Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Sith Edition has finally arrived for the PC, almost a year later than its console release. I’ve had the liberty to play this game and honestly, it looked like one of the shittiest ports of 2009. First of all this game is a massive install which will take up somewhere around 25GB hard disk space - 7GB for HD movies and 18GB for game data. But that’s not the real issue – game looks almost the same as its console counterparts even after a year, loads slowly, has a FPS lock at 30 frames (which i have tried to remove but haven’t succeeded), does not perform too well on mid range hardware, etc, etc. Anyways back to the topic – naturally the game was leaked about a week before release but this time, pirates were in for a surprise.

Pirated copies of Force Unleashed were readily available from BitTorrent trackers and one click hosting sites since 30th of October which was more than a week before the game’s official release date. The game’s SecuROM DRM system was once again ripped apart by group RELOADED, allowing thousands of folks to download and play illegitimate copies of the game at will. However those who did so found out that they couldn’t progress beyond the second level of the game. It crashed on level 2 whenever you tried to move a ladder using force, off the wall. This however did not seem to be a bug in the original game but a showstopper exclusive to cracked copies of Force Unleashed. RELOADED later admitted that this was indeed the case and released a fix for it but that wasn’t before many frustrated pirates went on rampages in online forums :p The game has a lot of problems but if you are having this particular crash at level 2, game developers probably have nothing to do with it.

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It’s not only private torrent trackers that have been growing at a rapid pace. BitTorrent news and invite forums have also had huge successes in the past couple of months, with expanding communities and increasing popularity. Of course, not all these newly launched forums were successful – some were doomed from the start (for example when a dude launches a site just so he can get a BCG invite, that has FAIL written all over it). But the site featured in this article is by no means a failure. Etiv is without a doubt one of the more successful BitTorrent forums launched recently. And if you were looking forward to becoming a member, there is no better time than now; Etiv will open IRC recruitment for a limited time, exclusively for FILEnetworks readers.

Unlike huge forums such as FST, Etiv hasn’t been around for years. However, during the few months its been online, it has impressed many. Right now the forum has over 1000 active members and over 2700 threads. This is after being closed for public registration for the most part. They’ve had several open signups in the past but another open registration period in the near future is unlikely.

Note that Etiv is not a file sharing forum – it’s specifically a BitTorrent forum. You will only find information and discussions related to BT and nothing else. From invitation giveaways, requests, bonus giveaways, tracker news, discussions, tracker reviews, release reviews, seedbox reviews, how-to guides, etc Etiv pretty much has it all when it comes to BitTorrent. Invite giveaways and requests are no doubt the highlight of this forum. These are however regulated with somewhat tough rules so as to prevent invite trading, scamming and other malicious practices.

There is a growing number of representatives from private trackers (aka Community Reps) on Etiv. Apart from offering support & tracker news, they engage in tracker recruitment, usually offering free invites to Etiv members. Etiv currently has recruitment threads for following trackers: sX, CoR, Torrent Monsters, S-I, BitShock, A/L, AnimeByt.es, TopBytes, Filmdom, nTorrents, TiT, Breathe, PiN, CC, StB, Appz BitShock, BMMAT & swap heaven. Note that you usually need to meet certain requirements (min number of posts, rep, etc) to obtain invites from recruitment threads.

Etiv has a nice reputation points system known as the ‘iRep system’ which is tightly integrated to many of the site’s functions. Like on most forums, reputation will be a measure of how reliable (or helpful for that matter) a member is. More information on the iRep system (along with associated rules) may be found on Etiv FAQ.

As we mentioned earlier, Etiv has been closed for public registration for an extended period of time. They probably may never have open signups again. However if you are interested in joining the site, here’s a good opportunity. Etiv will open up its invites IRC channel for a limited time, exclusively for FILEnetworks readers. You will still have go through a short interview to get approved. Below is a list of questions that may be asked in the interview:

1. What quality do you feel you can bring to Etiv that would help the forums?
2. What do you expect from Etiv?
3. Would you be active on our IRC?
4. Are you staff at any bittorrent related tracker/forum? If yes, where?
5. Are you a member of any other invite forums? If so please provide profile links.
6. Have you ever been banned on a tracker/forum? If so, why? (This won't necessarily deny your app--we have all had our run ins with nazi staff)
7. How familiar are you with torrenting? (i.e. beginner, amateur, advanced)

Note that this channel will not be open for ever. It may close within 1-2 days so you might want to hurry.

• Site Name: Etiv (https://www.etiv.in)
• IRC Server: irc.etiv.in
• IRC Channel: #interview
• Direct Link: irc://irc.etiv.in/interview
• If you don’t know anything about IRC or need help with it, please read this article.

Good Luck! And once you become a member, we strongly suggest you read site rules and FAQ. Also make sure to read the rules specified as sticky topics in internal sections.

Special thanks to FryLock, MastaShake and rest of Etiv staff.

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A couple of days ago, we posted a detailed review about NepToonS – a private torrent tracker that specializes in cartoons, mostly classics. To the disappointment of many of our readers, there were no open signups, IRC recruitment or any other way to get into the site (unless you were a member of the now defunct Fox Kids tracker). Then, one of our readers posted that NepToonS invites were available from Classic Nick Shows (CNS), one of their sister sites. Apparently a lot of folks registered on CNS just to get and invite to NepToonS. The admins obviously didn’t like it but instead of shutting down invites for good, they created an IRC invites channel through which you can now get invited to the tracker.

This is what JAPsniper (CNS mod), posted as a comment to our previous NepToonS review thread:

Due to the influx of new users just registering for an invite, we will no longer be giving out invites on the #ClassicNickShows forums (http://classicnickshows.info/)!
Please join #neptoons on irc.dejatoons.net to interview for an invite to the Neptoons tracker.
Topic Closed.
Thanks,
-JALsnipe
#ClassicNickShows moderator

As we highlighted in the previous review, NepToonS is a promising new tracker for Cartoons. You can find lots of toons aired over the last few decades ranging from golden oldies in the 1950s to the modern animation in early 2000’s. Currently there are around 100 torrents indexed and almost all of these are either a full season pack or a complete series torrent. Here is another screenshot for those interested:

 

You can read our previous review of this tracker (which includes more info and screens) from this link. Below is the information you need to access the site’s invites IRC channel.

Server: irc.dejatoons.net
Channel: #neptoons
Direct Link: irc://irc.dejatoons.net/neptoons
Note: that you might have to use mIRC to access the channel (Mibbit web chat might not work). If you don’t know jackshit about mIRC, read this.

In the meantime, don’t forget to check out Classic Nick Shows- it’s a DDL forum for Nickelodeon toons. You can read our full review here.

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If you love portable applications, here’s some great news. Portable version of Skype 4.1 has been released and is now freely downloadable. It’s not come hacky, buggy, illegal implementation of Skypre software – it comes directly from PortableApps.com who have a long history and reputation of creating excellent portable applications including Portable FireFox. You will be able to use Skype Portable from almost anywhere, even from work, university or somewhere else. You’ll be able to carry it around in your flash drive and use it on the go. And if you are after the full version of Skype, we’ve included the link to the standalone installer for that as well.

In terms of features, the portable version is not different from the full install. You will be able to access all standard features of such as Skype to Skype video calls, instant messaging, voice mail and mobile messaging (in supported countries). User interface is exactly the same between both versions.

Download

[Click Here] to download Portable version of Skype from PortableApps.com

[Click Here] to download Standalone/Offline installer for Skype full version from official server (no annoying web setups) – link auto updated with latest available stable build

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It’s good news all around from the BitTorrent arena. In this article, you might find information on how to get into three great private torrent trackers; The Horror Charnel, TvTorrentZ and Sparvar. Out of these three sites, THC and TVTZ will be open to public signups during the coming few days. Sparvar of course wouldn’t be opening the floodgates. Instead, existing members will be given extra invites (Sparvar is celebrating 1/2 years of being online). If you have never heard about these sites before, THC is a horror and cult movie tracker, TVTZ is a TV torrent tracker (technically a ratio free one) and Sparvar is one of the best newly launched untouched DVDR trackers.

All of these sites were recently reviewed in detail here on FILEnetworks Blog. If you need more information about a site, please refer to the ‘Full Review’ link of each tracker.

The Horror Charnel (THC)
 
Site Name: The Horror Charnel
Signup URL: http://horrorcharnel.kicks-ass.org/signup.php
Description: The Horror Charnel is a private tracker specializing in horror, cult and sleaze movie torrents. THC will open registration ahead of Halloween, from Thursday the 29th of October until Monday the 2nd of November. If you still don’t have a THC account (we had an unlimited invite giveaway few weeks ago), check it out during the open registration period.
Full Review: [Click Here]

TVTorrentZ (TVTZ)
 
Site Name: TVTorrentz (http://www.tvtorrentz.org)
Signup URL: http://www.tvtorrentz.org/signup.php
Description: TVTZ is a TV tracker with some unique features. Thanks to a number of additional concepts such as adoption, etc TVTZ is technically a ratio free TV tracker (You can read all about it in our recent review of the site). Anyways the current open signup rounds for this site will be one of its last. Yep according to a news post on site “Our current open signup will be allowed to take us up to 2 000 members. When these spots are taken, open signup will be closed for good. Instead we will hand out 1 invite/year to all members in class Loyal Member and up, starting on January 1st 2010”. Current round of open registrations has around 400 spots left (At time of post).
Full Review: [Click Here]

Sparvar
 
Site Name: Sparvar (http://www.sparvar.org)
Description: Sparvar is perhaps the most successful untouched DVD//Blu-Ray tracker to be launched in 2009. The site is celebrating their 1/2 year birthday by giving extra invites to existing members. All members will receive between 1-3 invites per user, depending on their user class. Invites will only be valid from the 4th of November to 10th of November. Entire site will be set on free leech during this time. If you don’t know someone who has a Sparvar account, you can still try to obtain an invite by applying for one via the online application (below)
Invite Application URL: http://www.sparvar.org/invitationform.php
Translated Version of Invite Application: http://bit.ly/JKJ93
Full Review: [Click Here]

Thanks to turboman, gagngaz and Higa for the information.

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Let’s face it, What.cd is probably the world’s best private music tracker. Being born as one of OiNK’s piglets, What has by 2009 grown into one of the largest and most popular private BitTorrent sites in existence. With the site celebrating its 2nd birthday, a major change has been made to the it’s ratio system. This should be good news for many members, especially new ones who found it hard to seed back (and survive) on the tracker. Note that the new ratio system is not live at the time this post is being written. However according to What.CD administration, it’ll be up in about a week (members will be notified when it’s rolled out). Full news post which describes the new system in detail is quoted below:

Ratio system overhaul

This is possibly the biggest change of all. Throughout the course of our history, we have been known as a site on which it is notoriously difficult for new users to maintain a healthy ratio - even if they're trying their best and seeding everything they've ever snatched. As the torrent count has increased to the point that we have 6 times as many torrents as we do users, this problem has gotten worse and worse.

Previously, we tried to control this by implementing the bounty request system, and injecting money into the economy with freeleech. However, as the gap between the rich and the poor has continued to grow, we've decided that it's time for a major change.

Instead of having ratio requirements based on the number of gigs you've downloaded, we've opted for a more complex, but more fair system. In the new system, every user has their own individual required ratio, based on the percentage of their snatches that they seed forever.

Under the new system, a user's required ratio is based on the current ratio requirement for their download amount, and then adjusted by how many of their snatched torrents they're still seeding. The exact formula is as follows:

Requirement = Current requirement*(1-seeding/snatched)

The 'seeding' amount is calculated as the average number of torrents you've seeded over at least 72 hours in the past week. The 'snatched' amount is the number of unique, non-deleted torrents you've snatched. The required ratio is calculated once per day.

What this means is that users who do not seed their snatches will be unaffected by this change, and will have the same ratio requirements as before. However, users who seed everything they've ever snatched for at least 72 hours per week will effectively have no ratio requirement (until they've downloaded 20 gigs - exact details will be made available in the next week).

If a user's ratio is below their required ratio, they will have one week to either raise their ratio, or lower their required ratio by seeding more torrents.

The system is currently recording the data needed to calculate the average seeding value. However, we have seen fit to give the community some advanced warning before we roll out the system. Expect it to be some time in the next week.

As this has made ratio requirements lower for almost everyone, you can also expect us to raise the base requirements in the next few months. Exact figures will be announced well in advance.

Awesome! Isn’t it? Under the new system, you will actually be rewarded for the torrents that are kept seeding forever, even without leechers connecting to them. Anyways we’ll have to wait till the new system is fully functional to see its effectiveness.

How to get into What.CD

No article is complete without a means to get into the featured tracker. There are many ways you can get into What.CD but one of the safest and most reliable means to obtain a free invite is via their IRC interview. If you didn’t know already, What.CD has IRC recruitment and there’s even an official ‘interview prep’ site online. On the downside, there a lot you need to know in order to pass the interview. For a step by step guide on how to get to the interview channel, how to prepare for it, etc please read our article “Free What.CD invite via IRC interview – How to get in”.

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You can do a lot of bad and stupid things on a private torrent tracker but ratio cheating is one of the worst offences you can ever commit. On most private trackers, cheating will earn you a lifetime ban. Apart from banning individuals, trackers tend to ban entire countries if they find a lot of cheaters signing up for a specific country. Users of Romania could soon face another country ban from none other than BitMeTV, considered by many as the king of TV torrent trackers. In a mass PM sent to all members yesterday, BMTV warned to take “further action on a more global scale.” if ratio cheating and account stealing from .RO continued.

Full PM (which was apparently sent to all user classes) is quoted below:

ROMANIA:
For some time now we have been flooded with account stealing and ratio cheating largely from Romania.
Most of Romania have fiber connections, so we do not understand why the rule breaking has been so MASSIVE from this country.
Sure there are also some great Romanian members but the amount of account theft and cheating going on is far outweighing the good members.
THIS IS A WARNING.
This needs to STOP or we will have to take further action on a more global scale.

What they mean by “further action on a more global scale” is no doubt a country ban. BMTV is not the first private tracker to consider banning Romania. For more similar cases, read the ‘Related Articles’ list towards the end of this post. Now none of us are from Romania and we really don’t know if the internet speeds are as high as they are claimed to be. But if they are indeed high bandwidth lines, why the need excessive cheating? And there are plenty of private trackers from Romania which no doubt have user bases full of Romanian members. How do these sites cope with such problems? If there are any Romanian readers here, feel free to comment and discuss (no flaming, please).

Related Articles

• SceneTorrents (ScT) to ban Romanian IP ranges?
• Waffles.fm bans Romanian users
• STN tracker bans Romania

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Another scene groups bids farewell! ViRILiTY (VRL), a veteran Appz release group from the warez scene has called it quits. The group, which is more than 7 years old and are responsible for more than 8000 cracked software releases, announced their retirement via SceneNotice title ‘FAREWELL-ViRiLiTY’. Some of the more popular software whose protection was ripped apart by the group include mIRC, WinZIP and even PowerDVD. Final NFO pre’d by ViRiLiTY (which has the same format as a regular release) is quoted below:

ViRiLiTY!
asxSAC

FAREWELL v1.0 (c) VRL

Retail
Supplier : ..................................... TEAM ViRiLiTY
Cracker : ..................................... TEAM ViRiLiTY
Packager : ..................................... TEAM ViRiLiTY
Release Date : ..................................... 26th Oct 2009
Disks : ....................................... 01 x 2.88mb
Protection : ............................................ Serial
Requirements : ................................... Windows (32bit)
Language : ........................................... English

RELEASE NOTES
After more than seven years and over 8000 releases the time has come, so that we are going to close the curtain now.
We would like to thank everyone who supported us in the last years and especially those who have been loyal for years! Thank you for the nice friendships and the fun we had with all of you.
A big sorry to the high quality software developers who have been defeated by us. But you can relax now, because the real competition is gone ;)
Its quite sad to see that 0DAYs today dir is getting more and more empty. We hope the future will bring some new talents to make the scene what it was a few years ago. Highlighy active, talanted and with a strong competition between the groups.
I would like to thank the group, active and former members, for the nice time we had and the more fun we are going to have as being part of the scenes history :) ViRiLiTY has always been a small but very strong group, which made ViRiLiTY the way it was. This is the the final release that has been dropped under the label of ViRiLiTY. So please shut down any types of open positions that are running under the name of ViRiLiTY. Otherwise we are going to hunt you down and cut your penix of.
Good Bye
ViRiLiTY 2002-2009

INSTALL NOTES

GREETiNGS!
We dont greet. We get greeted.

NFO by asphyxSAC - Updated on 2007-06-14 by TEAM ViRiLiTY
IF YOU USE THIS SOFTWARE, BUY IT!

When a group is disbanded, at least a few active members usually join other similar groups – hopefully this’ll happen with ViRiLiTY as well. And of course, some of the disbanded groups are often seen making returns even years later. If ViRiLiTY was a movie release group, it wouldn't have made that much of an impact as there are hundreds of non scene groups which release movies.  But APPZ is not a strong point of the P2P-scene and that’s why groups like ViRiLITY will be missed quite a lot.

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Ratio free private torrent trackers have always had high popularity among our readership. The Dark Syndicate (TDS), a gazelle based private tracker that we first featured a few weeks back, is the latest site to join the ratio-free club. The move isn’t complete yet, but the tracker is well on its way to become a no-ratio site. For those who missed the previous article, TDS is a general/0day tracker that has the backing of many staffers from the legendary Araditracker (now defunct). TDS started out with a ratio system along with a set of rules that required members to maintain a healthy global ratio on site. This however has now changed.

Not a lot of information has been made public (not yet at least) by TDS administration about their new ‘ratio free’ system. However, you can still see the tracker recording total upload amount (download stats and global ratio are nowhere to be seen). It can be assumed that ‘total upload’ will be used as some sort of credit to unlock new site features, etc. It would be interesting to see how this works out on TDS in the long as going ratio free has both pros and cons. Nevertheless, the decision will no doubt increase their user base as the BT community has a ‘thing’ about private trackers without ratio rules. Till the ratio free system is fully implemented, the entire site has been placed on free leech mode.

In the meantime, TDS has been growing at a fairly healthy rate. Within just a few weeks since launch, the site has managed to recruit close to 2500 members. Around 600 (active) torrents have also been uploaded during this time. TDS community have done an excellent job when it comes to their requests system – 70% of all member request have been filled.  More information about TDS may be found in our recent review of the site which is located here.

And of course, signups are still open.

Site Name: TDS (http://www.thedarksyndicate.com)

Signup URL: http://www.thedarksyndicate.com/register.php

Related Articles

• TDS Tracker Now Open For Signup – From Araditracker Crew

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Borderlands has been released and here’s our routine troubleshooting article. There isn’t much to say here as the game doesn’t have any showstopper bugs. It does not seem to be crashing for most users and that’s a good thing, because this seems to be an incredible fun FPS/RPG. Anyways this article contains some information that might help you tweak your game to bypass some minor annoyances such as not being able to enabled Vsync, AA and those annoying Field of Vision (FOV) issues. If you have any other issues/solutions that you think is worth sharing, please feel free to post in comments.

How to edit configuration settings manually

Configuration settings for Borderlands is stored in WillowEngine.ini file. You can change settings that are not accessible from in game menu by editing this file. Before you edit anything, please make sure to backup your original config file in case something goes wrong.

Configuration settings are stored in:

C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\My Games\Borderlands\WillowGame\Config\WillowEngine.ini

(Under Windows XP this will be in My Documents). Edit this file with a text editor such as notepad.

How to enable VSync in Bordelands

Open the game configuration file in a text editor (as stated above). Change the following setting (UseVsync=False) so that it reads:

UseVsync=True

Save and restart the game.

How to enable Anti Aliasing (AA) in Borderlands

Note that the following solution was only tested on NVIDIA hardware. I don’t have an ATI VGA to play around or to do testing. Like most games, Borderlands is built on Unreal Engine v3.0. You can force AA from NVIDIA control panel by re-naming the game exe to another UE3 game such as BioShock.

1. Rename borderlands exe file to BioShock.exe.
2. Open NVIDIA control panel. Go to ‘Manage 3D settings’
3. Un-Tick ‘Show only programs found on this computer’
4. From the drop down menu, select BioShock.
5. You will now be able to force various graphics settings from the VGA, including Anti Aliasing.

How to adjust FOV (Field of Vision) in Borderlands

I’ve seen many players complain about the FOV in this game. It indeed seems to give a tunnel like feeling. You can however edit the default FOV of 85 and adjust it to your preference by editing the configuration file. Note that you need to make the change in two places in the file:

Under [Engine.PlayerInput], Change the values so that it reads:

Bindings=(Name="F9",Command="FOV 85",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

Bindings=(Name="F10",Command="FOV NEWVAL",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

Under [WilloGame.WillowPlayerInput] change:

Bindings=(Name="F9",Command="FOV 85",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

Bindings=(Name="F10",Command="FOV NEWVAL",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

Where NEWVAL is a numerical value representing the new FOV. Note that there is a space after “FOV” in the lines above – the. Ex- It should be "FOV[SPACE]85". You can switch between default and custom FOV in game using function keys. Pressing F9 will restore defaults while F10 will load custom values specified by you.

 

If you liked this article do not forget to subscribe to our RSS feed. We bring you the latest BitTorrent news, private torrent tracker updates, leaks, downloads and more.
You can also follow us on Twitter.

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This weekend marked the shutdown of two private torrent trackers; SITR and UK-*. However, that doesn’t mean the world of BitTorrent is crumbling down. New trackers are still being launched and some sites that went down months ago could be seen returning. This post is about one such ‘returning’ tracker; NepToonS. NepToonS is a new BitTorrent site that specializes in cartoon series and season packs (including a lot of retro stuff). It’s actually a reincarnation of Fox-Kids tracker [Read Review] which suddenly went down few months back. This should be exciting news to cartoon fans all over the world, specially for folks who love classic cartoons made in the golden age of American Animation.

Fox-Kids was a huge hit among cartoon fans because it tracked some truly rare toons not found elsewhere. Additionally, almost all the torrents indexed on site were either complete series packs or full season packs which was very convenient for leechers. A wide selection of cartoons were available for download on Fox Kids, ranging from animations made in the 1950s to the late 2000s [Read Review]. To the disappointment of many fans, Fox-Kids didn’t last long. The site suddenly went offline and not much was known about its return, until now.

NepToonS is Fox-Kids reborn. The site is now hosted on a different domain and as you can see it is no longer known as ‘Fox-Kids’. However just like its predecessor, NepToonS seem to track a lot of old (and new) toons, full season packs, complete series and other torrents that made Fox Kids popular. Bunch of new categories have also been added and it can be assumed that the admins have thought about expanding the tracker to index more content as well. Following categories are now listed on the tracker:

00s, 720p, 80s, 90s, Boomerang, CCongress, CNS, Comix, HFT, Mature, Movies, NepToonS, Others, Raws, RETRO, Scene, TV-Series

Screenshot below should give you a better idea on what sort of content is indexed on NepToonS:

Note that this tracker is still brand new and there are lots of areas that need to be improved. Even the torrent index is being re-built from scratch but the start so far has been promising.

When it comes to getting hold of a NepToonS account, there’s both good news and bad news. Bad news is that site is currently closed for signup. Good news is that if you had an account on Fox-Kids, you can use the same account details to log into NepToonS as well. Long time readers of this blog should all be able to get in as we had previously covered several open signups of Fox Kids tracker back when it was live.

Site Name: NepToonS (http://www.neptoons.info)

Signup URL: N/A (Closed). Use same username/password combination you had on Fox-Kids to get in.

Note: You need to play the tic tac toe game to completion in order to get to the login page. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose but the game needs to finish.

Related Articles

Fox Kids Tracker – Rare/Old Cartoon Torrents, Live Action TV Series & Kids Movies

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It wouldn’t be wrong to say that BitMeTV, TVTorrents.Com and Tv.Torrents.Ro (now accessible via FreshOn.tv) hold the top three spots when it comes to private trackers for TV shows. Out of these three BMTV and TVT.Com are the most sought after trackers due to their closed signup policy. Getting into Tv.Torrents.Ro was considered relatively easier due to their random open signups. However, TVT.Ro have brought their invite system back online and since then, open signups seem to have disappeared. If you were looking forward to get into this tracker, perhaps this giveaway should help. Keep in mind that TVT.Ro now comes with an overhauled interface, faster navigation and many other upgrades.

TVT.Ro is probably overshadowed by its competitors BMTV and TVT.Com. However the fact remains that it’s still a great TV tracker which indexes almost all major television series aired in the US. In terms of user base, it rivals BMTV with nearly 20k active members. It’s torrent index has over 8000 torrents as opposed to BMTV’s 16000+ and TVT.com’s 12000+. Seeder/Leecher activity on indexed torrents at TVT.Ro is pretty good with popular single episode releases having even 800-900 seeds each.

Tv.Torrents.Ro recently went through massive changes and no, it’s not just a new skin as many people seem to think. The entire site seems to have been re-coded and now the loading and navigation speeds are faster than they used to be. A brief rundown of new features, rule changes, etc is given below (quoted from a forum thread):

Site completely rewritten (html/css/php code).

Stuff added

• Announcement system.
• Bookmarking system for torrents.
• The .torrent files can be downloaded as text files.
• Privacy level: can hide some profile fields from other users.
• Users receive an email after 40 days (unparked) / 90 days (parked) of inactivity announcing them that their account will be disabled in 10 days.

Rules

• Unparked and no upload/download accounts are disabled after 50 days of inactivity.
• Parked accounts are disabled after 100 days of inactivity.
• New bbcode tags added - [align] , [audio] , [video] (see http://freshon.tv/tags.php for details).
• Reseed request: if there are 3+ seeders the function is unavailable for that torrent.
• Requests are deleted after 90 days.

Signup

• New accounts can be created only based on an invitation from a member.

And the site now looks much, much better than before. New usability features such as the additional browse page for HD only torrents, too have been added. A screenshot might explain things a little better:

Now to the main topic – the invite giveaway. Freshon.tv admins have agreed to provide 100 free invitation codes exclusively to FILEnetworks readers. However, this will be a little different to our regular giveaways – you will need to provide at least two ratio proofs from trackers you are already a member of. Following conditions apply to ratio proofs:

• Sites don’t have to be l33t but images should be un-cropped and un-edited. They should clearly show your upload:download ratio on the tracker.
• All screenshots need to have the text ‘filenetworks’ on the browser address bar.
• Please do not send attachments. Upload the screenshots to an image hosting service and send the direct link. Some free image hosts - ImageShack, PwnMyPic, etc.
• Screens and images you send will never be made public.

E-mail your requests to invites.filenetworks@gmail.com and be sure to set the subject as “Tv.Torrents.Ro”. In the message body, please clearly indicate the E-mail address you want the invite sent to (along with links to ratio proofs). Invites will be handed out on a first come, first served basis – our supply of codes is limited so only the first 100 requests will be filled. Also, please note that since we have to check and send invitation codes manually, it might even take 2-3 days for your code to arrive. Good luck!

Special thanks to Freshon.tv administration.

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No matter how hard you try, you cannot keep Twitter out of the picture – this is again a Twitter related post. Huge popularity this micro blogging tool has lead to the birth of a number of different 3rd party desktop clients for the service. Up until now, we’ve mostly been using TweetDeck and web interface to update/monitor FILEnetworks Twitter account. But that was until we discovered Blu. Blu has one of the best interfaces we’ve ever seen on a Twitter client – it’s simple, it’s easy to use, it’s flashy and it’ll look great on your Windows 7 or Windows Vista desktop.

Unlike other similar tools such as TweetDeck and Twhirl, Blu does not run on the Adobe AIR platform. Instead, it utilizes the Microsoft .NET framework 3.5. It doesn’t have as many features as some of the other Twitter clients out there but it does have the basic functions (@replies, favorites, automatic tinyURL generation, direct messages, replies, retweets, status updates, etc) required by a regular Twitter user. Best thing about Blu is its flashy and animated UI - this makes the available features very much accessible. Downside to this is that the application takes up a significant amount of RAM. On my Windows 7 desktop it usually takes about 50-70MB of system memory which would be ‘a lot’ on most low end systems .

Two features I’d like to see included in the next version of Blu is the ability to resize the UI and the ability to minimize the app to system tray. We Tweeted these as suggestion to @blueapp and we were told they’ll be implemented in upcoming Blu v2. We don’t know if this will really happen or not but at least they cared enough to reply. 

Download

Blu is free software and it’s not bundled with ads or any other crapware.

[Click Here] to visit official download page to download the latest version of Blu

Related Articles

• BitTorrent Trackers on Twitter – 25 Torrent Sites You Can Follow
• Watch the Twitter Updates

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Wow Ntorrents is open after what seems like a lifetime. This is without a doubt one of the best resources on the net for Nintendo games downloads. Ntorrents tracks a large selection of games for a number of different Nintendo consoles such as the Wii, GameCube, Nintendo DS, GBA. N64 and more (they now have an XBOX360 games section for X360 fans as well). This tracker hasn’t had an open signup in months. If memory serves correct, last time nTorrents opened up was back in late 2008, almost an year ago. Now here’s the good news – public registrations at NTorrents has been opened for a limited period and if you were looking forward to get in, now is the perfect time.

Running on the Gazelle codebase, Ntorrents has one of the best looking interfaces among private torrent trackers. User interface is sleek, has smooth navigation and is very well organized. NT actually was one of the very first private trackers to migrate to Gazelle. This site has been online since 2008 and has established a solid footprint in the BitTorrent community. As of 24/10/2009 Ntorrents tracks over 4400 active torrents and has a user base close to 10000 members.

A said earlier NT is primarily a tracker for Nintendo games. You can find and download games (and in some cases ROMs) for the following Nintendo consoles:

• Wii
• GameCube
• Nintendo DS
• GameBoy Advance
• GameBoy Classic
• NES
• Super Nintendo
• Nintendo 64
• WiiWare

Note that the default ‘Torrents’ page will mostly show you Nintendo torrents. But this tracker does have a large number of XBOX360 torrents which can be accessed by the torrents2.php page (‘x360’ link at the topmost toolbar or via the xbox360 category in search). In addition to games, they have some books, OSTs and some game related movies indexed as well. Part of the torrent index can be seen in the screenshot below:

Signups for NT are currently open – note that this does not happen often so be sure to make use of the opportunity. It is currently unknown till when open signups will continue. If by the time you read this article signups have closed, you can try their IRC invites channel linked to below.

Site Name: NTorrents (http://ntorrents.net)

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

IRC Invites Channel: irc://irc.ntorrents.net:6667/nt-invites

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Here on FILEnetworks Blog, we report about the birth of many torrent trackers. Unfortunately, this post is about the death of one. Smoking In The Rain (better known as SITR), a General/0Day private torrent tracker that has been online for ages, went down a few days ago due to a server failure. Sad part is that it seems the site too would die along with the server; there are no plans to bring it back online. Reasons cited by SITR’s administration regarding the decision involves lack of user activity on tracker as well as time constraints. Full message posted on site homepage is quoted below:

SmokingInTheRain.us

It's after long deliberation and with great saddness that we bring you the news that SITR will not be returning online.

SITR has unexpectedly suffered from one of it's servers failing completely and needing to be replaced. Considering SITR's prior state as well as the time involved to fix this, all we would be bringing back is the remains of dead site. After what have already been many months of struggle and digging in deep in order to hang on with SITR lacking the member support to survive, the means required to resolve this are just not there.

With a heavy heart towards those few that stood by SITR right up to it's last minute, we are left no other choice then to conclude that SITR's current situation is beyond repair and that our only option left is to shut SITR down permanently.

We're thankful to all of you that have been a member at SITR and appreciate the time you've spent here with us. No doubt all of you and us will find other sites to call our "home", but we do not wish to just turn off the light on SITR and leave all of you behind in the dark.

Any of you that may have questions regarding SITR's situation or Anyone looking for a new place to join is welcome at www.TorrentZilla.org .

Any of you that wish to come in and say your goodbyes are welcome to do on our irc. (irc.Lostirc.org #sitr)

S.I.T.R was one of the older private trackers and it was one of the first trackers to be featured on this blog. Since we first started reporting about BitTorrent sites back in end 2007/2008, SITR has been mentioned nearly 5 times. But all good things do come to and end. R.I.P. SmokingInTheRain. Thanks for the good times and you will be missed.

You may find some of our old articles about SITR below:

• Private Tracker Watch: Smoking in The Rain (SITR) signups open
• S.I.T.R’s new look and SCL tracker 3rd expansion phase

Thanks to 'CSS' and 'turbo man' for the heads up.

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At the rate things are progressing in the BitTorrent community, it wouldn’t be a surprise if someone launches a torrent tracker for cats. Thankfully, CatTorrent has nothing to do with cats. On the contrary, it’s an underrated private tracker that tracks lots of audiobooks and e-books. CatTorrent should not be mistaken for an E-learning tracker – it mostly indexes fiction and doesn’t have much educational content. In a world populated by thousands of general trackers, it’s really great to see the likes of CatTorrent around – if you love audiobooks/e-books, public registrations are open right now.

There aren’t many sites similar to CatTorrent out there. Two torrent trackers that come to mind are My Anonamouse (Open via IRC Recruitment) and MakeGreatMusic. With MakeGreatMusic shutting down for good, the demand for CT probably went even higher. Some of you may never have heard about it but CT is not one of those isolated, ghost town of a tracker. The site tracks over 3600 torrents and has an active user base in excess of 2600 members.

As for the content, CatTorrent mainly tracks E-Books (in PDF, LIT and TXT formats) and Audiobooks. There are some good E-book collection torrents available, in addition to individual book downloads. CT probably has one of the largest audiobook libraries in a BT tracker with over 3000 torrents indexed under this category.

Download speeds are generally good on CT with some torrents (ones with an animated blue icon next to them) hosted on seedboxes. There is no use talking about pre times as this tracker mostly has non scene uploads. A seed bonus system also exists.

If you want to get hold of a CatTorrent account, it’s pretty easy. Signups are currently open. Be sure to read the rules before you start using the site, as always.

Site Name: CatTorrent (http://www.cattorrent.net)

Signup URL: http://www.cattorrent.net/signup.php

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Long time readers of this blog should be familiar with the name SceneRace (or ScR). ScR is a general/0day torrent tracker based on the gazelle codebase. Earlier today, visitors to SceneRace homepage saw a strange message. It claimed that one of ScR staffers ‘stole’ their server and they were betrayed. The site has since been down and remains to be offline at the time this post is being written. There was promise of site coming back online along with the launch of ScR v3 so we don’t think fans of the tracker have anything to worry about. Full message that was posted on SceneRace homepage is quoted below:

SceneRace's server has been stolen from us by our traitorous staffer [name edited] from the infamous Funfile tracker. He has the database with ips and emails, and undoubtably will try to use those to forward his malicious agenda, after a failed attempt at overthrowing kliik (ScR Founder). SceneRace.net WILL return soon, with the V3 codebase in action! Until then, do not trust any emails from the .org domain, which has been setup by juan to undoutably lure unsuspecting members into his trap. -The REAL SceneRace team

We don’t know how true this message is as we’ve not been able to confirm it with a ScR staffer – right now the above text is not displayed on homepage and seems to have been replaced with the word ‘Oops’ and the title ‘brb’. They probably will be back online sooner than expected? However it’s recommended that you change passwords ASAP, just to be on the safe side (if you are using the same password on ScR and on other trackers that is). When ScR v3 is launched, this blog will be updated.

UPDATE: ScR has confirmed that the story is indeed true.

“they didn't as such 'steal the server' more like tried to overthrow the sysops so then the decision was made to change the domain DNS. then as they had access to server (lower admins payed for it) they stole that.”

Related Articles

• SceneRace is open for signup, ScR v3 coming soon – Ratio free tracker

This story was first broken via our Twitter feed @filenetworks.

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Gaming and BitTorrent are two of the most frequently discussed topics here on FILEnetworks. Here’s a post we think would bridge gaming and torrenting together. Featured in this article are 11 private torrent trackers specializing in PC, XBOX360, PS1, PS2, PSP, GameCube and Wii games (and even ROMs and emulation). Between these trackers, you’ll pretty much be able to download any game you want. All of the sites mentioned in this article are open for signup – you will not have to beg for invites or wait in IRC recruitment queues. As usual, summarized information about trackers with statistics, links to full review and signup URLs are provided for your convenience.

Note that this is not a complete list of specialized games trackers that are currently online. Trackers that have closed signups were not included in the list. Also note that some trackers might close registrations after very short periods of time – if this happens, there is no other option than to retry later. As always, please take a moment to read the full review of a tracker before joining it – signing up for a site that you’ll never use is not going to help anyone.

GC Tracker
 
Site Name: GC Tracker (http://gctracker.mine.nu/)
Signup URL: http://gctracker.mine.nu/account-signup.php
Statistics: 5200+ torrents and 9400+ members
Description: Another tracker for Nintendo stuff. You don’t see this site mentioned often but it still is a pretty large games tracker. Games found are mostly for Wii and GC platforms.
Full Review: [Click Here]

GameUpdates
 
Site Name: GameUpdates (http://www.gameupdates.org)
Signup URL: http://www.gameupdates.org/signup.php
Statistics: 2000+ torrents
Description: GameUpdates is a unique public BitTorrent tracker. It tracks extras related to PC games such as mods, patches, demos, trailers, etc. No registration is required to download. Read full review for more information. 
Full Review: [Click Here]

Games BitShock
 
Site Name: Games BitShock (http://games.bitshock.org)
Signup URL: http://games.bitshock.org/signup.php
Statistics: 200+ torrents
Description: The games tracker from BitShock tracker family. Tracks both console and PC games.
Full Review: [Click Here]

My-Gamebox
 
Site Name: My-Gamebox (http://my-gamebox.com/)
Signup URL: http://my-gamebox.com/signup.php
Statistics: 7600+ users and ~800 torrents
Description: Another PC/Console games tracker that has been around for a while. Indexes some NZB files in addition to torrents.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Emuparadise
 
Site Name: Emuparadise (http://bt.emuparadise.org:6969)
Signup URL: http://bt.emuparadise.org:6969/index.php?page=signup
Statistics: 12100+ users and 1320 torrents
Description: Emuparadise is a tracker full of ROMS and emulators for many different consoles such as Playstation 1/2, PSP, XBOX . With the help of this tracker, you should be able to play some of your favorite console games on the PC. See full review for more info.
Full Review: [Click Here]

SeedGames
 
Site Name: SeedGames (http://seedgames.org)
Signup URL: http://seedgames.org/signup.php
Statistics: 2600+users and 132+ torrents
Description: SeedGames is a games tracker that had a promising start. Growth has however slowed down – apparently the admins are working on a major site overhaul so this would be a tracker to watch.
Full Review: [Click Here]

GamesAccess
 
Site Name: GamesAccess (http://www.gamesaccess.net)
Signup URL: http://www.gamesaccess.net/signup.php
Statistics: 3300+ users and 485+ torrents
Description: GamesAccess is another decent games tracker that’s shown a lot of promise. Both PC and Console games are available.
Full Review: [Click Here]

XBOX360 Torrents
 
Site Name: XBox 360 Torrents (http://360torrents.org/)
Signup URL: http://360torrents.org/signup.php
Statistics: 1600+ users and ~150 torrents
Description: Relatively new site – specializes only in XBOX360 games torrents.
Full Review: N/A

PS2-P
 
Site Name: PS2-P Tracker (http://ps2ptt.com)
Signup URL: http://ps2ptt.com/signup.php
Statistics: 2775+ users and 350+ torrents
Description: Underrated but excellent resources for Playstation and Playstation portable games. Lots of packs and fullsets. Read review for more information.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Wii-Leech

Site Name: Wii Leech (http://www.wii-leech.info)
Signup URL: http://www.wii-leech.info/signup.php
Statistics: ~1300 users and 280+ torrents
Description: Wii-Leech is a private tracker for Nintendo Wii games torrents. Impressive growth for such a young site.
Full Review: [Click Here]

vgmTorrents
 
Site Name: vgmTorrents (http://vgmtorrents.net)
Signup URL: http://vgmtorrents.net/wp-login.php?action=register
Statistics: 350+ torrents
Description: Not exactly a games tracker – vgmTorrents is a video game music tracker. OSTs and other stuff may be found here.
Full Review: [Click Here]

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Well this came as quite a surprise but it’s true – The DVD Club (TDC) is currently open for signup. TDC is a private BitTorrent tracker that specializes in movies and TV shows in untouched DVDR and Blu Ray formats. Almost every file sharer is probably familiar with DVDRips and BRRips that are found in countless general/0-day trackers. The DVD Club is not just another tracker that indexes movie and TV rips – in fact, you won’t find any DVDRips, BRRips, etc on TDC. It only has untouched, non-ripped versions of DVDs (Or Blu Rays) that come complete with interactive menus, bonus features, extras and all the other goodies that usually aren’t available in rips.

We’ve seen several new DVDR trackers popping up in recent times but TDC is one of the oldest trackers catering to this niche. It’s been online for more than three years and is a well established site tracker in the BitTorrent scene. As of 21/10/2009, TDC has an active user base of 8400+ registered members. That’s over 2400 new members added since January 2009, and the site was in invite only mode for the most part. Also keep in mind that TDC purges inactive members very frequently – collectors don’t stand a chance on this tracker.

Speaking of the content in TDC, you can find both movies and TV shows here. TDC initially began as a DVDR only tracker but it expanded with the arrival of Blu Ray, etc and caught up with the times. Now, untouched DVD5/DVD9/R5 (both PAL and NTSC) as well as x264 encoded Blu Ray movies are plentiful on this tracker.

As you can see from the screenshot above, TDC has a nice clean layout, well organized search features and easy-to-identify color coded torrents. They are currently running a Halloween theme that’s why the category icons look a little odd. Speaking of Halloween, expect to find a lot of horror movies on TDC as they only recently ran the Horror Fest 2009 competition.

The DVD Club is usually closed for signup – there was a time it didn’t open up for years but open signups have been more frequent during end 2008 and 2009. However this is the first open registration in almost 4 months so they are still not that commonplace. Following is quoted from site homepage:

Open Sign Ups - [Oct-19-2009]

We are open until some undisclosed date/time, so hurry and let your friends know. Just remember cheating/trading will get you banned so think twice before doing it, we are watching
Also please use the site(leech/seed) if you are a collector you'll get disabled in no time WE WANT ACTIVE USERS!!!!!

What they say about collectors is true. If you don’t plan on using it, don’t even bother to register. But if you actually are a fan of untouched DVDR/Blu-Ray content, this is one of the best trackers there if for that niche.

Site Name: TheDVDClub (http://thedvdclub.org)

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

If you liked this tracker you may also like:

• Sparvar : Great DVD & Blu-Ray Torrent Tracker – Invite Applications Open
• RoDVD (Restricted-Zone) – DVDR & x264 Movie Torrent Tracker Signups Open
• DVDRSOURCE – New untouched DVDR tracker based on SweDVDR source
• Asian DVD Club – Download Asian movies for free
• SceneDVDR and CareStreet – Two new DVDR trackers open for signup
• onlyDVDs v2.0 launched – Untouched DVD torrent tracker

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About two weeks ago we posted about Sublight, a desktop software to automatically download matching subtitles for downloaded movies and TV shows. Developers of Sublight have come up with a new project, this time a web application developed using Microsoft Silverlight. The web based version of Sublight acts very much like it’s desktop counterpart (but with some limitations) – it’s primarily a subtitle search tool/downloader that is fully online. So what makes it different from hundreds of similar services already available?

Unlike most Subtitle search engines and repositories out there, web based version of Sublight does not make users go through several pages to download a subtitle. Searching, selecting and downloading can all be done via a single interface, without interruptions. Languages can be filtered and options are available to optimize search with information such as year, season number and episode number (for TV shows), etc. All in all it’s a good alternative to those who dislike installing additional apps to fulfill simple tasks such as subtitle search.

Note that you’ll need the Microsoft Silverlight browser plugin for this to work. Also keep in mind that this is a very early version of web based Sublight – bugs may exist.

[Click Here] to visit Silverlight powered Sublight

[Click Here] to download desktop version

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CoExist (better known as CE) is a private music torrent tracker that’s gained some popularity over the past couple of months. Although most of you won’t remember, this is our second mention of CE here on FILEnetworks. First post was made back in February 2009, when they downgraded from Gazelle codebase to TBDEV script. Back then, there was talk of CE having open signups but this never materialized (well not ‘officially’ anyways) – the site remains closed to date. However if you are interested in getting in, the way is not completely shuttered. Did you know that CE still offers invites on their Invites IRC channel? It’s pretty easy to obtain an invite, provided that you pass the short interview.

CE’s decision to downgrade from Gazelle to TBDEV came as a surprise for many as Gazelle was (still is) becoming increasingly popular in the world of BitTorrent. However, looking back several months later, it doesn’t seem to be a bad decision at all. CE now sports a sleek, clean interface that is very much user friendly; it looks very organized and there is no clutter. CE’s coders have customized the visual layout so well that it now has a really unique feel to it.

As we mentioned earlier, CE has almost always been an invite only site since it’s inception. As a result, it’s user base comprises of a limited number of registered members. When this article was being written, registered user count at CE stood at 1350. However when it comes to content, CE has no limitations. The site tracks over 3700 torrents of high quality English music spanning across 40+ genres. Following types of music releases may be found on this tracker: Albums, EPs, LPs, CDM, CDs, promo-CDs, Boxsets.

As the title of this article suggests, CE is a ratio free tracker. However, there are some rules that all downloaders must adhere to. Following is quoted from the ‘Downloader’s Code of Conduct’ which is a must read for all new members of this tracker (unless one wants to get banned):

Do not leave the swarm when you have completed a torrent until there are at least 3 other active seeders, regardless of your ratio on the torrent. Although we are a ratio free tracker, we do have hit & runs, which are logged. Further, you must be able to seed a torrent for 3 days within a 5 day period. If you feel you cannot accept this obligation, do not download the file. Hit & Run under these circumstances puts additional burden on the uploader and cannot be tolerated.

Note that average seed time also affects userclass promotion. Ratio system on CE is more or less replaced by the ‘Fame’ bonus system (which is waay cooler). There are multiple ways you can earn fame (seeding, etc). Once you earn enough fame, you can exchange them for various goodies at CoExist Record Shop. CE Record Shop is far more advanced that the average bonus exchange present on most private trackers. Goodies found in the record shop are placed in four categories; Unlockables, Raids, Invites and Disk Space. Some of the stuff that can be unlocked include hidden torrents, invites and even seedbox slots.

Currently CE is closed to the public. However, you can get invited for free if you pass the IRC interview. CE interview IRC channel details are as follows:

Site Name: CoExist (http://coexist.biz)
IRC Server: irc.j3di.org
Channel: #ce.invites
Direct Link: irc://irc.j3di.org/ce.invites
New to IRC? Read this first.

Good Luck!

Special thanks to ragincajun for the help provided.

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