Some good news for fans of Horror, sleaze and cult movies. We are giving away 100 free invites to one of the best specialized horror trackers on the net – The Horror Charnel (THC). This is our 3rd invite giveaway for THC and if you missed out on the first two, here’s yet another chance to get in. First of all we apologize for not being able to do this sooner – it was arranged months ago but got delayed mainly due to laziness from our part :P Anyways if you still don’t know what THC is, it’s a great source for downloading horror themed films. From slasher movies, grind house, zombie movies to flicks about clowns, puppets and mutants, THC tracks a large database of content you won’t usually find on general trackers or even on most dedicated movie trackers out there.

The Horror Charnel

THC has been around for several years and it a veteran tracker run by an experienced crew. With over 6000 active members and ~3000 torrents, the site is one of the most stable in the BitTorrent scene. True, the it does not have a huge user base but The Horror Charnel is a community oriented tracker - almost all the existing members are pretty active here. In addition THC has interesting features such as ‘Free movie of the week’, ‘theme of the month’, etc all of which further promote leeching.

Running on a heavily modified TBSource tracker script, THC’s visual theme is highly related to the nature of content it tracks. From category icons to navigation menus to the names of site features (‘reanimated’ torrents), everything on this site is related to the horror genre (in a good way). It’s torrent index is incredibly detailed with each entry having category details, a tagline, a poster of the movie and a plot summary (which appears when you hover your mouse on a torrent title). The screenshot below captures part of THC’s main index:

THC Index

I haven’t seen this mentioned a lot but THC is one of the few torrent sites to have a mobile version of their web interface. Look for the ‘Log Into THC Mobile’ link on the login page.

Coming back to the invite giveaway, we have a limited number of invites at our disposal  (100 to be precise). These will be given away to the first 100 valid requests we receive. All you have to do is to send us an E-mail with the following format:

  • Subject of the E-mail should be ‘THC 03’. We use an automated software to filter the mails so don’t get this wrong.
  • In the body of the mail, please include
    1. Link to the profile page on a private tracker of your choice– for example http://trackername.org/user.php?id=2447424
    2. A current (should not be more than 1-2 days old) screenshot of the same profile page you linked to above. Screenshot should be un-cropped and un-edited.
  • Send your email to invites[dot]filenetworks[at]gmail[dot]com

If your E-mail has any of the required information missing, it’s likely to get ignored (here’s why). Note that it may take up to 3-4 days for us to send you back an invite code. Good Luck!

Special thanks to Azazel, Omen2002 and rest of THC staff for the support given.

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Over the last couple of months, we’ve featured quite a few Direct Download Link (DDL) forums specializing in HD content in this blog (HDMania, x264-BB, HD-UNIT3D to name a few) . HD-Dump is a brand new entrant to this particular niche and so far the site has done pretty well. It indexes all sorts of HD (and some non HD) content ranging from 720p, 1080p movies, BRRip, MicroHD and untouched TrueHD movies, TV shows to documentaries, anime and even sports. This includes scene releases as well as user uploads not usually found on the usual places such as scene torrent trackers, etc. HD-Dump is a clean forum with no advertisements, zero password protected files and no masked or encrypted download links. For those wanting to get in, registrations are currently open.

HD-Dump

It’s been a few months since HD-Dump launched – there hasn’t been much hype about it in the community but the forum has slowly been gaining momentum. It currently has 1700+ members and 1200+ threads – not too bad for a niche forum just starting up. The site seems to be run by an experienced staff panel who’ve had previous experience with moderating other DDL forums. According to one of the site’s administrators, HD-Dump was created to serve as a forum dedicated to user friendliness and cleanliness:

Sick of password trouble, RARs inside RARs, and wasting time searching for a single movie among duplicate threads?
Here's what you'll find at HD-Dump: none of those common download annoyances for end-users.
1. No passwords whatsoever allowed in any files.
2. All files must be single extraction.
3. Each movie has only 1 thread. You want to post your links? Post it in the existing thread.
Having a one-thread per movie rule makes a forum much easier to browse and much easier on the eyes. When looking for a specific movie, you shouldn't have to go through a dozen threads to find what you're looking for.

As mentioned earlier, HD-Dump tracks a lot of HD content including 720p, 1080p movies as well as untouched, TrueHD Blu Ray movies. In addition, the site indexes some non HD content such as BRRip and MicroHD movies as well as HDTV shows. A screenshot capturing some of the available content categories can be seen below:

HD-Dump screenshot

HD-Dump seems to be very well maintained and moderated, so movie threads are kept updated, and dead links are removed almost immediately upon being reported. The forum is ad-free and very clean. There is little limitation to what mirror links can be posted (as long as the links are direct), although there is zero tolerance for spamming and posting infected content.  You won't find too many Rapidshare links at HD-Dump right now, but Hotfile, Megaupload, Netload and even Fileserve seem to be pretty popular here.

Registrations for HD-Cump are currently open – if you are interested, you may create an account without the need for an invite code.

Site Name: HD-Dump (http://hd-dump.org)

Signup URL: http://hd-dump.org/register.php?do=addmember

Special thanks to Roy for the heads up.

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Several months ago, there was a time when CCFBits was always open to the public. This however is no longer the case – the site has long since gone invite only and its doors remain shut for the most part. If you still haven’t become a member of this tracker, good news is that today is the open registration day at CCFBits. In case you were wondering, CCFBits is a huge private BitTorrent tracker indexing thousands of high definition (HD) releases. It’s a torrent site in  the same league as HDChina, CHDBits, etc and is without a doubt one of the most famous trackers based in China. Good download speeds, internal encoder groups, tons of torrents including movies, TV shows, documentaries and lossless music, decent leecher activity on indexed torrents – CCFBits pretty much has all the qualities you’d look for in a good HD tracker.

Open registration day at CCFBits was announced sometime back but so far it has gone unnoticed in most BitTorrent news and invite forums. The site’s current maximum user limit is set to 20000 and at time of this post there were 19100 registered members, leaving  around 900 free slots. Note that this user base is pretty strong for a  specialized tracker – there aren’t many private HD sites around with 20k members. The indexed torrent count is equally high - with over 17500 active torrents (last time we reviewed this site back in July 2009, it only had 700) being tracked by CCFBits’s private tracker, it’s a site that can rival the likes of HDChina and TorrentGui in terms of content.

Speaking of content, this site tracks Chinese/English movies, documentaries and TV shows - bulk of the releases are English, released by renowned scene/p2p groups such as ESiR, CtrlHD, EuReKA and CTU. In addition, they do have their own internal encoder groups such as Pa@Ph, OurSky, YYets, XTM, StTVG and YDY. It’s worth mentioning that CCFBits is home to some huge HD torrent packs – for example there is a movie pack that exceeds 500GB in size. Download speeds on CCFBits is generally very good and there are a lot of freeleech torrents around making it easy to maintain a good ratio.

CCFbits

While it has excellent content, CCFBits does not have the best interface around. Primary interface language is Chinese (with English labels for main functions) and every torrent has it’s name spelt both in Chinese and English. Note that presence of a Chinese name does not mean the torrent is actually Chinese – most of the time it’s English. Chinese characters makes the layout somewhat cluttered (at least for those us who don’t know jack whack about Chinese) but its a negligible issue. If you want you can translate the site into English with the help of Google Chrome browser.

How to translate CCFBits to English with Google Chrome

  1. Download the latest version of Google Chrome browser from here.
  2. Visit CCFBits signup page through this link: http://ccfbits.org/signup.php.
  3. Once the page is done loading, Google Chrome will automatically display several translation options (the message will be displayed just beneath the address bar – you can’t miss it).
  4. Choose the auto detected settings (should be Chinese Simplified Hans to English) and hit translate. If you get the message  ‘Translation failed due to server error’ keep re-trying.
  5. Once translation of the first page is done, you can configure Google Chrome so that it automatically translates all TTG pages without prompting you. Select the ‘Options’ button (in the translation help popup) and select ‘Always translate Chinese Simplified Hans to English’ from the drop down menu.

As said earlier signups will be open for a limited time only – it can either remain open throughout the day or it might close before that if the site hits its max capacity. Get in while you can – this is a decent HD tracker.

Site Name: CCFBits (http://ccfbits.org)

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

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One of the most anticipated games of the year, Starcraft 2 - Wings of Liberty, has finally been released to the masses. This latest installment of Blizzard’s award winning Starcraft franchise comes after 12 long years since its predecessor. No doubt a well developed game, Starcraft 2, like all other PC games to be released so far, is not perfect – judging by the mails we have received , there seem to be at least some people who are having trouble getting the game to run. As usual, here’s our routine troubleshooting article for Starcraft 2 – we hope to address common issues players around the globe seem to be having with this immensely popular title. Note that this article is a work in progress – more fixes will be added as they are discovered and note that some of the mentioned solutions may not work for all hardware configurations.

Cannot install StarCraft 2 or can’t load the game

Some folks have run into various issues when trying to get the game to launch. It some times won’t install, the installer will exit with an error or may hang during the installation process. Even if you do get the game to install, sometimes you will have trouble trying to launch it. The game will simply do nothing after the main exe is clicked. Here’s a workaround you can try to solve similar issues:

  1. Create a new folder in your hard disk drive.
  2. Go to computer->Organize->Folder and search options->View and make sure ‘Show hidden files and folders’ is selected.
  3. Copy all files from the Starcraft 2 DVD (either from mounted  image or physical drive in tray. If you are using Daemon Tools and can’t see all files, try opening the image with WinRAR) in to the folder you just created.
  4. Run the SC2 installer from the copy in hard disk drive.

Note that on certain hardware configurations, the installer will take a long time to complete.

Save issues – Cannot load savegames

The games save system does not appear to be working for some. From what I have seen, this issue is common on various pirated copies of SC2 that are floating around in file sharing networks. There is however a workaround for the saved games loading issues.

  1. Navigate to your Documents directory and locate the Starcraft 2 subdirectory.
  2. Navigate to the save directory.
  3. Here you will see a list of saved games files. Double click on any of these files and the game should launch and start loading the particular save you clicked on (SC2 save files which have .SC2Save extension are associated with the game executable).

Unable to create a Battle.net account

I’m not sure if this is fixed yet but Blizzard’s online registration pages for Battle.net seemed to experience issues a while ago. The last step in reg process appeared to be broken and apparently some people have got random errors when trying to submit. If you encounter such issues, the problem is really at Blizzard’s end and you’ll have to wait for a fix. However, you can try to bypass the issue by filling all fields in the last page, including fields that are not marked mandatory and submitting the form again.  

No single player campaign or skirmish mode, black screen errors, etc

Again, these problems are commonly seen in the leaked, pirated version of the game that’s floating around. The release by group LIBERTY does not actually circumvent the copy protection built into the game. It appears to use a built in function in the Starcraft 2 patching framework to launch the game, bypassing the authentication screen. This is not a great approach and may be a cause for unstable behavior.

If you are a pirate playing the leaked build (single player), you still need to have a very stable connection to Battle.net servers. If you don’t have internet connectivity, if your internet connection is unstable or if you have blocked access to battle.net by any means, the game might crash or black screen issues will materialize.

Note: this article is a work in progress. More fixes will be added as they are discovered.

Note: Please do not post links to torrents or cracks here

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/filenetworks
Subscribe via RSS: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/FILEnetworks
Read our Private Trackers section for latest BitTorrent news.

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I have been a member of SoundArea for several months but only really got the chance to check out the site yesterday. I signed up long ago as per a tip sent in by one of our readers but for some reason missed out on trying out the site after signup was complete. Since then, I’ve been getting weekly E-mails from them and these usually read something like “300 new albums were uploaded to SoundArea today”. Now 300 albums is quite a lot to be uploaded in a single day - after getting several of these, I finally decided to check what the fuss was about. For those who are confused – SoundArea is not a BitTorrent tracker – it’s a direct download link (DDL) forum. It indexes download links to full music albums, single tracks, radio shows and even music videos. The site is huge, both in terms of user base as well as content – if you download music online, this is a destination you’d not want to miss.

SoundArea Logo

SoundArea is not some newbie forum that launched yesterday - it’s been online for nearly 4 years, since 2006. During these four years, SA has managed to amass a huge user base exceeding 230000 members. Needless to say, activity is pretty high on this forum with over 413000 threads currently online. For a site to attract this many number of users, it has to have something special. SA indeed looks attractive to those who seek to download music, especially as the site indexes several hundred new music album releases every day.

Both scene and non scene content (this includes user uploads added in response to the requests sections on site) is indexed on SoundArea. You can find music related to almost any genre here – in fact the main forum has ~40 sub sections, one each for a different music genre such as Rock, Pop, House, Trance, Techno, DnB, Metal, Punk, Ska and many more. In addition to music albums & single tracks, SA indexes a lot of radio shows and music videos as well. Screenshot showing part of the ‘Genres’ section on main forum can be seen below:

Soundarea Index

Something I noticed while browsing the forum was that they heavily advertise their VIP program (you need to donate to become a VIP) – for example, there is a special page on SA which lists all new music releases uploaded in a particular day. Full access to this feature is only available to VIP members. Non –VIP members can of course download latest albums – but they’ll have to discover them by browsing the main index.

As it is customary with DDL forums, SoundArea does not host any of the music files itself. These are uploaded to one click hosting sites such as HotFile and only the verified download links are shared in the forums. These are pretty reliable and I did not come across any broken links so far.

SoundAre has always been a forum that’s friendly to new users – it’s currently open for registration and anyone can create an account. In addition to open signups, SA maintains a good social presence with their official Twitter and Facebook pages. 

Site Name: SoundArea (http://forum.soundarea.org)

Registration URL: http://forum.soundarea.org/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=register

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Ever since it’s inception back in 2001, BitTorrent has attracted millions of users who utilize it daily for transferring large files online. Public BitTorrent sites and private torrent trackers have nowadays become so popular that almost everyone including novice PC users seem to use them. However, it wasn’t only torrent sites that benefited from the file sharing boom – BitTorrent news and invite forums also grew alongside trackers. These sites serve as a gateway into most closed private torrent communities by helping their members obtain invites. Most such forums cover BitTorrent news, invite requests, giveaways, seedbox discussions, tracker recruitment, tracker reviews and even guides and tutorials related to various mediums of file sharing. This post summarizes information about 12 such forums that are currently open for registration.

Not all sites listed below have direct open signups – some are open via IRC interviews, some via online invite applications and some even via E-mail requests. For sites that were featured previously on FILEnetworks Blog, we have included a link to the full review so that interested readers may get more info before signing up.

FileSharingTalk (FST)
FST Logo 
Site Name: FileSharingTalk (http://filesharingtalk.com)
Signup URL: http://filesharingtalk.com/register.php
Statistics:  101500+ members and 375000+ threads
Description: Of all BitTorrent forums out there, FST probably has the largest community. Discussions on this site are not limited to BitTorrent and covers a wider scope including DDL forums and other mediums of file sharing. Invites, drama, flaming – you can find everything here.
Full Review: N/A

TrackeReactor 
TrackeReactor
Site Name: TrackeReactor (http://trackereactor.com)
Signup URL: http://trackereactor.com/register.php (invite applications)
Statistics: 10000+ members and 41600+ threads
Description: One of the oldest invite forums around, TR recently merged with Tracker-Invites.us and the merger should bring in some much needed activity into the site.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Torrent-Invite
Torrent Invite
Site Name: Torrent Invite (http://torrentinvite.com)
Signup URL: http://torrentinvite.com/forum/register.php
Statistics: 36000+ threads and ~7800+ members
Description: An underrated but decent BitTorrent forum with an active user base exceeding 4000. Covers tracker news, open signups, seedbox tips and the usual threads you’d find on any other similar forum. TI has some great tracker reviews which go beyond the usual ‘tracker name + few screenshots’ model.
Full Review: N/A

InviteThe.Net
InviteThe.Net
Site Name: InviteThe.Net (http://www.invitethe.net/forum)
Invite Request Address: invitethe[dot]net[at]gmail[dot]com
Statistics: ~850 members and 6000+ threads
Description: A new and growing BitTorrent discussion forum which has done pretty well so far. Signups are not directly open but you can send a mail to the address specified above and request for one.
Full Review: [Click Here]

VoiceThe.Net (VTN)
VoiceThe.net

Site Name: VoiceThe.Net (http://www.voicethe.net)
Invites IRC Channel: irc://irc.etiv.in/VTN-Interview
Statistics: ~600 members and ~7500 threads
Description: VoiceThe.Net is a new BitTorrent news and invites forum that’s part of the ETiV network. A fully fledged BT news site in its own right, VTN also acts as the gateway into their big brother, ETiV (see full review for more information)
Full Review: [Click Here]

The Pirate Society
The Pirate Society
Site Name: The Pirate Society (http://www.thepiratesociety.org)
Signup URL: http://www.thepiratesociety.org/register.php
Statistics: 9200+ members and 50000+ threads
Description: A decent BitTorrent forum but has been having a bit of a rough time lately with internal conflicts. Direct signups are closed but new members are able to sign up by going through IRC interview (channel details on register.php page linked to above).
Full Review: [Click Here]

TTInvite
TTInvite
Site Name: TTInvite (http://ttinvite.com)
Signup URL: http://ttinvite.com/register.php
Statistics: ~2300 threads and ~250 members
Description: Another new BitTorrent invite forum. Covers everything from tracker invites to seedbox discussions. Could use some new blood as it’s not the most active forum out there.
Full Review: N/A

NeonScene
NeonScene
Site Name: NeonScene (http://neonscene.net)
Signup URL: http://neonscene.net/register.php
Statistics: 175 members and 3400 threads
Description: Was a fairly active BT community back in the days when it launched. The activity however has gradually gone down over time – anyways the site is not dead and is open for signup.
Full Review: N/A

FeelTheFlow
FeelTheFlow
Site Name: FeelTheFlow (http://www.ratioproof.us)
Signup URL: http://www.ratioproof.us/index.php?action=register
Statistics: ~1000 threads and ~1100 members.
Description: A relatively new BT forum that has a nice looking design. Unfortunately, not much activity yet.
Full Review: N/A

Forum.Torrents.Ro
Torrents.Ro

Site Name: Forum.Torrents.Ro (http://forum.torrents.ro)
Signup URLhttp://forum.torrents.ro/register.php
Statistics: 14000+ threads and 64000+ members
Description: A Romanian torrent forum with a huge user base. Most of the threads are in Romanian language and English speaking users will have to use a translator to figure this out.
Full Review: N/A

BTSkins
BitTorrent Skins
Site Name: BitTorrent Skins (http://btskins.net)
Signup URL: http://btskins.net/index.php?app=core&module=global&section=register
Statistics: ~150 members (at last check)
Description: BTSkins is not really a tracker invites forum – it’s target audience is developers, designers and other enthusiasts who are interested in building torrent sites. You can discuss and download templates, hacks & mods for all major tracker codebases here. Read full review for more information.
Full Review: [Click Here]

We have tried to include as many sites as possible in this update but not all open signup forums were included (for example, we did not list some sites that were almost dead). If your favorite file sharing news forum is not listed above, please leave a comment to this post or send us an E-mail (filenetworks[at]gmail[dot]com) so that we may be able to list it in the next update (it should be open for signup either directly or indirectly).

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Several years ago when file sharing networks were not so popular, most of the leaked content on the internet (and on streets) were released by groups in the warez scene. However, as BitTorrent and other P2P mediums attracted the masses, another set of release groups outside the scene were born – these are commonly referred to as P2P groups or Non Scene encoder groups. Unlike the scene who loathed P2P, these new groups embraced file sharing sites – some of them even started to release exclusively on torrent trackers and DDL forums. The service we are featuring today, P2P Elite, revolves around such non scene release groups. It’s a multi role site which will act as a pre database, group ranking system, NFO & screenshot repository, etc related to releases by non scene groups whose roots lie in P2P networks. It’s an ambitious new project that’s currently in testing phase – the idea is definitely interesting.

P2P Elite

A very detailed description of P2P Elite was sent in to us by it’s developer, KoOlWaReZ. Since his description pretty much says everything about the service including the concept behind it and how it functions, we are directly quoting parts of his email below:

[BEGIN QUOTE]

I'm a web developer and I'm putting together a site. I've been coding it for a week now and trying to open the doors and get more users to come and check it out. Help me find bugs etc.

The idea behind it is: Giving the P2P a 'Pre' Database, like Scene w/steriods. Not only does it have a full feature database, which release groups can post the title, pictures, nfo, samples of the releases but soon it will feature a voting/ranking system which is being put in to rank release groups. Video, Audio, Compatibility. Voting continues until something better gets released, then the scores get tallied up; for a winner. Example, a CAM gets released by a group. That groups gets points for being first. Then every other group will release theirs... members of the site chooses which is best by ranking video, audio, compatibility. Then when a TS gets announced "pre" then the voting automatically stops and the winning CAM gets a green check and the release group gets points (respect points) comments can be left for releases also.

Now with the profile system, release groups get a profile like myspace. Members of the site also get profiles and it has added features like being able to use myspace layouts, post youtube videos on there profile and post them into the system for ranking and comments, PM other users or groups, release group list with ranking, you can have open debates with the community, chatroom built in and soon to be built into the release groups profile pages, built in instant messenger to chat in real time between each other, file sharing, picture sharing with private pictures option.. so much more and more coming.

What kind of benefit release groups can get from your my site?
They get a home. They get a profile, they get a central place to interact with the public. They get to have fun with a lil competition with the ranking and being first.. They get (soon) there own sub domain they can edit through there profile http://groupname.p2pelite.com, they get there own chatroom, just click a hotlink in there profile... its a win win.. when enough release groups signup and start pre'in there releases in teh database to thousands watching and waiting.. and by the way I have SMS messenging already coded in so users can get texts to there cell phones when something new hits in the database that they been waiting for.. then eventually your releases wont be knowned til you do take part in the new system. Also RSS and email notifications.

Current release groups who have helped and bug tested are (members):
Rx, 420Demons (*THC*), PrisM, iMAGiNE, KiNGDOM, FLAWL3SS, MAGNET, n0ir, [NoFS], Blackjesus...
and its only been a week. (going to be featured in nfo files as a contact point)

[END QUOTE]

First thing that comes to mind when talking about a service such as P2P Elite is security. A central location that tracks all P2P release details? Downloading movies online isn’t legal in most countries and uploading them is usually an even more serious offence. What steps have been taken by P2P Elite to ensure the security and secrecy of participating groups? We directed these questions at KoOlWaReZ, the site’s developer – his response is quoted below:

During the current testing phase, writing the script and bug testing its being hosted on a canada server with logs completely turned off on server side and on the profile script the site runs on. Most groups can use a public proxy like www.coverproxy.com if they feel there security is compromised until it gets moved on a NL or Russian server after testing and script completion. Most release groups use a VPN service to mask there IP anyway. I actually let a group borrow a VPN line during this testing phase as a appreciation for helping. Group members are joining my site for a home base, a contact point, anonymity? Not sure what you mean by that, but if it refers to security that is already the most important part in this developing community. Everything I code, all the decisions I make will be 100% about the security of my friends and fellow members of my site. I do know and talk to many of these release groups everyday, so obviously to have this many release groups at my site already they must some what trust me.

As we said earlier, P2P elite is an interesting project. If it kicks off, this could become a really cool service for both P2P release groups as well as their fans. The site and some of its services such as the pre database are currently live in beta testing phase. You can check them out using the links below:

P2P Elite Homepage URL: http://www.p2pelite.com 

Pre Database URL : http://pre.p2pelite.com (Beta – Login as guest)

Thanks to KoOlWaReZ for the heads up.

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Blackcats-Games (or BCG), is without a doubt one of the most talked about torrent sites in the BitTorrent community. It’s probably the most popular specialized games tracker on the planet, with more than 12500 games torrent in its index. Additionally, BCG is set to celebrate its 7th birthday this August making it one of the oldest private trackers in existence. Blackcats is a private tracker and it hasn’t had an open signup in more than two years – the only way into the site has been through member referrals (an alternative to invites). Speaking of referrals, some of you might remember we conducted two BCG giveaways several weeks ago, during which more than 1000 referrals were given away to our readers. Still, it was not sufficient to meet the heavy demand - we had earlier promised a 3rd BCG giveaway which we never got around to doing (yet). This post is an update on what’s happening with BCG giveaway no. 03 and it also sheds some light on various rumors going on in BT forums of a possible BCG open signup in near future.

Blackcats Games Logo

When we conducted referral giveaways earlier, one of the major issues we faced was the referral code expiration. Potential new members had to use a referral within 6 hours after generating or the code would expire – this was sometimes not feasible with the E-mail based model we used to distribute referrals coupled with time zone differences, etc. However, BCG’s coders were working on a fix to extend this time limit to 24 hours and we decided to postpone the giveaway until this was done. Good news is that the time limit has now changed. However, we are still not able to do the giveaway as BCG is currently changing their login page structure. The previous login page has temporarily been taken down and right now there is no way for possible new members to input their referral codes. The following update should clarify this further:

The fake page has gone, and with it the only way to use your referrals, so I have taken the liberty of removing everyones referrals until a new way can be coded, hopefully in the next few days.
We will probably be opening up the site as well for the 1st time in 2 years or so, but again I am not sure when that will be.
In other news altinertia is back coding with us again, as he has been away, he has seen what is working and what is not working, so i believe he has a few ideas to change things around a bit. I do not have any idea what these are, or when they will get coded, and I know for a fact, some will hate whatever he does, and others will love it (we just cant please everyone, and quite a lot of members hated SP when we put it on, and some still do. and I may even hate a few things) but I am putting my trust in him to make this site even better than it already is.
So expect to see some changes over the coming days/weeks/months on here, and I am guessing (but it is just a guess) that they will include the achievement table in one way or another, so thats a bit of a heads up that if you want the benefit of whatever is going to get done, start looking at your table.

So here’s the deal - Now that the referral expiry limit has been set to 24 hours, we are able to proceed with giveaway no. 03 as soon as BCG’s new referral input mechanism goes live. As for the open signups, we will post a new article and let you know the signup URL as soon as this happens (or if it happens). Real time updates will be given on our Facebook and Twitter feeds as usual. You can keep in touch by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan of us on Facebook or by subscribing to our RSS feed.

In the meantime, potential new BCG members can educate themselves of tracker rules, how BCG’s seed points system works, lists of allowed clients, etc by reading the official Blackcats Games wiki.

[Click Here] to visit Blackcats Games Wiki (login not required)

Again, sincere thanks goes to BCG owner stoi for the continuous help he’s provided so far with referrals, site updates and other information.

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Here’s the latest entry in our series of posts relating to latest R5 (DVD for region 5) and R1 (DVD for region 1) movie releases. Knowing the R5/R1 release date of a movie in advance can be pretty useful if you download movies online - it gives a hint as to when a leaked copy of the said movie will hit file sharing networks worldwide. We have listed tentative R1/R5 release dates for more than 50 movies below – list of R5 entries is filtered and does not include movies that are already leaked online (in DVDSCR, DVDRIP or BRRip quality). List of R1 however does include some movies that are already available on BitTorrent sites, DDL forums and FTP sites. Note that release dates change often – they get postponed and pushed around for reasons best known by movie publishers (hence the need for regular updates such as this).

R5 Release Dates (July – October 2010)

July

  • Knight And Day - July 29
  • Icarus – July
  • Exit Through the Gift Shop - July

August

  • Furry Vengeance August 12
  • Predators - August 19
  • Salt - August 26
  • Centurion - August 26

September

  • Grown Ups - September 2
  • The Expendables - September 9
  • Robin Hood - September 14
  • The Karate Kid - September 16
  • Stomp the Yard 2: Homecoming - September 16
  • Please Give - September 23
  • Machete - September 23
  • Cemetery Junction - September 30
  • Four Lions - September 30
  • Space Chimps 2: Zartog Strikes Back
  • Prince Of Persia – September
  • An Invisible Sign of My Own – September

October

  • Rust - October 7
  • Resident Evil: Afterlife - October 7
  • The killer inside me - October 7
  • 30 Days of Night: Dark Days - October 14
  • Takers - October 22
  • The Other Guys - October 28
  • Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - October 28
  • Jonah Hex – October
  • Nightmare on Elm Street – October
  • Get Him to the Greek – October
  • Toy Story 3 – October
  • You Again – October
  • Iron Man 2 – October

R1 Release Dates (August – October 2010)

August

  • After Life - August 3
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid - August 3
  • Kick Ass - August 3
  • To Save A Life - August 3
  • Open House - August 3
  • The Ghost Writer - August 3
  • Date Night - August 10
  • Death At A Funeral - August 10
  • Letters to God - August 10
  • Multiple Sarcasms - August 10
  • Triage - August 10
  • The Good Heart - August 10
  • My Name is Khan - August 10
  • The Joneses - August 10
  • Furry Vengence - August 17
  • The Last Song - August 17
  • Cash - August 17
  • Burning Bright - August 17
  • Cemetery Junction - August 17
  • Skellig: The Owl Man - August 17
  • Survival of the Dead - August 24
  • Group Sex - August 24
  • The Back-Up Plan - August 24
  • Abandoned - August 24
  • 2:22 - August 24
  • The Square - August 24
  • Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too? - August 31
  • Harry Brown - August 31
  • Babies - August 31

September

  • MacGruber - September 7
  • Holy Rollers - September 7
  • Solitary Man - September 7
  • Prince Of Persia - September 14
  • Letters To Juliet - September 14
  • Ondine - September 14
  • Just Wright - September 14
  • Paper Man - September 14
  • Boogie Woogie - September 14
  • Robin Hood - September 21
  • Sex In The City 2 - September 21
  • Stomp The Yard 2: Homecoming - September 21
  • Iron Man 2 - September 28
  • Frozen - September 28
  • The Killer Inside Me - September 28
  • Superman/Batman: Apocalypse - September 28

October

  • Get Him To The Greek - October 5
  • The Karate Kid - October 5
  • Secret Of Kells - October 5
  • 30 Days of Night: Dark Days - October 5
  • How To Train Your Dragon - October 12
  • Oceans - October 19
  • Mirrors 2 - October 19
  • You Don't Know Jack - October 26

If you are wondering where we get R5/R1 release date details from, no we don’t gather this information ourselves. Instead, we use several well known online sources that have proved to be reliable in the past to get the updated info. For example, the source for this article was the release date threads on PeerAccess (which seemed to be the most up to date at time of this post). PeerAccess is a DDL forum and you can see a detailed review of the site along with screenshots here.

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File sharing has grown so popular that it’s no longer all about BitTorrent trackers and invite forums. Some of you might remember BTSkins.Net, a forum we recently featured on this blog. BTSkins was not another invite forum – it was rather a central location of information sharing for BitTorrent tracker developers. Today’s post is about a similar site; BTDev.net. BTDev is a forum that teaches you how to build BitTorrent trackers. It’s target audience are torrent tracker SysOps, coders, programmers, designers and pretty much anyone else who is interested in building a BitTorrent site. From source codes of popular tracker scripts to basic coding tutorials, this forum has a lot of resources for those who are interested in the inner workings of a BitTorrent tracker.

BTDev

Launched sometime in May 2010, BTDev currently has ~250 active members. Considering that most of them are somehow involved in a torrent tracker project (design, development, etc) it’s a pretty good number for a niche forum such as this. Of course, you don’t have to be tracker staff to join BTDev – registrations are open and anyone can join, even mere enthusiasts or folks who are just getting started with tracker codebases.

As mentioned earlier, BTDev has a lot of resources for torrent site designers and developers. Mods, tutorials, themes, sample projects and lots of other stuff relating to almost all tracker codebases including TBDev, Gazelle, Xbtt, Xbtit, TorrentStrike, PHPMyBitTorrent & TorrentTrader can be downloaded from this forum.

BTDev Screenshot

Apart from codebases, a separate section of the forum is dedicated towards various other services (IRC, mail servers, etc attached to a BitTorrent tracker. Then there is another sub forum for coding basics - this can be useful for novice programmers. Resources in this section are not only related to tracker development but also for programming in general.

Registrations for BTDev are currently open. If you are interested in building torrent trackers, how they work or if you are already involved in a tracker project, you might find this forum pretty useful.

Site Name: BTdev (http://btdev.net)

Signup URL: http://btdev.net/index.php?action=register

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When it comes to public torrent indexers, there are only a handful sites that can rival KickAssTorrents. KAT, which rose to popularity after the shut down of Mininova, has constantly been improving their operations not only by adding hundreds of new torrents daily but also by introducing tons of usability features quote frequently. It hasn’t been two months since we talked about KAT’s latest improvements and add-ons in a blog post and they’ve gone on and launched the public beta of KickAssTorrents 2.0. Needless to say this is a major milestone for the BitTorrent indexer and KAT 2.0 has so many new features that it took site staff three blogs posts to cover the whole list :p It was interesting to note that some of new additions and changes were ‘social features’ – hell, now there’s even a Facebook like ‘wall’ on KickAssTorrents user pages.

KickAssTorrents

A summarized list of all KickAssTorrents 2.0 features is provided below:

  1. Friends – One of the social features in v2.0. You can now add other KAT members as your friends.
  2. The Wall – Users now have a Facebook like wall where they can leave updates. Others can comment or reply to these.
  3. New design – KAT now sports an even more polished look with a new site redesign.
  4. EZTV and Limetorrents integration – Both these groups have teamed up with KAT so you can now download their latest releases directly from KickAssTorrents itself. EZTV is a leading TV show indexer.
  5. Comments subscription – You can now subscribes to a particular comments thread. This is very useful if you want to stay up to date on discussions.
  6. Google account support – Aside from Facebook connect, KAT now supports login to the site using a Google account.
  7. Revamped ‘Search Trends’ and ‘People’ page.
  8. Search enhancements - Tabbed search, movies and TV auto recognition and more
  9. Multi language support – KAT now supports 11 languages other than English. More will be added soon, with the help of existing members.
  10. Messages – Messages are no longer limited to the forums. They can now be sent to any user who’s on KAT.
  11. Improved FAQ
  12. Idea box – now you can communicate your feedback on using the site to the administrators directly.
  13. New forums (http://www.kickasstorrents.com/community/) and social groups (http://www.kickasstorrents.com/community/socialgroups/)
  14. Numerous bugfixes including fixes for cross browser issues
  15. Other minor usability features

You can read full details of all features (along with some screenshots) in KickAssTorrents blog posts located here, here and here. For a list of new features added prior to KAT v2.0, please refer to this post.

While most in the BitTorrent community would welcome KAT’s improvements with open arms, this wouldn’t be such good news for anti piracy companies. A torrent site which they helped grow (by shutting down Mininova) is taking things to the next level – let’s hope they don’t try and take KAT down.

[Click Here] to visit KickassTorrents homepage

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There are hundreds and thousands of software out there that allow DVD/Blu Ray ripping. However, most such applications I have come across had one major flaw – non user friendly interfaces. While most of these software did a great job of encoding video, they were not very usable for the average PC user. StaxRip is a video conversion utility that tries to overcome this problem – the app has an easy to use interface which even noobs can easily figure out. Of course, it does have advanced features for ‘pros’ but ripping video or converting between video formats is a pretty straightforward task with StaxRip. Speaking of converting, StaxRip lets you easily convert your DVD's, DVB captures and many more other video formats into MPEG-4 with codecs like x264, XviD and DivX.

StaxRip Screenshot

As you can see from the screenshot above, encoding/ripping video with StaxRip is very simple and can even be done in three clicks – select source, select output profile and select destination file. When you do this, the software will fill it’s advanced settings with default values. You can of course tweak these to your liking if you are an experienced encoder. StaxRip supports a number of difference input/output video formats, some of which are listed below:

  • Video Output Formats: x264, XviD, DivX
  • Audio Output Formats: AAC, MP3, AC3, Vorbis
  • Container Output Formats: MKV, AVI, MP4, DIVX

StaxRip is free, open source and is quite popular in the encoder community. For those who want to learn of it’s advanced features, there are plenty of guides and tutorials scattered across the internet.

Download

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

[Click Here] to read StaxRip tutorials in project homepage (scroll to Where do I start? section)

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Underground Gamer is a very unique BitTorrent tracker. Unlike other games trackers which mainly focus on new releases, UG seems to deal more with retro, classic content. It indexes a lot of DOS, Windows and console games including some rare old games packs which are almost impossible to be found these days. In addition to PC and Console games, UG is known for emulation and ROM files - two elements essential for playing console games on a personal computer. Launched several years ago, this sister site of bitGamer has been able to win the hearts and minds of many PC and console gamers over time. For those who still aren’t members of this great tracker, we have some good news. In a rare move, UG has opened its doors to recruit 2000 new members – site wide free leech has also been activated in celebration of open signups.

Underground Gamer

In the last couple of months, you may have come across instances where UG  appeared to be open for signup. The site was indeed open to the public at random times but this was almost always due to automatic account deletion. In other words open signups lasted only for a few minutes. An extended, official open signups hasn’t been announced for months until now:

Underground Gamer Presents…
The Grand Reopening Freeleech!
We are proud to announce that Underground Gamer will be once again opening its doors to new members! In tribute to this wonderful moment, there will be a site-wide freeleech starting this Friday (23 July) and lasting until the following Friday (30 July).
In addition to the freeleech, we will also have some other goodies to announce soon so keep your eyes peeled!
We are limiting signups to less than 2,000 slots with a hard cap at 30k. There will be no better time to signup than now so please take this opportunity to tell all of your friends about Underground Gamer!
// UG Staff

Underground Gamer has been online for several years and has grown both in terms of user base and content over time. Being a niche games tracker focusing on retro content, you’d expect user and torrent statistics of this site to be somewhat on the low end – this however is not the case. With over 28500 registers users, it’s actually one of the largest games trackers out there – one that can even rival Blackcats Games in terms of size. As of 20/7/2010 UG tracked over 11500 torrents, again an impressive amount for a specialized tracker.

As highlighted earlier, UG deals primarily with retro, classic games. This includes old DOS based games, classic Windows games as well as a lot of ROM files for a number of different gaming consoles ranging from ATARI 2600 to NES, SNES, Genesis, MAME, NeoGeo, Amiga, etc. A ROM file is basically an image of a game cartridge which can be mounted using a compatible emulator software – this lets you play your favorite console games on the PC (an example based on SNES may be found here). Coming back to the content on UG, they even have some pretty impressive fullset ROM collections for many different consoles from the golden era – these can be found in their Collections page. Screenshot below should cast a clearer picture of the type of content indexed on this tracker:

Underground Gamer Index

Signups for UG are currently open. As stated in the quoted news post above, they will only remain open till the site hits its max user cap of 30000. This leaves around 1200 more free slots remaining – a lot of people are signing up as we speak so hurry and get in while you can. If you like retro PC games, ROMs and emulation, this is definitely a site worth checking out.

Site Name: Underground Gamer (http://www.underground-gamer.com)

Signup URL: http://www.underground-gamer.com/signup.php

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Special thanks to Peter Vig for the heads up.

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Downloading TV shows online is hugely popular among file sharers these days. Over the years, we have discussed on this blog a number of websites that specifically offer TV show downloads. This post lists 5 of those which stand out from the rest – each featured site has an impressive amount of content as well as a decent set of usability features which makes discovering and downloading shows easier. Note that all sites mentioned in this post are either direct download link (DDL) forums or variants of release blogs. BitTorrent trackers are not included and will be featured in a different article. As usual, we have included up to date statistics, registration URLs, Twitter and RSS feed details, links to detailed reviews, etc  along with each entry. If you download TV content online (let it be single episodes or full season packs) here are 5 excellent resources you’d definitely want to check out.

Reading the full review of a site before signing up is recommended.

Tvfreeload
TVFreeLoad
Site Name: TVFreeload (http://forum.tvfreeload.com)
Registration URL: http://forum.tvfreeload.com/ucp.php?mode=register
Stats: 57200+ members and ~20000 threads
Description: TvFreeLoad is probably the largest online DDL forum specializing in television shows. Be it single episodes or full season packs you are looking for, chance are that TFV has some direct link to it hidden among it’s many forum threads. Files are usually uploaded to multiple hosting services and are available in multiple video formats. Recommended for every TV show fan.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Dedicated TV
Dedicated TV
Site Name: Dedicated TV (http://www.dedicatedtv.net)
Registration URL: Registration not required
Stats: Thousands of episodes relating to 1370 shows
Description: Dedicated TV is without a doubt an excellent resource for TV related downloads. With it’s clean and well organized interface, automatic uploaders, detailed download description pages with screenshots & multiple download links from different file hosts, DTV is clearly a leader in this particular niche. For a detailed list of site features, please refer to the full review.
Full Review: [Click Here]

TV-Dump
TV Dump
Site Name: TV-Dump (http://tv-dump.org/)
Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/tv_dump
RSS: http://tv-dump.org/feed/
Stats: 12600+ releases
Description: Another excellent site for TV episodes and seasons. Not only does TV-Dump index direct download links to shows, it also lets you watch some of the episodes online. Files are usually uploaded to two one click hosting sites (Depositefiles and x7.to) – links are verified and reliable. Read the full review for more information on how this site works.
Full Review: [Click Here]

ev0.in
Ev0.in
Site Name: ev0 (http://www.ev0.in)
Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/ev0dotin
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ev0in
Stats: 11800+ releases
Description: ev0 is another leading DDL indexer for HD and non HD TV releases (mostly scene). At a glance, ev0’s interface looks dead simple. However it does an excellent job of integrating direct download links with 3rd party sites such as IMDB, TV.Com and TVRage. In addition, it also enables users share links over social media platforms includign Twitter and Facebook. Downloads are usually uploaded to multiple hosts, giving the users a choice as well as extending release lifetime.
Full Review: [Click Here]

CouchTater
CouchTater
Site Name: CouchTater (http://www.couchtater.com)
Registration URL: http://www.couchtater.com/register.php
Stats: 16200+ members and 11500+ threads
Description: CouchTater indexes links to TV shows aired on major US TV networks such has CBS / NBC / ABC, Fox / The CW, Comedy Central, HBO/Starz/SHO, FX / SyFy / USA, TNT, Discovery / A&E, History/NatGeo, etc. It’s a content rich forum which indexes both individual episodes as well as full season packs.
Full Review: [Click Here]

If you know other similar online destinations for free TV series downloads, feel free to share them in comments.

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Here we go – another collective private tracker open signup update. This post lists summarized information about 12 private torrent trackers currently open for signup. Featured sites includes trackers that specialize in various niches such as music, movies, games, comics, sports and of course, high definition content. Each entry in this post includes updated site statistics, signup URLs and of course links to full tracker reviews that were recently published on this blog (which we recommend reading before signing up). In case you are unfamiliar with our collective tracker updates, the aim of these articles is to revisit the best sites we discussed in detail during a specific time period (usually the last 1-2 months). In case you missed out on a tracker when we originally featured it, here’s another chance for you to check it out.
UPDATE: Article updated with StB open signups. See end of post for more information.

Punk Torrents
Punk Torrents
Site Name: Punk Torrents (http://www.forum.punktorrents.com)
Signup URL: http://www.forum.punktorrents.com/member.php?action=register
Stats: 30700+ members and ~4900 torrents
Description: Punk Torrents is a forum based private torrent tracker that has a lot torrents (audio and some music videos) related to punk, ska and hardcore music genres.
Full Review: [Click Here]

inPeril
inPeril
Site Name: InPeril (http://www.inperil.net)
Signup URL: http://www.inperil.net/signup.php
Stats: 23000+ members and 11500+ torrents
Description: inPeril (formerly known as danger.lv) is a fairly large general tracker that hasn’t received much hype in the BT community. Despite the lack of hype, it’s a decent general tracker which has a large user base and tracks a lot of torrents.
Full Review: [Click Here]

ComicBT
Comic Book Tracker
Site Name: ComicBT (http://comicbt.com)
Signup URL: http://comicbt.com/signup.php
Stats: 1100 torrents and 1300 members
Description: ComicBT is a brand new tracker for comic book torrents. Although a new entrant to the BT scene, this tracker has grown rapidly and has expanded its torrent index past 1000 in a short period of time. Read full review for more info.
Full Review: [Click Here]

The Empire
The Empire
Site Name: The Empire (http://www.theempire.bz)
Signup URL: http://www.theempire.bz/signup.php
Stats: ~1000 torrents
Description: The Empire (or TE) specializes in shows from commonwealth countries – television shows from Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other regions may be found here.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Midnight Arab Torrents (MAT)
Midnight Arab Torrents

Site Name: Midnight Arab Torrents (http://www.midnightarab-torrents.org)
Signup URL: http://www.midnightarab-torrents.org/signup.php
Stats: 2000 users and 16000+ torrents
Description: Midnight Arab Torrents is a fast growing General tracker with great pre times. A lot of new torrents are uploaded daily, thanks to the site’s autouploader bots. Read the full review for a detail account on site features.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Across The Tasman
Across The Tasman

Site Name: Across The Tasman (http://acrossthetasman.com)
Signup URL: http://acrossthetasman.com/register.php
Stats: 14800 members
Description: AcrossTheTasman (ATT) is a dedicated sports torrent tracker that is home to sports releases not found on most other BitTorrent trackers. For instance, ATT is one of the very few sites that index cricket torrents. That’s not all, they have a lot of Rubgy, Mortor Racing, Tennis, Australian Soccer and other sports content indexed as well.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Diwana
Diwana
Site Name: Diwana (http://diwana.org)
Signup URL: http://diwana.org/signup.php
Stats: 34200+ members and 26000+ torrents
Description: 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.
Full Review: [Click Here]

PIG2PIG
PIG2PIG
Site Name: PIG2PIG (http://pig2pig.com)
Signup URL: http://pig2pig.com/signup.php
Stats: 10400+ users and ~6000 torrents
Description: PIG2PIG is a new HD tracker based in China – it tracks HD movies, anime, TV shows and documentaries along with a few PC games. Good activity on indexed torrents.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Gormogon
Gormogon
Site Name: Gormogon (http://www.gormogon.com)
Signup URL: http://www.gormogon.com/index.php?page=signup
Stats: ~5000 members and 10100+ torrents
Description: Gormogon is a private tracker specializing in retro movies and TV shows. Films and television series produced between 1930 – 2000 can be found here.
Full Review: [Click Here]

TPTB
The Powers That be
Site Name: TPTB (http://teamtptb.com)
Signup URL: http://teamtptb.com/signup.php
Stats: ~500 torrents
Description: TPTB (or The Powers That Be) is a very unique private tracker that tracks PC game rips. There are a lot of exclusive releases here, including many that aren’t found on other private or public torrent sites.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Awesome-HD
Awesome HD
Site Name: Awesome-HD (http://awesome-hd.net)
Signup URL: http://awesome-hd.net/register.php
Stats: ~1800 torrents
Description: Awesome HD is a Gazelle based private tracker for all things HD. The site recently launched AHD 4.1, a new version of the tracker based on Gazelle RC2. For a full list of features refer to the full review.
Full Review: [Click Here]

GazelleGames
GazelleGames
Site Name: GazelleGames (http://gazellegames.net)
Signup URL: http://gazellegames.net/register.php
Stats: ~500 torrents and 3400+ users
Description: GazelleGames is a fast growing private tracker for PC and console games. Based on Gazelle RC2, GGn boasts and impressive set of features not found on most similar tracker. For dull site details, refer to the full review.
Full Review: [Click Here]

SyncTheBits

Site Name: SyncTheBits (http://www.syncthebits.com)
Signup URL: http://www.syncthebits.com/register.php
Stats: 4810 + users and 4800+ torrents
Description: StB is a Gazelle based private tracker for mobile applications, games, themes, movies, ebooks, etc for a number of different mobile platforms including iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, PSP, Java, BlackBerry and more.
Full Review: [Click Here]

Bonus: Almost all the trackers in TBZ Studios tracker family are also open for signup. Check this post for more details.

Note: As we noted in a previous tracker open signup update, BitTorrent sites that are open to the public via alternate methods (IRC recruitment, invite applications, etc) or Direct Download Link (DDL) forums are not included in this post. These type of sites now have their own separate articles, such as the ones listed below:

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