During the past couple of years, nTorrents has been a premier destination for those seeking to download Nintendo video games. Being one of the first private trackers to migrate to the now famed Gazelle codebase, nTorrents gained huge popularity even though it catered to a smaller niche in the gaming community. Despite its popularity, NT administration is planning to shut down the site pretty soon. Plans for the the site’s XBOX360 torrents section which was to be morphed into a separate private tracker called xTorrents, have also been scrapped. However, it’s not as bad as its sounds - NT crew will be launching PWNNetwork, a brand new games tracker that will not limit itself to a single gaming platform but cater to a wider user base comprising of both PC and console gamers. In short, PWN will be the future of NT.

PWNNetwork

As of right now, PWN seems to be in a closed, private beta testing phase. Although the site is live, registrations are not open and there is no recruitment going on in any of the BitTorrent forums or on IRC. Existing NT members who purchased a ticket in their last raffle will be invited in by staff as beta testers.

The full announcement regarding the change (quoted from NT homepage) is posted below:

Ladies and gentlemen, the big news. NTorrents is closing, our xbox sister-site XTorrents is not going to be released. We're simply combining resources into a powerful gaming tracker instead. All your favorite staffers, a few new ones, and a fresher (less buggy) gazelle code. Combine this with a new look, including a few modifications, along with our reputation of an outstanding community. We welcome you to PWNnetwork.net.

Why is this happening you ask? Easy, we want to advance beyond the constraints of offering one company's games, and we don't want to split our userbase among two sites to do it. This will be a gradual process instead of an instantaneous action though, NTorrents will stay open as an archive until we get our most dedicated users to switch over to PWNnetwork. Sign up with PWN will be separate from NT, so yes, you will lose all of your stats. Don't worry too much though, for an undetermined amount of time after the site goes live, we will support an integration processes where we will transfer your upload and download stats from NT to PWN. Everything else will be lost.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I have more news. After our raffle is closed, and we've gotten the prizes to the winners sent out, we will also be issuing beta access to PWN to every person who purchased a ticket in the raffle. This will be a beta period, in order for a decent amount of users to test the site, pitch ideas, and help work out issues before PWN officially goes live. So, if you don't want to wait until we launch the site to check out what PWN has to offer, go buy that ticket! Not only will you get into PWN early, but you will have a chance to win one of those great prizes.

We appreciate everyone in our community, and we hope, even though the NT journey will be ending, that we will continue being awesome through PWN.
//Staff

A public launch date for the new tracker is yet to be confirmed. However, one thing is certain – PWN will have a head start with the backing of large user base, experienced staff, uploaders and Nintendo/XBOX360 torrents that NT already has. At the time this post is being written, nTorrents has over 17500 active users and nearly 4000 torrents. Either way we wish this new tracker the best of luck and will post updates when/if it opens registrations or any form of recruitment anytime soon.

PWN Details:

Site Name: PWNnetwork (http://pwnnetwork.net)
Signup URL: N/A
Other: The favicon on the page suggests they are using resources for XTorrents (XT) for the new site.

nTorrents Details:

Site Name: NTorrents (http://ntorrents.net)
IRC Invites Channel: irc://irc.ntorrents.net:6667/nt-invites

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If you work with multiple remote desktop connections simultaneously, here’s a software that’ll make your life easier. RDCMan (Remote Desktop Connection Manager) is a tool from Microsoft that will let you easily connect and manage several remote desktop sessions at once. This can be a useful tool for network administrators as well as for software developers who need to deploy and test applications on multiple machines. RDCMan is a small download which is sized around ~750KB and the app is distributed as freeware. I haven’t had a lot of time to test drive this app but it looked like a solid piece of software with no showstopper bugs during the short period of time I used it.

RDCMan Screenshot

First thing you’ll want to do after installing RDCMan would be to create and save a new group. You can do this through the File menu. Then, you can start adding servers to the group, create sub groups, etc. The interface is not the most user friendly but since the app is not targeted at novice users, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Download

You can download this software free from Microsoft Download Center. If you use a relatively older operating system such as Windows XP or Windows 2003, you’ll  need to obtain version 6 or newerof the Remote Desktop Connection client software.

[Click Here] to download RDCMan 2.2 from official download page.

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Here on FILEnetworks Blog, we talk about video games a lot. In fact, our PC Games section is equally popular as our private trackers section and brings in a lot of traffic to the site every day. Hence, we have reason to believe that an article about another specialized games torrent tracker would generate positive responses from our readers. GazelleGames is a private tracker that indexes games for DOS/Windows PC, XBOX, XBOX360, Playstation 1,2,3, PSP, Nintendo 64, Wii, iPhone and lots of other gaming platforms available today. Running on the shiny new Gazelle RC2 codebase, GGn has so far shown great results in design, content and community aspects of the site and seems to be one of those few trackers that have a positive outlook for the future.

GazelleGames

Ever since we heard news of GGn (back when it was in beta), we’ve been in touch with it’s SysOP/Recruiters who kept us up to date on the progress of the site. One thing we could clearly see was that site staff were really passionate about what they were doing - they were not is a rush to start yet another games tracker and be done with it, they wanted GGn to stand out from the rest. It would be unfair to compare GazelleGames to leading games trackers such as bitGAMER and BCG since it’s only been a few days since the site has gone public. However, they already do boast an impressive set of site features that can even rival well established BitTorrent trackers –listed below are some of them (parts quoted from official GGn review on their forums):

  • Game Reviews (GamePedia) - We are not only a Games tracker but we also supplement the content with comprehensive reviews of games that you might like to check out. Supplied by members, each review is analyzed by the staff to make sure it is of top-notch quality. Also, on that note, submitting a review to the site has its incentives...(think freeleech on ALL platforms for said game as well as a few GB's of upload for yourself).
  • GGn Wiki- Have a thirst for more knowledge? Check out our Wiki articles and quench that thirst. You can read up on about everything from how to build your ratio, to information on the scene. Have information to share? Create your own wiki article and share it with our users!
  • Games - We aim to please when it comes to content you are looking for. Yes we are new, and somewhat lacking in content...but don't let that fool you. Our uploaders have a priority upload list which includes the Top 1000 Games list, including old and rare gems, as well as new releases. We are also getting an auto-upload script working so that we can get those great pre-times that so many of you have learned to love!
  • IRC - We have active irc channels if you would like to join in and share info with other IRC members, and you can also get some "behind the scene" info on current site news.
  • Community - The biggest aspect of the site we pride ourselves on is the community. From friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff, we are also chock-full of members who are as passionate about games as you are. We love to talk gaming, and by checking out the forums and IRC channels, it really shows. We have a very welcoming community that absolutely love gaming, so join in on the fun!

Add to these the great navigation, organization and search features provided by Gazelle RC2 and you have a great looking specialized private tracker on your hands. The screenshot below shows part of GGn’s torrent index:

GazelleGames Index

GGn publicly launched just two days ago after an extended beta phase. Although it was invite only during the beta, signups have now been opened to facilitate further expansion. The site has so far done really well with around 1000 new members signing up and ~200 torrents uploaded during the short period of time it’s been online. Open signups will continue until GGn reaches its current user limit of 5000 – if you are someone used to downloading games over BitTorrent, don’t forget to check this site out. You get 1.5GB free upload credit upon signup and all new torrents have free leech for the first 6 hours they are alive.

Site Name: GazelleGames (http://gazellegames.net)

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

Special thanks to Daedy, t4nk and rest of GGn staff for the heads up.

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If you’ve been reading us for some time, you may have come across the name Etiv. It’s a well established BitTorrent invites and discussion forum that is generally closed to the public (to read our previous post about this site, click here). This post however is not about Etiv opening it’s doors– it’s rather about the launch of their sister site VoiceThe.Net (VTN), an open registration BitTorrent news, invites and discussion forum. One of the main characteristics of VTN is that it does not have any entry restrictions – the site will cater to even absolute beginners to the BitTorrent scene. While a fully fledged BitTorrent community in its own right, active members from VTN will even gain entry to Etiv based on their performance.

VoiceThe.Net

A very informative piece about VTN with plenty of background information about the site, who runs it and the events that lead to its birth was sent to us by Frylock, a SysOP of Etiv. Some parts of it are quoted below:

BEGIN QUOTE
Some time ago Etiv noticed space in the market for an always open regs torrent forum. There are some but far fewer than the countless elite sites that you have to jump through hoops to get into. The Admins at Etiv all have their roots at the legendary P2P-Talk and we remember the daily influx of new users open regs and a well SEOed site brings. Etiv serves its niche well and we weren't prepared to take it in that direction. The idea of opening a secondary site has been on  the drawing board for 6 months but we simply didn't have the man power to competently run 2 sites. We've come a long way since then and a lot of good people have joined our ranks. This is were Rabbot come into the picture. He came into Etiv during our December membership drive and quickly rose in ranks to our Supervisor position. He revived the idea and had a domain and vB Lic. ready to go. Just like that VTN was born.

VTN is part of the "Etiv Network" and staffed by Etiv members/staff but is owned and operated by Rabbot. It's purpose is double edged; We all enjoy working BT sites and spreading the pirate fun and building new sites is just what we do. It also is going to be the gate way to Etiv. Closed and Open sites both have their own advantages and disadvantages, we feel we can have the best of both worlds by operating in this manner. There are no set standards for VTN members to gain entry to Etiv. There is an application available to VIP's but we will also be hand picking people to give the golden ticket to.

We decided late in the game to add level 3 and below invite GAs and requests. We don't want to step on Etiv's toes with the invite game but also realize that you can't catch fish with out bait on your hook. Basic rules apply, we do't tolerate cheater, sellers, traders, ect. 
END QUOTE

Like we said before, VTN will have all the functionalities of a regular BitTorrent forum including invite giveaways, tutorials, invite requests, tracker reviews, tracker discussions, internal contests and so on. Qualifying members will also be given access to Etiv, VTN’s older brother. Below is a screenshot showcasing VoiceThe.Net’s torrent discussion and invite forum sections in the main index:

VTN index

These are still very early days for VTN and this is probably the first time the world hears of its existence. Almost all of the technical work has finished and the site is now live on the interwebz. Registration is currently only available to FILEnetworks readers through the special link below but doors will be opened to everyone after some time (after all, it’s one of their goals) .

Site Name: VoiceThe.Net (http://www.voicethe.net)

Signup URL: http://www.voicethe.net/FileNetworksOpenRegistrations.php

VTN Blog: http://voicethe.net/blog/

Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/voicethenet

Special thanks to Frylock and Rabbot for the continuous support.

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The title is weird & we know it – if you read on, you’ll understand why its there. This post is related to the recently released PC game Alpha Protocol. I have had the chance to play licensed version of this game for a few hours and it has so far played like a mediocre 3rd person RPG. I ran into an annoying bug where the game won’t save the state properly and there’d be slight changes (for example to player position) when a save is loaded. On the plus side, the story and game play concepts look pretty good. Although the game is not broken, it did not look anything special either. Anyways here’s answers to a few questions asked by our readers so far; How to change language in Alpha Protocol & more importantly, what’s with the weird moaning sounds you get in the main menu.

How to change language in Alpha Protocol

If your version of Alpha protocol runs in any other language than English (and if you want the game to switch to English), try the fix below.

  1. Go to X:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config\APEngine (where X: is your system drive, usually C:) and open the APEngine.ini file with a text editor.
  2. Scroll to the [Engine.Engine] section and set Language=EN. Save and close the file.
  3. Go to X:\Program Files\SEGA Corporation\Alpha Protocol\Engine\Config\BaseEngine and Open BaseEngine.ini file with a text editor.
  4. Scroll to the [Engine.Engine] section and set Language=EN. Save and close the file. Now start the game.

If you want to change the language to any other language than English, you may try a different language string. For example to switch it to Russian set Language=RUS. For this to work your copy of the game must be a MULTILANGUAGE version.

How to Fix Crashes, weird menu sounds, game exiting to main menu after the first cutscene, etc

We’ve received several E-mails from our readers who all seem to have run into a very weird issue. Whenever a menu item is selected/hovered on, the game would emit a strange moaning sound :D Apart from that it would crash to desktop or go back to the main menu after the first cut scene. From what I have found so far, this happens when you try different versions of the game in your machine. For example if you installed a leaked copy of the game earlier and then tried installing the legit version (or a different exe) later, these problems may materialize. To try and resolve these issues, follow the instructions below.

Note: Be careful when making changes to the system registry. Deleting/modifying wrong values may cripple your system.

  1. Open the Windows Registry Editor – this is usually done by typing RegEdit.exe in the run/search box and pressing enter.
  2. Expand the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then expand SOFTWARE
  3. Right click the ‘SEGA Corporation’ Key (under SOFTWARE) and hit delete. Press yes to the confirmation message. Close the Registry Editor.
  4. Navigate to X:\ProgramData directory, where X is your system drive (usually C:\). Delete the SEGA Corporation folder located inside it. Now run the game.

If the above does not work, try uninstalling the game, repeating steps 1-4 and then reinstalling a fresh copy.

How to improve mouse controls and mouse movement in Alpha Protocol

If you are annoyed by the way your mouse behaves in Alpha Protocol (sudden mouse speed variations when FPS drops), you can try the following fix to improve mouse handling. Full credit for this fix goes to user MirkoOdora on NFoHump Forums.

  1. Go to X:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config & open DefaultInput.ini file with a text editor. Set  bEnableMouseSmoothing=False in this file, save and close it.
  2. Go to X:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config & open APInput.ini file. Set all occurrences of bEnableMouseSmoothing variable in this file (there should be 2) to bEnableMouseSmoothing=False
  3. Go to X:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config & open APEngine.ini file. Set the following values in appropriate sections
    [Engine.GameEngine]
    bSmoothFrameRate=FALSE
    MinSmoothedFrameRate=1024
    MaxSmoothedFrameRate=4096
    [SystemSettings]
    UseVsync=False
  4. Open X:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Alpha Protocol\APGame\Config and make all ini files in this folder read only (note – after making these files read only, your changes from the in game menu options may not get saved. If you need to change any settings from the in game menu, it’s suggest that you do it before this step)

Note: This article is a work in progress. Check back here frequently for updates as we will be adding new content when more fixes are discovered.

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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Updates from two relatively popular trackers in the BitTorrent scene – HDPre and iTune. Both these sites currently have open signups but they have also suffered minor setbacks due to database failure. HDPre, a Hungary based high definition private tracker was forced to revert to a  several months old DB backup, resulting in the loss of some user accounts and torrents in the process. Site wide free leech has been activated and signups have been opened as a form of compensation. In similar fashion, the gazelle based music tracker iTune has sprung back after being offline for 12 long days. They have however lost 4500 torrents, a significant amount when it comes to a specialized torrent site. On the plus side, the intermittent downtime issues with iTune now seem to be resolved. This tracker too will have sidewide free leech in the coming 12 days.

iTune
iTune music tracker
Site Name: iTune (http://itunez.net)
Signup URL: http://itunez.net/register.php
Description: iTune is a music torrent tracker indexing English music from all genres. The site is based on the Gazelle codebase and has a great user interface that is pleasing to the eye. iTune recently switched domains from itune.ro to itune.net.
Stats: 6400 users and 660 torrents (Updated after downtime)
Full Review: [Click Here]

HDPre
HDpre
Site Name: HDpre (http://hdpre.com)
Signup URL: http://hdpre.com/signup.php
Description: HDpre is a Hungary based veteran HD tracker that’s more than two years old. It was previously accessible via hdpre.ath.cx however the site has now moved to more secure domain and is hosted at hdpre.com.
Stats: 20100+ users and ~400 torrents (used to index around 4.5k torrents before downtime) 
Full Review: [Click Here]

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The past two months have been pretty hectic for the gaming scene, especially for the folks involved in cracking game copy protection mechanisms. During this time we saw the public launch of UBISoft’s new hyped up DRM system (bundled with games such as Assassin’s Creed 2 and Splinter Cell : Conviction), creating frenzy among release groups who simply hacked away at it, trying to break this supposedly unbreakable protection. We saw leading names such as Razor1911, RELOADED and SKIDROW each claiming to have cracked the protection and there was quite a bit of E-drama and flame wars between these groups. Either way, the cracking scene was more alive in the past two months than it was in the first few weeks of 2010. If you want to see how scene groups fared and competed against each other during this time, check out the latest two editions of The Game Scene Charts (TGSC), a pirate magazine that rates and ranks groups of crackers based on their ‘performance’.

TGSC 42

March 2010 rankings saw SKIDROW top the charts with their recent flurry of new games releases. SKIDROW, founded in 1990 as a release group for AMIGA console games, returned to the scene in 2007 as a PC cracking group. Initially releasing mostly budget games, SKIDROW have now proven themselves to be a team of top crackers and reverse engineers capable of cracking complex DRM. Legendary RELOADED and GENESiS follows SKID in TGSC’s March rankings.

April 2010 rankings are very much similar. SKIDROW grabs the first spot, RELOADED second and the only  difference is TiNYISO moving a few spots up the ladder to claim the 3rd place. Unlike SKID and RLD, TiNYISO deals with budget PC games that are relatively unknown to the public.

Download

You can download TGSC issue 41 and 42 from Defacto, a site we featured on a previous article.

[Click Here] to download Game Scene Charts Issue 41 (March 2010) from Defacto.

[Click Here] to download Game Scene Charts Issue 42 (April 2010) from Defacto.

If you are looking for older editions, Defacto has the complete collection of TGSC magazines since Issue #1 (September 2006) on this page

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Here’s another great news for you TV & movie fans out there. TvFreeload, simply one of the best direct download link (DDL) forums on the planet for television shows, seems to have recovered from their downtime issues. I’m not sure when exactly the site came back online but it sure as hell was down more often than not in the last couple of months. This site falls under the same category as previously mentioned ev0.in, TV-Dump and Dedicated TV but TVFL is a true forum whereas other sites are more like release blogs/logs (and there aren’t many DDL forums that specialize in TV shows online these days). TvFreeload maintains a huge database of direct download links & online streaming links for TV shows, movies, documentaries, sports, anime and even some lossless music - this is a highly recommended forum if you intend to download any of these content for free.

TvFreeLoad

Some of you may be hearing about this site for the first time but it’s actually a quite popular forum. Despite the downtime issues that have plagued TVFL for weeks, it has managed to recruit over 30000 members, making it one of the largest DDL forums online for TV/Movie downloads. The activity is also pretty good with nearly 50000 posts in 10000+ threads – note that these stats are only for the year 2010.

Anyways most folks who sign up for a DDL forum wouldn’t care about how big or active the community is – they’d simply want to download the stuff they need. TVFL will kick your ass in this department – there are tons of movies and TV shows up for grabs here. You will be able to find these in TVFL’s ‘Downloads’ section. TV shows are categorized by type, name and movies are categorized by type, year of release and then name. Both new and old series/films are available. Be sure to have a look at the ‘A-Z Index’ threads under each category as well – these are sorted lists of all the content in TVFL’s downloads section.

TVFreeLoad Index

Content on TVFreeLoad comes in many forms; Below is a list of video formats you may stumble across on this forum:

  • Regular HDTV Format Files, XViD etc.
  • .mp4 format for iPhones, PSPs, iPods etc.
  • High Definition Download (720p,1080p etc.)
  • m-HD, m-720p, m-1080p Encoded Files
  • Streaming Online Media, No Need To Download/Extract.
  • DVDR Format Movies

Note that these video files are not hosted by TVFL itself. They are hosted on external hosts and only the verified, live DDL links are posted in the forums. One click hosters used by this forum includes:

  • RapidShare
  • Megaupload
  • Netload
  • FileFactory
  • DepositFiles
  • Hotfile
  • Storage.to
  • Mediafire
  • Multiupload
  • Megavideo
  • x7.to
  • Uploading.com
  • Enterupload

If you still aren’t a member of this awesome forum, registrations are currently open. Registration and log in is mandatory for viewing download links, etc so if you intend to download or watch movies/tv shows/cartoons online, go ahead and sign up using the link below.

Site Name: TVFreeload (http://forum.tvfreeload.com)

Signup URL: http://forum.tvfreeload.com/ucp.php?mode=register

If you liked this site you may also like:

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BCG is considered by many as the holy grail among games torrent trackers. This veteran private torrent site (which by the way is over 7 years old) has a lot of PC, console and mobile video games along with a large, dedicated user base who keep these torrents alive. However, BCG is not the easiest tracker to get into, especially if you are a newcomer to the BitTorrent scene. Open signups almost never happen on this tracker and you can only become a member either through a referral from an existing member (referrals are BCG’s alternative to the invites system commonly found on private trackers) or via an official recruitment thread on select BitTorrent forums. If you still aren’t a member of this tracker, good news is that thanks to stoi (BCG SysOP) we now have at our disposal 500 referral codes to be given away to FILEnetworks Blog readers.
UPDATE: We have received well over 500 requests. As we commented earlier, please do not send any more emails – this giveaway has now concluded. Referrals will be sent to selected emails in the coming days.

Blackcats Games

BCG crew seem to be in a mode of expansion right now and they’ve just given 10 referrals each to most of their existing members. According to stoi there are now 187,225 free referrals ‘out there’ in the system. If you are an existing BCG user, now would be a good time to check your account – you may have received them as well. Although BCG isn’t really short of members, new blood is always welcome in a private tracker. Their user base currently hovers somewhere around the 27000 - 30000 mark and the plan is to recruit several thousand new members within the next month.

When it comes to content, BCG has games for almost every platform there is on the planet. From the popular DOS/Windows PC section to PS3, XBOX360, Wii console games sections, BCG tracks over 12000 active torrents which include latest titles (scene and non scene releases), retro games and exclusive BCG member creations. Recently they have expanded to cover mobile platforms and now games for Android, iPhone etc are also available on this tracker. In addition to individual releases, lots of games packs & collections have been uploaded – some of these can be seen in the screenshot below:

BCG Screenshot

One thing you should know about BCG is that it’s functionality in some areas is drastically different from the average private tracker. For example on BCG there are no invites – these have been replaced by referrals. Same goes for the Seed Points mod – it’s an advanced system that essentially replaces the seed bonus system on most private trackers. We strongly recommend everyone to check the site’s Rules and FAQ pages first thing you login – without reading these your stay on BCG will be short lived. You can also find many helpful tutorials on this forum section of the site. Anyways it’s time to get back to the invite giveaway :)

How to send the referral request

Referrals can be requested / sent back via E-mail. Before you send in the request, please do some background reading and get a basic understanding of how the Seed Points system and Hit and Run warning system functions on BCG. To prove that you at least tried, please answer the two questions below and send the answers with your referral request email. Answers to both questions are available in this forum post stoi made on FileSharingTalk (FST) forums.

  1. To receive Seed Points for a particular torrent, what is the minimum active time requirement you need to have on that torrent?
  2. What is the minimum individual ratio a torrent needs to have for you to safely stop seeding it (without getting it counted as a hit and run)?

Here’s how you need to send the referral request E-mail

  1. Address the E-mail to invites[dot]filenetworks[at]gmail[dot]com
  2. Set the subject to BCG 01 . Please don’t get this wrong as we use the subject to filter invite requests.
  3. In the message body, specify clearly your answers to both the questions mentioned above.
  4. In message body, insert the link to your profile page of any private tracker you are currently a member of – for example http://sitename.com/user.php?id=12345 . You do not need to have a massive buffer or an unbelievable ratio – not being a Hit and Runner and not being a collector would be suffice.
  5. Send the mail. If you are successful, a response with a referral code will be sent back.

Use your referral before it expires

In the next few days, we will be sending out referrals in batches of 125. Please allow us one week to send out all the referral codes. This is not an automated process and we will have to manually verify the request, generate the referral and then send it to the requester via email. Needless to say it’s a time consuming process.

Note that a referral code expires after 6 hours. That means, you have to use the code within 6 hours since we generate it or the code would become invalid. Make sure to use an email you check frequently when sending the request. Since there can be various obstacles such as time zone differences, etc, we have taken the following steps to make this process more convenient for our readers :

After each batch of codes is sent, we will immediately notify you via E-mail, Twitter and Facebook. You can use any one or all of these mediums to stay up to date.

  • E-mail – An email with the code will be sent back to the E-mail account you used to send the referral request.
  • Twitter – Follow us on Twitter and we will Tweet whenever we send out a new batch of referral codes. http://twitter.com/filenetworks
  • Facebook page - ‘Like’ our Facebook page to become a fan of it. Then you will get an update on your FaceBook wall immediately after we send out referrals: http://www.facebook.com/filenetworks

If you didn’t receive a code after a certain batch of codes were sent out, don’t lose hope as you might get it in the next round. However do keep in mind that we only have 500 codes (at this point) at our disposal and these will be served on a first come, first served basis. We may be able to do additional giveaways in future but this is not confirmed as of yet.

What to do after you receive the referral code

Like many other areas of the site, BCG’s referral/signup/login system is very unique. Follow the steps below to use your referral code to create a new account:

  1. Visit http://www.blackcats-games.net
  2. TYPE the word referal into the search box (don’t change the spelling), without hitting submit or enter. Once you do, Email and referral code (aka referral link) text boxes will appear at the foot of the page
  3. Enter a valid email address (NO HOTMAIL) and code in the boxes given. Then submit.
  4. Check mail for link and proceed to signup page
  5. Fill in your details and submit. this will then send you a completion email and more importantly, the keyword.
  6. Back at http://www.blackcats-games.net you must type in the keyword in the search box. Username pass fields will appear at the foot of the page.
  7. Enter your credentials at the username, password fields and hit submit. Enjoy BCG

Special thanks to stoi for hooking us up with referrals.

To get advance notifications on giveaways like this, follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

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A long awaited change has finally happened over at SyncTheBits (StB), a leading private torrent tracker for mobile, smartphone content. StB has gone through a complete site overhaul and staff have now launched the next major revision of the tracker. This new milestone (dubbed StB v2) introduces many new features, add-ons and enhancements including advanced search, a new bonus system, streamlined user interface, a more organized torrent index, faster navigation and many other smaller tweaks. StB now runs on a customized version of Gazelle source making it the first specialized mobile tracker to utilize this popular codebase. In celebration of StB v2 public launch, signups have been opened on this otherwise invite-only private community.

StB Logo

Good news about the Gazelle migration is that StB staff have managed to do it without any data loss. All the torrents are in tact and the tracker is functioning as it should. User accounts however seem to require manual input for them to be migrated – this is a one time process and can easily be done through the automatic migration tool available at http://www.syncthebits.com/stb_migration.php (this applies to existing members only – new users who signup today are not required to do this).

At the time of writing StB had 2400+ active users and ~4000 torrents in its index, making it probably the largest specialized mobile tracker in existence. As we highlighted in a previous post, you can find on this site applications, games, themes, mobile optimized movies, ebooks, etc for a number of different mobile platforms including iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, PSP, Java, BlackBerry and more. Thanks to the user friendly search and organization features provided by Gazelle, discovering goodies for your mobile should now be easier.

StB index

Another new feature introduced with the launch of StB v2 is the ‘Store’. Through the store you are able to purchase invites & upload credit in exchange for bonus points (earned by seeding torrents), gift your points to friends and convert excess invites back to bonus points. You can even gamble away your credits by playing Blackjack solo or against other players.

Simultaneous to the launch of StB v2, public signups have been opened. The site’s current user limit is set to 5000 which leaves around 2500 free slots remaining. If you are looking for a mobile tracker with a great interface and a decent amount of content, check this out.

Site Name: SyncTheBits (http://www.syncthebits.com)

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

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Looking for a general/0day private torrent tracker without ratio? Try FreeTheScene (FTS). FTS, a BitTorrent tracker based on Gazelle codebase, has removed its ratio system and has switched into a no-ratio model. FTS was a ratio based torrent site ever since its inception more than a year ago and this sudden move comes as a bit of a surprise. Anyways it’s a pretty well established medium sized tracker with a decent amount of content and going ratio free might just increase their user base by luring all those ‘no ratio’ fans in. Signups are not directly open but interested readers can ask for an invite on their official IRC invites channel.

freethescene logo

As of 23/5/2010, FTS tracks around 3300 active torrents (4600 total) and has a registered user base of 3600+ members. When this site started it did not use the Gazelle codebase at first – the migration happened sometime later back in early 2009. FTS was in fact among the first few private trackers to switch to this now famous codebase that has won the hearts of many torrenters.

As you can guess from the name, Free The Scene is a General/0Day private tracker. This means you can find all sorts of content ranging from movies to games here. FTS however is not a scene only tracker – non scene releases including exclusive packs are also indexed. At time of this posting, they had around 100 unique packs indexed. Anyways FTS seems to be ‘celebrating’ switching to ratio free mode pretty hard. Have a look at the graphic below:

Free The Scene Ratio Free

As the poster above states, you now only need to seed all downloaded torrents for a minimum of 72 hours. The actual amount of data you upload during this time does not matter. Downloaded and uploaded data is still calculated but there is now no such thing as a global ratio.

FTS used to open signups at random times in the past but such open registrations have been scarce in the past few months. However, if you are interested in joining, an invite can be obtained from their official invites IRC channel.

Server: irc.freethescene.net
Channel: #fts-invite
Direct Link: irc://irc.freethescene.net/fts-invite
New to IRC?: [Click Here] for a brief mIRC tutorial

Once logged into the channel, do as the channel topic says.

Special thanks to Jhonson for the heads up and ckpro for opening the invites channel for our readers.

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We have lots of good news lined up in the BitTorrent front and here’s the first of those stories. As we have previously highlighted, the BT community has a serious lack of specialized trackers when it comes to comic books. Leading comics trackers such as ZCultFM, CTT, AnimaTooniC, etc have shut down and comics fans nowadays don’t have many options apart from H33T, Demonoid, Bibliotik & ComicPirates (Of course, there are plenty of DDL forums for this purpose but we’re talking about BitTorrent sites here). Anyways the good news is that we’ve seen the birth of a brand new comics tracker; ComicBT. For those interested, this site is currently open for registrations and new signups are now being accepted.

CBT Comic Book Tracker

ComicBT is a very young site in the BitTorrent scene. There aren’t many folks who even know of its existence yet. This is not because CBT is a super secret, l33t tracker but because it’s not a crazily hyped up site (and it has received zero publicity so far). CBT currently has only 30 registered users and 42 indexed torrents but we believe small, niche trackers such as this should be promoted despite their size or popularity - there is great potential for growth here.

First thing you’ll notice after logging into CBT will be the site’s theme. The default theme which has a lot of green color has a very comic-book like feel to it (the site still seems to be in final stages of development so there may be bugs present). They have an impressive list of categories including categories sorted by major comic book publishers and if they can fill out those ‘Packs’ sections it would add real value to this site.

CBT

ComicBT has a bonus system in place and comes with all other standard features TBDEV 2009 source has to offer. Note that there are wait times for this tracker. However this should not affect you maintaining a good ratio as all torrents on site are free leech till 27th of May.

Signups for ComicBT are currently open. While it’s too early to predict the future of this tracker, signup may be worth it if you are a serious comic book fan.

Site Name: ComicBT (http://comicbt.com)

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

Special thanks to Squills (ComicBT SysOP) who invited us in and let us know about this tracker.

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Few years ago, there was this unofficial rule on the internet regarding UseNet; you don’t talk about UseNet. However, this has recently changed with some indexers publicly advertising on file sharing blogs, forums, etc. The increased publicity has not only resulted in many pirates adopting to UseNet technology but it has also diverted the attention of copyright lawyers who seemingly have only one intention; bringing UseNet down. Recently, there has been several court cases filed in various countries against Usenet indexers and this series of events has eventually lead to the closure of Newzbin - as reported by TorrentFreak, Newzbin shut down its operations after a court ruled it’s operations were against the law. But have we truly seen the end of world’s largest Usenet indexer? We think not.

Quoted below is part of a mass email sent to previous NewsBin account holders:

Good news: we are Newzbin Two, and we have glad tidings:

NEWZBIN IS BACK! and we are the new management. The crew got most of the original Newzbin source code and the main databases. We loved it too much to let it die.

According to Newzbin’s Ex- owner Caesium’ Chris Elsworth, their source code is indeed leaked and is in the wild:

The Newzbin source code *is* in the wild. Someone has it. I don’t know who, and I don’t know what they’re going to do with it, and I don’t really much care. Best of luck to them, it won’t be competing with anything I choose to do in future.

Don’t ask me to share the Newzbin source with you, it is not mine to share. Control of Newzbin Ltd was transferred away from me (because I sold it. not by force) in January 2010 and with it, all my rights to the source code and servers etc etc. Whoever obtained it didn’t get it through me – how did they get it? I don’t know.

You can read more of his comments (and more Newbin gossip) on this blog.

As of right now Newsbin Two has not gone live yet. Whether it will be named differently or what it’s new URL will be is currently not known. It’s likely that these information will also be made public through another mass E-mail directed at all Ex-NewsBin users. Either way, this just sends another message to the copyright industry – whenever a large file sharing site gets taken down, several others spawn to take it’s place - The hydra effect is not only limited to BitTorrent trackers.

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The PC platform has seen a racing game after some time. Split Second : Velocity (aka Split/Second) has now been released to the public. From the brief experience I had with the title, this looked like a fun game to play with more arcade style gaming elements. However, Split/Second is a console port and like most console ports, it does not appear to be the most optimized game to run on PC hardware. In other words, some of you with even high end systems might run into performance woes. Anyways here is our routine troubleshooting article which tries to address some of the crashing issues, controller problems, stuttering performance, etc with the game. Hopefully this should help you resolve the nagging issues you run into while playing Split/Second.

Can’t change resolution, black screen, game minimized to tray or crashes when changing resolution

This is a very common issue with Split/Second and dual monitor systems. If you run into any of the above problems, try disabling the second monitor prior to starting the game (if you have more than two monitors connected, disconnect everything apart from your primary monitor). You can connect the second monitor once the game is started up and you have changed the resolution. Perhaps and upcoming patch may address this issue.

Playing Split/Second with an XBOX 3670 controller

Although you may not be aware, you can play Split Second with an XBOX360 controller. However, since the game does not have native support for them, you may run into a few snags such as not knowing which button on the controller does what. If it helps, here’s the default button mapping for X360 controller:

Accelerate = RT
Brake = LT
Tab = Y
Instant replay = LB
Level 1 power play = A, X
Level 2 power play = B
Enter = Start, A
Escape = B

If you run into any issues with controller setup, I suggest you give XPadder a go. It’s a simply utility that allows you simulate keyboard and mouse movement in a game using a XBXO controller.

Tips to improve performance and reduce stuttering

Like I said earlier, this game is not the most optimized port so you may run into performance issues. Here are some things you can try to improve performance.

  • Disable Anti Aliasing – this has a major impact on performance and turning this off should give you more than a few FPS boost. Additionally, make sure you have not forced AA from your video card’s control panel.
  • Try playing in Windowed mode – some people (mostly on ATI hardware) have reported better FPS on windowed mode
  • Disable VSync – you can try this as well but it’s doubtful if it will yield positive results. On a side note, this game has a built in framerate lock at 30FPS so don’t waste time trying to get it above 30FPS.
  • Update your DirectX to the latest monthly runtime. Windows XP users may grab the latest runtime from here.
  • Update your video card’s drivers – if latest drivers do not work, try downloading and installing latest beta drivers (do this at your own risk).
    ATI Drivers: Download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers from this link: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
    NVIDIA Drivers: Download latest official NVIDIA drivers from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
    Beta Drivers: Check here http://downloads.guru3d.com/

What Are the minimum system requirements to run this game?

Since many have asked, here are the minimum and recommended system requirements to run Split/Second. IMHO 4GB system memory in recommended settings is a bit of an overkill.

Minimum

  • OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
  • Processor: Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.0 GHz / AMD Athlon 64 4000
  • Memory: 2 Gb
  • Hard Drive: 6.5 Gb free
  • Video Memory: 256 Mb
  • Video Card: nVidia GeForce 7800 / ATI Radeon X1800
  • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
  • DirectX: 9.0c

Recommended

  • OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
  • Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 3.0 GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800
  • Memory: 4 Gb
  • Hard Drive: 6.5 Gb free
  • Video Memory: 512 Mb
  • Video Card: nVidia GeForce 9600 / ATI Radeon HD 3870
  • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
  • DirectX: 9.0c

Note: This article is a work in progress. More issues/fixes will be added as they are discovered. If you have any specific problem or a solution, feel free to comment to this post.

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The Pirate Bay crew aren’t kidding when they call TPB ‘the world’s most resilient BitTorrent tracker’. After several court cases, injunctions against ISPs, blockades of bandwidth suppliers and various other obstacles, The Pirate Bay still stands tall. Every one of you is now probably familiar with the story of TPB temporary shutting down to switch servers after their host CB3ROB was dragged to courts. Just like many expected, TPB did not stay down for long – the site came back online fully operational again within a matter of hours. That’s not all, TPB crew has had the time to send RIAA a hidden message embedded inside one of their blog posts about the downtime.

TPB LOLCATS

I’m sure by now everyone has seen the above LOLCATS image on TPB homepage. If you actually clicked on the image, you will be taken to their new blog post about the downtime. It reads something like this:

PLZ LEARN: TPB CANT BE SHUT DOWN

LOL!

AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL. TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.

TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.

TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003

The message is written in the strange internet language associated with LOLCATS (aka LOLSpeak) and is pretty straightforward. But did you notice that certain letters in the text are in bold? If you take only the bold letters and put them together, you get an entirely different message:

ASSCLOWNS OV TEH RIAA

Now that’s pretty awesome, isn't it?

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There was quite a lot of hype built around Google Wave, the new communications and collaboration platform from Google, when it first hit the web. During the product’s early beta testing phase, registration was closed and the product was available to a select number of users. Needless to say, initially there was a heavy demand for invites (some folks even sold them and some traded private tracker invites for these) but this soon died down as the hype around Wave decreased. Anyways, if you still have not received a Google Wave invite and is waiting to try out the service, good news is that Google has opened Wave registrations for all users. You can now sign up for the service with your free Google Account.

Google Wave Logo

Earlier on we conducted several Google Wave Invite giveaways and were able to give invites to a considerable number of people. However, we were faced with a huge number of requests and our supply of invites was never enough to meet the demand. If you missed out on earlier giveaways, now’s the perfect chance to create a new account.

Quoting from the Google Wave Blog:

Starting today, we are making Google Wave openly available to everyone as part of Google Labs. You no longer need an invitation to wave -- simply visit wave.google.com and sign right in.

Signup URL: http://wave.google.com/ and sign in with your Google account

If I remember correctly, new users should receive 25 invites upon joining. In the meantime if you are one of those early adopters who tried out Wave, thought it sucked and gave up, now would be a good time for a re-visit. Wave has several new enhancements and many improvements up its sleeve and it’s actually a lot better than what it was a couple of months ago.

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Nowadays there’s a TV tracker for almost everything. You have BMTV, BTN, TVT.com etc for US & Canadian TV shows, UKNova, The Box and TVChaos for UK TV, DesiTorrents and a lot more others for Indian/Pakistani shows and so on. Here’s another private tracker that specializes in somewhat rare TV content – Diwana is a BitTorrent site that tracks television shows from Australia and New Zealand. Apart from drama, documentaries, comedies, lifestyles shows, kids shows, etc, Diwana tracks a whole lot of sports content including cricket and rugby torrents. We did an article on this tracker way back in 2008 – the site is still going string with more content and more activity so it’s time to do an updated post. Speaking of updated articles, there’s no better time to write them than when signups are open.

Diwana

Last time we featured Diwana, it tracked 17000 torrents and had 20000 members. These stats have further improved during the past few months and the site now tracks in excess of 25000 torrents and registered user base has surpassed 32000. Needless to say this is a tracker with very good activity. The number of torrents could have been a lot higher had they not moved new sports releases to http://acrossthetasman.com (AcrossTheTasman is Diwana’s sister tracker and is currently closed for signup – however, existing Diwana.org members can request a free invite from staff).

Speaking of content, majority of Diwana’s torrent index consists of Television shows from Australia and New Zealand. This includes both full season packs and individual episodes of primetime TV, comedies, drama, soaps, game shows, science/medical series, telemovies and so on. Note that Diwana no longer indexes new sports content – sports torrents are still available but all of them are releases made in 2009 or before. Screenshot below shows part from this tracker’s torrent index:

Diwana Index

Built on TS Special Edition codebase, Diwana comes with all basic features of a private tracker. This includes a seed bonus system, requests, re-seeds, forums, advanced search, separate subtitles section, etc.

As stated above, signups for Diwana are currently open. They are known to open and close regularly so get in while you can. Note that accounts will be deleted after 60 days of inactivity.

Site Name: Diwana (http://diwana.org)

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

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A lot has been happening around The X tracker recently. First up, their recent open signup was a massive success with several thousand new users joining, bringing much needed activity into the site. However, it’s hasn't all been smooth sailing for this tracker so far - they suffered a setback when their database got corrupted due to a server issue, ultimately resulting in the site being offline for more than just a few hours. Good news is that both the web interface and the tracker are now back up, almost fully functional with all 21000+ torrents in tact. The bad news – user accounts created after the 29th of April have all been deleted along with ratio statistics, forum posts, etc. This means that if you were one of the several thousand members who signed up during The recent X open signups, you need to re-create your account (signups have been re-opened).

So what really happened? A detailed account of the events that transpired is posted on the site homepage. Quoted below are some parts of the news article:

Attention Members
Due to some unforeseen reasons, our server had a mini meltdown of sorts and our database had gotten corrupted to the point that we could not recover it. As a result of this, we are forced to roll back and use a slightly older backup than we would have liked to use and ALL accounts that were opened since 4/29 are lost. There is slightly silverish lining to this story, it appears that pretty much most of the site code was untouched. We know this comes at an awkward time as we were in the middle of open signups and moving forward from the "Beta" process. However, this is a minor set back and we will continue to move forward, we do apologize for the inconvenience. As an extra note: any torrents that you have downloaded during this time are also lost.

User Passkeys:
Although the site was down, we did take the opportunity to move forward and implement our PLANNED updated passkey system. What this means is that we've updated the code and optimized it greatly. However, due to some of the changes in the code, all passkeys had to be reset as they no longer will be valid. We have done this already on our end and ask that you update the information in your clients to reflect the new information, or they will no longer work properly.

Once again; We are really sorry for this. We know just a simple "sorry" is far from good enough, so there will be "gifts" and lots of other fun stuff coming up soon. Also this problem will most likely never happen again in the future.

When it comes to any website (and not just torrent trackers), downtime is expected. However, downtime and data loss makes life a lot harder for sites such as The X which are still in the growing phase. As the news post quoted above says, let’s hope this will never happen in the future.

In the meantime, signups have been re-opened. If you are joining the site as a brand new user or if you are re-creating your user account which got lost in the ordeal, now’s a good time to do it. A full review of this tracker can be found in our previous article located here.

Site Name: The X

Signup URL: http://scenexpress.net/opensignup.php

Note: IP ranges from Romania and Israel are banned from signing up. Only existing users from these countries are allowed to use the tracker.

Official Trailer: Embedded on this page

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While we all wait for Windows Live Wave 4 series products to be released to the public, here’s a new build of an existing Wave 3 product. Windows Live Messenger (WLM – formerly MSN Messenger), the popular IM client for the Windows platform, has received a new minor update in build 14.0.8117.416. As usual a changelog which should include a complete list of changes in the new build is missing and we are left guessing what’s new – according to an article on Softpedia this update is only bugfixes. Note that we have linked to the full standalone, offline setup of the program as opposed to the over the web installer that Microsoft provides by default.

Windows Live Messenger Logo

The offline installer will be useful for people who have multiple computers, limited bandwidth internet connections, unstable internet connections etc. The idea is to download the entire setup file to hard disk and then re-use the setup to install on any number of computers whenever, wherever you like.

That being said, the installer contains full installations for ALL (not just WLM) Windows Live apps including Mail, Writer, Movie Maker and so on. The file size is 135mb. If you find the file size to be too large – you can download the regular, online version of WLM setup to get the newest build as well.

Download

[Click Here] to download Windows Live Messenger 2009 Final build 14.0.8117.416 Standalone/Offline/Redistributable installer directly from Microsoft

[Click Here] to download Windows Live Messenger 14.0.8117.416 web installer

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Excellent news for all of you folks who own a Smartphone or a new generation mobile device – PDA4x is open for registration. There are so many direct download link forums online nowadays which provide downloads targeted at mobile platforms. PDA4x is definitely among the top 10 of those sites and it provides applications, games, themes, ringtones, hacks, patching tools and all sorts of content for a wide range of platforms including Symbian OS, Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Pocket PC, Palm, PSP, etc. This is a China based underground community and needless to say most of the applications linked to in the forums are cracked (and in some cases signed) so it’s essentially all pirated material. If you want to get in, now would be a good time to do so as registrations have been opened for a limited time.

PDA4x

This may be the first time you are hearing about PDA4x but believe me, this is not an obscure forum located in an isolated corner on the internet. One of the most notable differences between this site and other similar forums such as DOtSiS, IPMart, etc is theformer’s closed nature. Registrations are usually closed at PDA4x and they don’t open regularly even with lots of potential new members constantly knocking on the door. Despite their tight policy on new signups, there are already several thousand users registered on PDA4x and the activity is in fact very good.

Content is where PDA4x shows it’s true colors. It has a lot of mobile optimized stuff ranging from apps, games to even movies and TV shows. And the collection is not limited to popular Nokia/Symbian software you can find on almost every other forum on the planet. There’s a great amount of apps here for platforms such as BlackBerry, iPhone, Android, etc and this is one factor that sets PDA4x apart from similar mobile forums that are around. Part of the site’s main index can be seen in the screenshot below – note that only some of the platform categories are visible in the screen:

PDA4x screenshot

Like most direct download link forums, the site does not host any material on its own servers. Cracked apps, etc are uploaded into one click hosting sites such as Rapidshare and verified, non fake download links are organized and indexed in the appropriate category in the forums.

PDA4x English

As we mentioned earlier, PDA4x’s roots lie in China – but that doesn’t mean the content it has is Chinese. In fact, almost everything on this site should be usable by English speaking users – if you get Chinese language interface selected by default after registration, you can change it using the link at top right hand corner of a site page.

As mentioned earlier, registrations for PDA4x have now been opened. This is acknowledged in a forum post but a closing date for open signups has not been mentioned. Either way this definitely won’t last forever so get in while you can.

Site Name: PDA4x (http://www.pda4x.com/)

Registration URL: http://www.pda4x.com/register.php

Other good sites to download mobile optimized content:

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There are two types of torrent sites; trackers that are overhyped and trackers that are underrated. SceneFX belongs to the latter category. It’s a General/0Day torrent tracker based in Romania. You always hear of LastTorrents (Open), TorrentBits (Open), Freshon.TV, Docs Torrents, iPlay, etc whenever ‘great’ Romanian trackers are discussed but a lot of folks seem to leave SceneFZ (SFZ) out. It’s a little surprising since SFZ itself is a pretty decent private tracker with a huge user base (compared to other similar sites) and a content rich torrent index with a lot of individual releases and packs. SFX usually requires a SMS Code (some type of subscription based service) to register but free signup is now possible for users all over the world for a limited time.

SceneFz logo

This is not the first time we are featuring SFZ on this blog – our long time readers should know about this site well enough. Anyways SceneFZ is a pretty old tracker which has been around since 2006. During these 4+ years, they’ve managed to recruit 63000+ active users which is a colossal number by private tracker standards. The active torrent count is also high, with SFZ indexing 19000+ active torrents as of 16/5/2010.

Despite being a tracker with Romanian origins, vast majority of torrents indexed in SFZ are English. This includes both scene and non scene releases. Types and amount of indexed content according to site homepage is as follows:

1,801 Games
10,804 Movies
3,687 Music
1,331 Software
1,720 Other categories

For those who care about packs, there are plenty of them here apart from individual uploads. Internal releases unique and exclusive to this tracker can be identified by ‘SFZ’ and ‘SceneFZ’ tags at the end of torrent title. Screenshot below highlights some of the torrent packs on found on SFZ:

SceneFZ Packs

One thing I don’t particularly like about SFZ is it’s interface. The default theme looks uncommon but at times it appears a little cluttered with flash based ‘buy credits’ ads, PM notification pop ups, etc. Thankfully, there are 12 different themes to choose from and between these you should be able to find something that will not hurt your eyes (theme can be changed using the left sidebar). There are advanced search features built into the site but these will only reveal themselves if you click on the ‘Complex Search’ button near the torrent page numbers (beneath the ‘buy credits’ banner).

Signup for SFZ is currently open. Note that this tracker rarely opens its doors (usually once or twice a year) so make use of the opportunity. Open registrations will continue till the 17th of May.

Site Name: SceneFZ (http://scenefz.net)

Signup URL: Go to http://scenefz.net, accept the agreement and choose ‘Sign up’ from the left pane.

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Scene Notices rarely contain useful information – they are usually full of E-drama and flame wars. However, I stumbled across a recent SceneNotice which can be pretty useful if you download illegitimate software online. As you may know, the internet is full of pirated software that come with cracks or key generators which circumvent the built in copy protection mechanisms. One of the most common downsides associated with cracked software is that they ever so often carry virus or other malware infections. The original release which usually comes from the scene is almost always clean – viruses and other malware sneak in as the release gets repacked and spread across warez sites on the internet. But here is a rare case where the scene release itself is infected by malware.

A.NOTE.ABOUT.WiNDAZ.RELEASES.v1.0-iND warns you of malware that comes embedded with cracked software releases by 0Day release group WiNDAZ. Full NFO is quoted below:

Rels: A.NOTE.ABOUT.WiNDAZ.RELEASES.v1.0-iND
Name: ind-wnz1.zip
Date: 2010/05/09
Size: 1 x 5MB
Type: TextProof
Avast.Internet.Security.v5.0.545.Incl.Keymaker-WiNDAZ
ESET.NOD32.Antivirus.v4.2.42.0.Incl.Keymaker-WiNDAZ
Nero.v9.9.4.26.0b.Incl.Keymaker-WiNDAZ
Mirc.v7.0.Incl.Keymaker-WiNDAZ (contains mIRC 6.35)
WiNDAZ-installers bundle the setup and a file called idx.exe, which is a trojan/password-stealer. Check proof.rar and/or google for Steam.pdb
Their keygens arent working (containing a random string generator) Btw. nuking the shit for only "not.working" or even "get.proper" is simply a sign of stupidity the sole purpose of the releases is to spread the trojan - there wont be any FIXED or WORKING version by this fool
Ban them & catch the guy who brings this scum into scene

5-15-2010 3-42-06 PM

Proof.RAR includes screenshots of disassembled code from WiNDAZ installers. One screen includes a set of methods which appear to be trying to kill off background processes of several popular security software (whether that’s working code or not is a different matter – point is such methods should not have made it into an installer). It also exposes the functionality of the key generator which indeed just generates random strings as claimed by the NFO. If you have downloaded any of WiNDAZ releases and if your antivirus software didn’t alert you of suspicious activity, it might be time to do a full system scan with updated definitions (or try using a new AV for that matter).

[Click Here] to download the full NFO along with all the screenshots of disassembled code.

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Several weeks ago we featured on this blog a brand new private torrent tracker called ‘The X’. It was the latest project by the crew behind SceneLife (now defunct) and needless to say, caught the attention of many in the BitTorrent community. The X was the first tracker to be based on the much hyped SCTBDEV codebase and even more importantly did something many other start up General/0Day trackers failed to do – it started off operations with more than 15000 active torrents – movies, music, games, TV shows and pretty much everything else. As we highlighted in our last article, getting into ‘The X’ was initially only possible after going through an IRC interview. Now, a few weeks into the launch, this has changed – the site has opened direct signups probably for the first and the last time and potential new members are now able to get in almost instantaneously.

Before we go into open signups, it would be interesting to see how ‘The X’ has done in the past couple of weeks since its launch. After starting off operations with 15600+ torrents, they’ve managed to keep the momentum going by adding several hundred new torrents a day. As of 14/5/2010, the active torrent count on X stands at 20600+, averaging at around 250 new daily torrents added during the last three weeks – impressive stuff indeed. The user count too has slowly but surely increased and stood at ~1900 just before open signups began. This is bound to increase further now with the flood gates open and this news being posted everywhere. Opening signups IMHO was the correct move by The X administration – no tracker can survive without leechers and direct signups are way more faster and usually generate more enthusiastic response from the BT community than IRC recruitment.

Speaking of the recent changes on X, a new section has now been introduced for ‘spam’ scene releases. This is a separate browse page which can be accessed from the main toolbar and makes it easier to discover and filter hundreds of new uploads that get added daily. Some of you will be glad to know that all releases in the Spam section (which include Applications, AudioBooks, E-Books, Mobile, Music & Music Videos) are FreeLeech. For a more detailed account of the type of content available on this tracker and other site features, please refer to our previous article located here.

In other news, The X has finally launched the ‘snatch policy’ we talked about in the previous article. The snatch policy is a system that promotes user activity and weeds out inactive users, for example tracker collectors. Here’s how it works:

Every month (every 30 days) you MUST download and fully seed at least 2 torrents above 100 MB. There is absolutely no excuse to not follow this policy. We are providing our members with the latest and absolute best releases, and we also have many FreeLeech torrents. If you cannot download at least two small torrents (100 MB and above) every month – you have absolutely nothing to do here.

However, the snatch policy requirements cease to exist when you progress further upwards the user classes scheme – that is, higher user classes are exempt from this rule. For more information on this, please refer to /rules.php and /faq.php pages.

Anyways as stated at the start of this post, The X is currently open for signup. According to a news post on site homepage, this could the the first and only time they will open registrations:

Open Signups:
Sign-ups are going to be open for the next 5 days. This is the first and probably the last time we are going to open our doors. Tell all your friends and those whom you trust the most!

If you are looking forward to becoming a member of this site, the signup link is posted below (in this case with permission from tracker staff).

Site Name: The X

Signup URL: http://scenexpress.net/opensignup.php

Note: IP ranges from Romania and Israel are banned from signing up. Only existing users from these countries are allowed to use the tracker.

Official Trailer: Embedded on this page

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