currently in existence. Apart from the usual flurry of daily new torrents, Bitme has recently added an entirely new category to the site titled ‘Math’. As the name implies, this category is all about Mathematics related stuff. You can find mathematical ebooks, tutorials (including video tutorials), test preparation kits and many more torrents in this section.

The following is quoted from a news post on site regarding the new addition:

May-24-09 - New Category

BitMe now has another new category that we hope will help members.
BitMe is happy to announce the MATH category...
yeah MATH!!!
Thanks to Yabood for the MATH category image.
also the category college lectures was using the TTC image, so the category has been renamed to match... you should now see TTC in the dropdown lists for that category.
enjoy
//BitMe staff

The ‘Math’ category is already seeing some serious activity with around 40 torrents being added in a single day (most of these packs and collections):

So there you have it - If you are a student, teacher or someone who has an interest in the field of mathematics, you now have a new reason to chase for a Bitme invite (the site is almost never open to the public).

Related Articles

• Free Textbooks educational tracker - download coursework, exam papers, lectures & more
• Bibliotik – BitTorrent tracker for magazines, ebooks, novels, audiobooks & more
• PureTorrents – Download text book torrents and academic eBooks

Read the rest of this article...

We are a a little late in reporting this one but here goes. Veteran scene group Razor1911 (RZR) have released a cracked version of popular life simulation game The Sims 3. The same title was earlier leaked by RELOADED (RLD) but speculation was rife that it was a beta, pre release copy of the game. According to Razor1911’s NFO, RELOADED’s release is indeed a pre release beta version of the Sims 3. The same has been stated by Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher. However, from what I have so far observed, there are no drastic differences between the two leaked versions of the game.

The main difference between RLD and RZR versions seem to be that RELOADED’s is the Digital Download version of the game while Razro1911 is the version distributed through physical media (it is mentioned in the EULA). There is a small version number change in the two releases as well - RZR seems to carry a newer build number. Additionally, RELOADED’s release contains the SecuROM DRM (which they have cracked) while RZR version only contains a DVD check (which too has been cracked).

The following is quoted from the Razor1911 NFO:

Reloaded release is not final.

If you compare the file located in:
x:GameBincode_version.txt you will get these informations
Razor1911: description=Version: 0.DL-0.0.11195  Changelist: 625803
Reloaded:  description=Version: 0.DL-0.0.11190  Changelist: 624575

If you compare the versions of TS3.exe you will get these infos:
Razor1911: 0.0.0.11195 (April 30. 2009 04:55:28)
Reloaded:  0.0.0.11190 (April 23. 2009 07:53:19)

And in the greetings section of their NFO, RZR have mentioned “Playing beta games is like having sex with a condom!” - a phrase clearly aimed at the RLD release. Despite version number changes and protection changes, game content in both the releases seem to be more or less the same. But is the RZR version really the final version of Sims 3? Who knows - It’ll only be confirmed once the game is officially released on the 2nd of June. 

Getting back to EA’s comment on leak by RELOADED, this is what they told AFP several days ago:

It's not the full game. Half of the world — an entire second city — is missing," said spokeswoman Holly Rockwood in a statement.

This statement is sort of misleading – as far as I know the second city will be available as DLC – it’s not bundled with regular copies of the game unless it’s a pre order special edition. I don’t think it has anything to do with piracy or leaked copies (then again I might be wrong).

Related Articles

• Pirates crack The Sims 3 DRM two weeks before official release
• Solutions for The Sims 3 crashes, graphics, sound and missing object issues

Read the rest of this article...

If you are a fan of movies, music and TV shows from Middle eastern countries, you’ll love this news. Two popular Arabic trackers, Arabfilms and Arabic series have opened public registrations for a short time. These trackers are usually invite only and you need to become a VIP in order to get in when signups are closed. Arabfilms specializes in Arabic movies and music while it’s sister site Arabic Series specializes in TV shows from the middle east.

Although both these trackers are of Arabic origin, there is an option to change interface language to English (click on the English flag icon on the top left corner of page). Content however is mostly in Arabic languages.

Arabfilms

Site Name: Arabfilms (http://www.arabfilms.org)
Signup URL: http://www.arabfilms.org/signup.php
Stats: 8200+ torrents and ~11000 users
Description: If you are a fan of Arabic movies, you’ll love this site. If you are looking for English movies, don’t bother to signup. For more information about this tracker refer to our previous article located here.

Arabic Series
 
Site Name: Arabic Series (http://www.arabseries.org)
Signup URL: http://www.arabseries.org/signup.php
Stats: 9400+ members and 2700+ torrents 
Description: Primarily a TV series tracker, Arabic Series focuses on shows from middle eastern countries (includes Egyptian, Syrian, Moroccan and other Arabic drama series).

Read the rest of this article...

If you are a long time reader of FILEnetworks Blog, you probably are already familiar with the name Awesome-HD (AHD). AHD is a specialized private HD torrent tracker run by  ex-HDBits.org encoder EuREKA. This tracker gained huge popularity in the BitTorrent community within a very short period of time – however various problems with the site’s implementation resulted in frequent downtimes and internal server errors which prevented users from logging in. Although AHD made several attempts to resolve these issues within the old source (XBTIT), it was only with mild success. They have however now migrated to the Gazelle codebase and guess what – no more annoying errors.

Migration to gazelle has not only resulted in an error free site but it has given AHD a whole new polished look. Apart from the usual Gazelle features such as tagging, advanced search, knowledge base, etc AHD has added several customized features of their own. This includes bookmarks, torrent notifications, improved requests system and more. Site navigation speed has also been improved.

Awesome-HD currently has over 3000 members and tracks close to 150 torrents. Note that the migration to Gazelle appears to have reset both the user database as well as the torrent index – AHD had over 6k members before migration. All old users have been invited to the new AHD – to compensate the loss of ratio they have been given 50GB free upload credit as well as 3 invites.

Speaking of the content on this tracker – it’s all about High Definition (HD) movies and TV shows. Almost all the included releases are x264 encoded Blu Ray movies. Another interesting fact about Awesome HD is that it seems to focus a lot on non-scene/p2p releases unlike many other sites. Expect to find a lot of releases by p2p groups such as ESiR, CtrlHD, BTT, DON, iLL and of course EuReKA on this tracker. Following is a screenshot showing part of AHD’s torrent index:

Public registrations for this tracker are currently closed. However we believe that a lot of our readers are already members of AHD since two open signups for this site were posted here before. Anyway if you are still not a member and want to get in, AHD admins have been kind enough to give 100 free invites exclusively for FILEnetworks Blog readers. To obtain one follow the steps below:

UPDATE: Within 6 hours of posting this article, we got over 200 invite requests for Awesome-HD. We have now sent out 102 invites on a first come, first served basis. Please do not make any more requests.

1. Create a new email message with the subject ‘Awesome-HD’. In the body of the message clearly specify the E-mail address you want the invite sent to (write the email message in the format address@provider.com – do not use the address[at]provider[dot]com notation as you did in previous giveaways.
2. Send the email to ahd.filenetworks@gmail.com 

Good Luck!

Note that it may take us some time to manually send you the E-mail (maybe even 2-3 days since I'll be away for most part of today - LST). Have patience and please note that we only have 100 invites at our  disposal – do not be offended if you didn’t get one this time around. If you managed to get in, respect tracker rules and try to be an active member :)

Read the rest of this article...

Yay! a new issue of Game Scene Charts Magazine is out. About time too – considering that the last issue was released way back in March which is a little over three months ago. This is issue number 30 of TGSC and is titled the ‘February, March and April 2009' edition’ – game release statistics for three months are included in this issue.. If you don’t know what TGSC is, it’s a monthly coded magazine (a small standalone program that integrates magazine content, background music and a user interface) which ranks warez groups in the gaming scene – yeah, pirates have magazines too.

A typical TGSC issue comprises of the following articles:

• Editorial – Comments from the editors on this month’s issue
• Monthly Chart – Group statistics and rankings based on the number of PC Game ISO/DOX releases for that particular month (in this case December 2008)
• Monthly Overview – Editorial with news, updates and other information surrounding the PC game scene for that particular month
• Group of the month – A list of best ranked scene groups, sorted by month
• Group release stats – Comments about specific groups and their releases for a particular month
• Yearly stats – Group rankings and points earned for the current year
• Yearly overview – Comments by editors on how this months group performance has affected yearly performance
• Group of the year – A list of best ranked scene groups, sorted by year
• All time stats – All time group release statistics 
• All time overview – Comments on how this month’s performance has affected a group’s overall ranking

According to this issue, the following groups have come on top for the months of February, March and April:

• February 2009 – 1. RELOADED, 2. ViTALiTY, 3. PROPHET
• March 2009 – 1. BAMBOOCHA (A German group), 2. PROPHET, 3. CPY
• April 2009 – 1. PROPHET, 2. 0x0007 (German), 3. SKiDROW

In the meantime group RELOADED leads the all time statistics with a whopping 2000+ points – ViTALiTY follows second with 1600+ points. More information can be found inside the magazine.

Download

[Click Here] to download Game Scene Charts Issue 30 from Netload.in

[Click Here] to download Game Scene Charts Issue 30 from Depositfiles

Read the rest of this article...

One by one, private torrent trackers that went down following TPB’s defeat in court are starting to re-emerge. PirateTorrents, SceneHD and Swepiracy have already returned and by the look of things life will soon be back to normal at the popular General/0Day tracker TTi.nu (The Internationals). Unlike most other Swedish trackers which received legal threats from Swedish anti-piracy agency, TTi did not shut down. They however removed all torrents pointing to copyrighted material and became a ‘legal only’ torrent site. This decision however disappointed many of the site’s users – if you are one such member who miss the ‘old TTi’, here is some good news.

Quoted below is a post which can be found on TTi’s news section:

A new era is on the way!
Dear users,
For about a month now, TTi has gone through some rather rough changes. Due of the major turbulence around the Pirate Bay trial, trackers shutting down etc. it has not been safe running a Sweden-based site. Even though many of you have been very disappointed, we have seen a major increase in the number of users and the "new TTi" with legal material has been very warm welcomed by you guys and we are of course very stoked about this!
It's not that we also miss the old TTi, we are all sad that it had to be this way, but it was either that or shutting the tracker down completely, something that we will never do!
The donations to the site has been far from 100% for quite some time now, and we feel very sad about this since we want to keep the site alive, but if no donations comes in, there will be no TTi in the future..because of this, we have decided that we will return to the old TTi again (with all that it means). We will not give you any detailed information about this, due of security reasons, but the site will return to it's old way, but with some major improvements such as better security, better site and a new design! We will keep you updated on this matter along the road!
BUT if we will be able to do this, the donations cannot be as low as they are now. The new improvements will cost money, and for this we need your help! If you want the old TTi back, we would really appreciate if you would help us and donate to the site, so that we will be able to work faster so that the old site can come back faster!
And as stated above, please don't ask us about what we are going to do with the site, you will be informed about this along the way to the new old TTi!
You can talk and discuss it HERE!
best regards,
//
TTi Staff

Some additional info can be found on the forum thread about the news item:

* Those who left us will of course NOT be given their stats back. If you left us and did not believe in us, tough luck!
* The registrations will be closed when we have reached a good number of users (you will be given info about this when the limit is about to be reached)
* Remember that we ALSO have a iPod Touch competition, and the money from that competition will also go to the new old TTi, so by competing, you will sort of donate to the site aswell, but you can win an awesome mp3 player at the same time! (see NEWS for all the details!)
* The shop will not be opened yet

As you may already know, signups for TTi were opened immediately after it went ‘legal only’ (Signups almost never opened back when it was a 0day tracker). Expect the registrations to close once the site returns to its normal form. If you were an old member of TTi who gave up on the tracker or a new user waiting to experience the new ‘old' TTi’, signups are still open.

Site Name: TTi (http://www.tti.nu)

Signup URL: http://www.tti.nu/signup.php

Related Articles

• Download Legal Music Torrents from TTi Tracker – Signups Open

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You probably already know about the General/0Day tracker BitShock (BSk) which has already been featured several times here on FILEnetworks Blog. This post however is about Games BitShock (gBSK), a separate project run by the same crew behind the general tracker. As the name implies, Games BitShock is a specialized games BitTorrent tracker that indexes PC and console games. gBSK isn’t exactly a brand new tracker – it was first launched back in 2008 but the site didn’t stay online for long. Now, in May 2009, Games BitShock has returned. It seems to have been rebuilt from scratch and things are looking much better for the site this time around.

Currently there are over 3100 registered members on Games BitShock. Over 375 games torrents have been added to the tracker since 27th of April (in about a month’s time). These are pretty good statistics for a start up tracker – gBSK in this case no doubt had a lot of help from it’s big brother BitShock.org.

Speaking of the content on this tracker, it has PC, Console and Mobile games (majority PC games) indexed. Almost all new releases in the past 2-3 months as well as some great classic titles are available for download ( check out Jazz Jackrabbit collection and Classic 3D Shooters *MEGA PACK* :P ). There are a lot of torrents ending with ‘gBSK’ tag on Games BitShock – such torrents are non scene p2p uploads probably not found on most other sites. Following is a screenshot of depicting part of gBSK’s torrent index:

 

By the way, somebody (staff or an admin) here must really like the Grand Theft Auto series – there are a lot of GTA torrents and the default site theme is also based on a GTA title.

gBSK still has a long way to go in order to challenge well established trackers such as Blackcats Games and BitGAMER. However, the start so far has been great – remember that all popular trackers start small. For example Appz BitShock, another tracker in the BitShock family, too started out with only a handful torrents - today it’s one of the largest software trackers in the world. So let’s hope the trend continues and gBSK too becomes a leading games tracker in the future. If you are interested in getting an account, registrations are open – all new users get 2GB free upload upon joining.

Site Name: Games BitShock (http://games.bitshock.org)

Signup URL: http://games.bitshock.org/signup.php

Categories:

• Gamecube
• Games/Appz
• Linux
• Mac
• Mobile
• Nintendo64
• Oldies
• Pack
• PC Rips
• PS2
• PS3
• PSP
• PSX
• Trailers
• Wii
• Windows
• XBox
• XBox360

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Yesterday we talked  about AutoUnpack – a tool that can help you immensely when it comes to extracting multi part (split) archives. If you are too lazy to even do that, check this software out. ‘VLC UnRAR’ is a plug-in for popular VLC media player. Once installed, this cool plug-in will let you watch movies inside multi part RAR archives (without extracting them first) using VLC media player. In short, it adds capabilities of a RAR player into VLC. Apart from individual movie files, VLC UnRAR supports RAR archived DVD images as well. This plug in is free and supports multiple platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD.

The plugin seems to support multiple versions of VLC media player. I tried it on VLC media player 0.9.8a and it worked well during the short time I tested it. The official page however lists some known issues and troubleshooting information – in case you run into problems check this out.

Features (quoted from developer page)

• Completely FREE with full source code.
• Supports multi-volume RAR archives with full support for seeking
• Supports RAR archived DVD images!
• No external programs or special launch scripts needed
• Simple plugin that works with any VLC installation, no separate RAR player needed
• Platform-independent, binaries available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and FreeBSD
• No pre-extraction of files, data is read directly from inside the archive when requested

Download & Walkthrough

[Click Here] to download VLC UnRAR Plugin 2009 03 07 – Direct Download

[Click Here] to download the latest version of VLC Media player

[Click Here] for a short installation guide on how to set up the plugin

 

Thanks to our reader ‘Me’ for mentioning this tool in the previous article.

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Great news for fans of cartoons and animations – CartoonChaos (CC) is having open signups this weekend (23rd and 24th May). CartoonChaos is a private BitTorrent tracker that tracks all sorts of cartoons, both old and new. Contrary to popular belief, CC is not a general kids tracker – this site is about cartoons and cartoons only (other general kids content are tracked by TorrentKids, CC’s sister site). This tracker has been around for a while (exactly 1 year old as of today) and it’s probably the first specialized cartoon only tracker to hit the BitTorrent scene. It’s a small community but CC could easily become a second home to you if you are a lover of animation.

As of 23/5/2009, CartoonChaos tracks over 1100 active torrents. It appears that CC’s administration prefers a small community of dedicated, active members –  it’s closed for public registration most of the time. The small size of the user base has its advantages but this has also caused some of the indexed torrents to be seeded only by 1 seeder or become inactive (dead). As of now CC’s user base has exceeded 900 members and is expected to increase further following the open signups.

As we previously mentioned CartoonChaos is all about cartoons. From kids toons to adult cartoons you can find pretty much everything here. CC does not only track scene releases – it has some great user uploads which are not usually found on other private trackers making it a really specialized site. Pack on CartoonChaos can be found in the ‘Complete Sets’ category. Torrents in this section usually comprise of full seasons packs of popular toons – almost all of these are on free leech (denoted by the gold coin next to torrent name). Following is a screenshot of some of the releases found in the ‘Complete Sets’ category:

As mentioned at the start of this article, CartoonChaos is open for public registrations during this weekend. Following is an announcement posted on the site regarding open signups:

We'd like to welcome all our new users to our Open House Weekend! That's right for this weekend only we're opening our doors so spread the word because after that they'll be closed again!
New users please take 5-10 mins and read our RULES! As on most sites accounts are judged by ratio and activity - anything you snatch you need to seed for 7 days (168 hrs) or until you reach a 1:1 ratio.
You'll also notice that our torrents are also all free leech (see the gold coins) this will remain until June so enjoy and seed until you bleed!
Also you are free to upload as long as you follow our UPLOAD GUIDE which has a link on the torrent uploading page. Have a read before you try and upload anything, and if you have any questions just ask staff or post in the forums.
Once again welcome and please treasure your new accounts as with most things in life second chances are few and far between!
CC Staff

Also, don’t forget to check out the various themes on CC – they have a ton of these based on popular cartoons. 

Site Name: CartoonChaos (http://www.cartoonchaos.org)

Signup URL: http://www.cartoonchaos.org/index.php?page=signup

Categories:

• Kids Cartoons
• Mature Cartoons
• Banned
• Animated Adverts
• Educational Toons
• Animated Movies
• Anime Movies
• Anime Series
• Animated Adverts
• Theme Tunes
• Sound Tracks
• Complete Sets

Other sites similar to CartoonChaos that are currently open:

• ChildBytes – Children’s Torrent Tracker Signups Open
• TTOKTV –The Tao of Kids TV - Children's TV torrents
• AnimaTooniC Tracker – Download Anime, Cartoon and Comic Torrents (Invites on IRC)

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Let’s face it – almost all of you pirates download movies, games and other scene/p2p releases from the internet. In doing so, you may have noticed that most of these scene and p2p releases are archived as multi part RAR files with extensions such as r01, r02, .001, .002 etc. You can of course use WinRAR to extract any one of these files which will extract the entire archive, automatically decompressing all other associated files. However there are a lot of options that WinRAR does not offer in this scenario. This is where AutoUnpack comes in – a tool designed specifically for unpacking multi part RAR, 7z, zip and TS archives.

For example, you can instruct Autounpack to monitor your torrent (or usenet) downloads folder. Immediately after a torrent download is finished, the software will extract the downloaded release to a destination folder of your choice. You can also instruct Autounpack to delete the archive files (an option is there to prevent deletion of .NFO files) once extraction is complete. This however is a big no-no if you use private torrent trackers - torrent client would not be able to seed the downloaded files and you will be hunted down for hit and running by tracker staff :)

AutoUnpack can also be used to batch decompress a large number of multi part archives. Say you have 20 movies downloaded all waiting to be unpacked – doing so individually would be a real pain in the @ss. Move all subfolders with movie archives under a single parent folder and give the parent folder location to Autounpack (as the source). The software will unpack each and every multi part rar archive under the parent folder, including those inside subfolders.

In addition to extraction, AutoUnpack is capable of repairing damage archives. Although this software will not magically recover catastrophically damaged files, it’s always a useful option to have. For a complete list of features of AutoUnpack, see the developer website.

Download

AutoUnpack is a free software. It’s less than 10MB in file size so downloading should no be a problem even if you have a low bandwidth connection.

[Click Here] to download the latest version of AutoUnpack from official download page

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Over the past two years, we have featured close to 500 private tracker reviews here on FILEnetworks Blog. Some of the trackers mentioned (such as Walve BTSound) were really unique and focused on specific file format/types. Today we discuss about another such tracker; AVCHDBits. This is a relatively new BitTorrent site which specializes in HD movies - mainly movies in AVCHD format and MKV (Matroska video file) format. AVCHDBits is actually a few months old but it suffered from a nearly three week long downtime. The site has now been revived under a new management and things are looking positive for this tracker.

During the rather short time it’s been online so far, AVCHDBits has managed to build a community of 2400+ members. Although the user database has not been affected, the downtime and switch to new management seems to have reset their torrents index. It currently tracks only around 150 torrents – new torrents however are being added daily.

As we mentioned in a previous paragraph, AVCHDBits tracks a lot of movies in AVCHD file format (If you are wondering as to what this file type is, AVCHD is a high definition (HD) video recording and playback format which uses MPEG-4/H.264 for video compression and Dolby Digital audio). In addition there are several movies which are in MKV format. A lot of movie torrents on this tracker are based on BD5 and BD9 source disks (BD9 and BD5 are lower capacity variants of the Blu-ray Disc that contain Blu-ray Disc compatible video and audio streams contained on a conventional DVD optical disc. BD9 uses a standard 8152MB DVD9 dual-layer disc while BD5 uses a standard 4482MB DVD5 single-layer disc - Wikipedia).

Refer to the following screenshot to get a better idea about the content on this tracker:

 

At the time this post is being written, AVCHDBits is open for signup. We don’t know for how long it will remain open so if you have any intentions of joining this site do it ASAP. New members to AVCHDBits are richly rewarded – everyone gets 2 free invites, 2.5GB upload credit and 200 free bonus points upon signup. In addition, the site currently records only 50% of your total downloads (something like half-freeleech).

Site Name: AVCHDBits (https://avchdbits.net)

Signup URL: https://avchdbits.net/signup.php

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I hope you guys can all remember MovieX, the huge forum based tracker that faced some degree of controversy over leeching from the BitTorrent community. Despite controversies and legal issues, MovieX had a huge community of over 400000 member and tracked 50000+ torrents by the time it went down. I don’t know exactly what caused MoviesX to shut down (they had their donations stolen which may have been the final nail in the coffin) since I wasn’t an active member of the site. However now, after several month of downtime, the domain www.moviex.info redirects to a new site – SceneDirect.

SceneDirect is apparently a new private torrent tracker specializing in movies, TV shows and games. We don’t really know the connection between the old MovieX and the new tracker – perhaps there is no connection at all despite the same domain. However, SceneDirect is growing at a rapid pace. The site has only gone online on the 7th of may and there are already ~3600 registered members and 400+ torrents on the tracker. Forums, IRC channel and a bonus system has already been enabled and all torrents are on free leech as of now.

Although SceneDirect looks more like a General/0Day tracker, they seem to be focusing only on TV shows, movies and games. SD, HD and DVDR movies/TV series and PC/console games (individual torrents as well as packs) are available for download. Following is a screenshot of part of SceneDirect’s torrent index:

It is too early to tell whether SceneDirect will go on to become a successful private torrent tracker. Like all new BitTorrent sites, it’ll have to face the test of time. In the meantime registrations are open. You can check it out for yourself by registering for free.

Site Name: SceneDirect (http://scenedirect.org/)

Signup URL: http://scenedirect.org/signup.php

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Well the game isn’t even officially out yet but we are already seeing trainers being released for The Sims 3. This perhaps has something to do with the recent leak. Shortly after the game was leaked by RELOADED, the DOX division of Razor1911 (RazorDox) released a new money trainer for The Sims 3. This will no doubt be hugely popular given the number of people who have already pre ordered/downloaded the game and hundreds and thousands that’ll purchase the game once it’s released.

The trainer does only one thing – it adds money to the player’s account (virtual money in the Sims world that is :) ) whenever CTRL + F2 is pressed at the in game buy menu. Of course, to enable this hack you need to have the trainer running in the background simultaneously with the game. I personally have not tested this trainer, however comments on various online forums suggest that it works flawlessly. As for where to download the trainer, we do not link to any trainers directly nor host them. You can check the GameCopyWorld page for The Sims 3 for more information.

Related Articles

• Solutions for The Sims 3 crashes, graphics, sound and missing object issues
• Pirates crack The Sims 3 DRM two weeks before official release

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Yesterday we featured a new private HD torrent tracker named HDME which apparently became very popular among our readers (judging by the number of hits to that article). Today we present another fairly new private torrent site, this time a tracker that specializes in DVD-R and HD movies & TV shows; DVDtreasure. There are a lot of untouched DVD-5/DVD-9 and Blu Ray movie/TV torrents on this tracker. DVDTreasure has Polish origins but that doesn’t mean English speaking users should worry – there are plenty of English releases available as well.

DVDTreasure currently tracks close to 1600 torrents. The exact number of users on this tracker is not known yet – it must be a decent number because most of the torrents are alive and relatively well seeded. It appears that DVDTreasure indexes both scene and p2p releases including a lot of exclusive torrents. This includes movies, kids content, TV shows, music, boxsets, software (video editors and utilities) and specials. Video files on this tracker are of excellent quality – most of them are either in DVD-5, DVD-9 or Blu Ray formats.

As mentioned above this is a Polish tracker. If you do not speak Polish the first thing you should do is to change site language to English by clicking the English flag icon on top left corner of the page. Also note that most of the DVDR torrents on this tracker are tagged with PL or PLSUB tags. However this does not mean that such torrents have only Polish audio. Since full DVDRs have multiple audio streams, usually both English and Polish streams are included. Make sure you view torrent description and check the available audio streams before you download anything.

Registrations for DVDTreasure are currently open. If you are looking to get into a full DVD/Blu-Ray tracker, check this site out – it’s a rather unknown and underrated tracker with decent content. All new users get 8GB free upload credit upon signup.

Site Name: DVDTreasure (http://dvdtreasure.eu)

Signup URL: http://dvdtreasure.eu/signup.php

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Terminator Salvation is a third person shooter game developed by GRIN for the PC, PS3 ands XBOX 360. It’s loosely based on the upcoming movie of the same name. The game was officially released to the public on the 19th of May but the launch has apparently gone to hell due to a serious error with the game’s installer. InstallShield installer that’s responsible for setting up Terminator Salvation on end user PCs seems throws an error (in almost all PC versions of the game) every time when setup is run; thus preventing gamers from installing or playing this title.
UPDATE: Included a possible fix to manually extract files. See end of article.

Incidentally, a Clone DVD (untouched DVD Image) of Terminator Salvation has leaked on the internet right on the game’s release date -  it was leaked by warez scene group GOW (Gods of War). In fact, I was going to post an article about the leak when I saw a large number of comments flaming GOW for pre’ing another non working release. A lot of people were getting the message An error (-5006:0x80070002) has occurred while running the setup upon executing the installer. However what GOW released was a copy of the original game’s image  - they did not crack the DRM (SecuROM) embedded into the game.

Since the error couldn’t have anything to do with a file modification, I just did a search on Termination Salvation official forums. Apparently a lot of legitimate users were getting the same error. This means that the InstallShield installer in both the leaked and legit versions of the game is royally screwed. I’ve seen comments by people who even formatted their systems and reinstalled Windows to get the game working. Well you don’t need to change your configuration since it’s an internal error with the game. However below is a possible fix you can try to manually extract game files, bypassing the installer:

How to manually extract game files

1. Download InstallShield Cabinet File Viewer from this link.
2. In your Terminator Salvation installation disk, there should be a file named data1.hdr. Open this file with InstallShield Cabinet File Viewer.
3. Go to View—> Components
4. Extract all files located inside grinexes, grinexesvistaonly, USR_bundles, USR_video, USR_root and context file related to your preferred language (Extract to a destination of your choice – for example to a folder called “ Salvation”)
5. Go to the extracted location and create a new subfolder named data. Inside data create three subfolders named videos, cutscenes and movies. Move all extracted .bik video files to the videos folder you just created. Also, move all .fcl, .bundle and .lhd files inside the bundles folder (rename Bundles folder to bundles if it starts with an uppercase - or the game will crash).
6. In the end the structure of your folder (created in step 4) should look something like below:

7. Run TerminatorSalvation.exe to run the game. (make sure you rename the Bundles, Videos and Data folders so that they start with lowercase letters. Also you might try rebooting the machine and launching the game if you made any changes to the files/structure. )
- Thanks to JBeckman, streetunder and Newty182 on NFOHUMP for all the help

Update 2: Checked the official forums again and they are recalling defective copies of the game:

Unfortunately a defect occurred during replication of the PC version of Terminator Salvation, which does not allow end users to install the game. The Xbox 360 and PS3 are not affected and function properly. We have recalled all PC copies of Terminator Salvation from retail in North America and are currently in the process of replicating new copies. The new copies will be on store shelves in a few days. A replacement plan for all end users that purchased the defective units is currently being set up. Details to get a replacement copy will be announced shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused the end users that purchased the defective copy.

If the above method does not work for you (if it crashes at logo screen with access violation error), I guess you’ll have to wait for an updated release.

Note: The process above does not circumvent the game’s DRM. If you are using a pirated copy do not ask for instructions on how to get the game working on this thread – we are not a warez blog.

 

If you liked this article, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed. Also don’t forget to check our private trackers section which includes up to date information about private torrent trackers and open signups.

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It’s always interesting news when a new BitTorrent tracker is launched. Given the increasing popularity of HD movies and TV shows, it’s even more interesting news when a new specialized HD tracker is launched. Today we are going to talk about one such site; HDME.eu. HDME is a new private torrent tracker for HD movies and TV shows. Although the site is pretty new (two and a half months old), it definitely has already shown a lot of promise. If you are looking forward to join a new HD tracker, you might find this article interesting.

Although it’s been a mere 2.5 months since HDME has gone online, the site has already attracted over 4500 registered users. Its torrent index currently comprises of 370 listed torrents – movies and TV shows in HD formats (720p, 1080p, 1080i, Bluray, etc) mainly. It appears that HDME indexes both scene and p2p released HD content rather than being limited to non-scene only or scene-only. In addition to the usual torrents, there are already a good number of packs (30+ torrents out of ~370 total torrents) on this tracker. The following screenshot captures part of the torrent index of HDME:

One some private HD trackers, I’ve found it a little hard to maintain a good ratio. However users of HDME should have no problems because "Packs", "HD-DVD" & "Blu-ray" categories are on permanent freeleech. Also it must be said that HDME has one of the cleanest and most organized layouts I’ve seen on a private tracker. It’s a subjective claim but I’m sure most of you will like the interface as well.

Registrations for HDME are currently open. New users get 5GB free upload credit upon signup. If you are looking for a HD tracker, check this out. It’s a start up tracker but there is a lot of promises IMHO.

Site Name: HDME (http://hdme.eu)

Signup URL: http://hdme.eu/signup.php

Categories:

• Anime
• Appz
• Bluray
• Documentaries
• HD-DVD
• HQ Music
• Misc
• Movie 1080i
• Movie 1080p
• Movie 720p
• Music Videos
• Packs
• Playstation 3
• Sports
• TV Series 1080i
• TV Series 1080p
• TV Series 720p
• XXX

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