One of the most anticipated PC games of 2009, Prototype, has just been cracked by veteran scene group Razor1911. The cracked release has leaked online and the leak comes right on the game’s official release date in North America (9th of June). The game has not even been released in Europe yet. Prototype is a open ended action game developed by Radical Entertainment which has a really interesting storyline. Judging by various previews of the game, Prototype has fantastic graphics and great gameplay as well.

Coming back to the leaked release, this game was protected by Sony’s SecuROM DRM (Digital Rights Management) software. Razor1911 has apparently cracked the protection and have included a cracked game executable which will allow pirates to play the game without serial/cd-key checks, DVD checks or online registration. It is currently not known if any SecuROM triggers were present in the game or if Razor1911 managed to remove all of them in their crack (SecuROM API allows developers to insert triggers (checks) at various points in game and if triggered these mess up a critical part of the game, usually rendering it unplayable.). The leaked release which is around 7.4GB in file size also contains a full DVD ISO of the game. Cracked version of the game has already made its way into the public from scene topsites to public and private BitTorrent trackers, one click hosting sites, etc.

Speaking of the game, this looks like a must have title for any PC gamer. I couldn't find any review of the game online so far but XBOX360 and PS3 versions of Prototype have both got an aggregate score of 90% on Gamerankings.com.

Note: This post is for informational purposes only. Do not post links to cracks, key generators or anything of that sort here.

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When browsing through the usual file sharing forums today, I came across several recent threads about TheScene.Ro music tracker (TSCN). Since this was not exactly a brand new torrent site, i decided to check what the renewed buzz was all about. Ever since we featured it for the first time last January, TheScene.Ro has apparently undergone several changes in the last few months,  One of the major changes is that the site has now become a ratio free tracker. In the meantime, TSCN has beta tested an automatic torrent upload script with some good results. Additionally, 3500 inactive accounts have been pruned and public registrations have been made available once again.

As you might already know, there aren’t many ratio free music trackers currently online (except for a few like CoExist) so TheScene could actually attract a few more users with this move. Although the need to maintain a specific upload:download ratio is gone, users however need to maintain a monthly minimum traffic requirement of 300MB. In other words, the sum of your total download and upload traffic for each month should exceed 300mb (ex- if you download 250mb and upload 50mb, you’ll still be fine).

A mass PM sent to existing users of TheScene.Ro explains some of the changes in detail:

The test period for the auto-upload script it's ended with success. In approximately 24 hours, there were uploaded more then 250 torrents, having great pretimes, being in front of the "big, specialized trackers" .

Another "surprise" of the staff team it's the new approach way of traffic measurement. From today, TSCN it's joining those trackers which have gave up at the "ratio system" ,hoping that we'll get rid of the "i don't have enough ratio to download" thinking.
The new system it's based on total traffic , and the counting of download + upload amount. For now , the only rule kept is that all users must make at least an amount of  300 mb / monthly , for not getting disabled .

*The upload is still free for POWER USERS .
*We expect to see opinions about this .

Sure it cannot match the torrent index of What.cd or waffles.fm, but TSCN is still a decent music tracker. As of 7/6/2009, this tracker has 5400+ registered members and tracks close to 1800 torrents. The site’s origins lie in Romania however majority of indexed torrents point to English music (audio and music video) releases. Below is a screenshot of part of TSCN’s torrent index:

As mentioned at the stat of this article, public registrations for TheScene.Ro are currently open (over 3500 accounts inactive for 90 days were recently deleted). If you want to check this tracker out, you can create a free account now.

Site Name: The Scene (http://thescene.ro/)

Signup URL: http://thescene.ro/signup.php

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Buzzwords on the internet these days are Google’s Wave and Microsoft’s Bing. However this post is about neither - we are going to talk about a somewhat lesser known but really cool web application; G.ho.st or Ghost (Global Hosted Operating System). G.ho.st is basically a virtual computer which comes complete with an operating system, a desktop, file storage and even applications. Unlike traditional operating systems, G.ho.st does not reside on a single PC – it resides on the internet, accessible to the user via any computer with internet access or even a compatible mobile phone.

As you can see from the above screenshot, Ghost’s interface is similar to that of Windows Vista. It has a start menu, a desktop with icons, a control panel, an E-mail client, RSS readers, games, multimedia players and tons of other features. There are links to several dozen web applications such as Google Docs, Zoho apps suite, Meebo and ThinkFree. The service offers gigabytes of online storage (you get additional GBs when you invite friends to the service) and even file sharing.

If you are a person who’s on the go, this web application can be immensely useful. Imagine that you are accessing the web from an internet cafe or a public computer at work - with Ghost, all your files, applications, settings, bookmarks, RSS, E-mail, etc will be available to you at the click of a button. Given below are some of the major features of this free service:

• Access your desktop, files, apps and settings from any Internet browser
• Desktop and apps run without the need for installation or updating
• Customize your desktop and choose from 20+ available languages
• Share or publish your files directly from the G.ho.st® DriveG.ho.st® has chosen the very best available storage service for your precious data - Amazon Web Services
• Read, write and edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations using G.ho.st® integrations with Zoho, directly from your G.ho.st® Storage
• Edit Google Docs, sheets and presentations stored at Google from within G.ho.st®
• 15GB professionally hosted and backed-up disk space
• Many file types can be viewed or edited online with a simple double-click
• Upload and sync your documents, photos and music easily using the G.ho.st® Upload Download Utility, Sync program or FTP
• Manage your e-mails, calendar and contacts with the Web's leading collaboratoin suite
• You will receive a yourGhostID @G.ho.st email and can retrieve other emails as well (using "POP3")
• Manage smart shortcuts called Tagged Things to Web resources - webmarks (URLs), files, photos, videos, music, products
• Single sign-on to other services such as Google Docs using My Logins
• The G.ho.st® Virtual File System shows you G.ho.st® Drive files, Google Docs files and other Web files all in one place
• Yes G.ho.st® runs within the browser but also contains a browser of it's own! Whichever computer you are on, the G.ho.st® Browser will have your history, your webmarks, and your "cookies" so that other sites will recognize you

How to sign up and access the service

[Click Here] to access to G.ho.st homepage. You can either sign up for a free account using the ‘Sign up’ button or instantly check out the service using the ‘Guest account’ option.

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For our readers who missed open signups of DVDSeed and SceneSound when they were posted earlier, here is some great news. Both these trackers have re-opened public registrations and this time it’s likely that they’ll be open for more than a few hours. DVDSeed is an untouched DVDR (DVD5 and DVD9) and Blu-Ray movie/TV torrent tracker which is rarely open for public registrations. SceneSound is a new scene MP3 releases tracker that is based on the SoftMP3 source code – first open signup of this tracker lasted only for a few hours and many members could not get in during this short time interval.

Since both these sites were reviewed in detail here on FILEnetworks Blog recently, same information will not be repeated in this post. However we highly recommend you read the full tracker review (links given in the descriptions below) to get a detailed understanding of the site before you join.

SceneSound

SceneSound seems to have moved to a better server setup and have apparently fixed several issues with the site– problems with signup page and RSS feeds now seem to be resolved. The bad news is that they’ve banned about 25 countries from the tracker – reason for this is unknown. A translated version of the news item posted on SceneSound is included below:

We are now running again on a better and more stable host. It has also been some changes in staff, you can see them here.

• RSS feeds are updated and fix. There are now more choices before you generate a flow.
• The donation page will come up shortly, more details of this when it is approaching.
• Anyone can request and upload.
• Some countries have been banned: Za. Ch. Ie. Ar. Mx. Hu. Tr. It. Pl. Il. Ro. Nz. Sk. For. Sg. Cn. Ru. Rs. De. Gr. Es. Ec . br. pt

Last, but certainly not least, registration is open.

Site Name: SceneSound (http://scenesound.org/)
Signup URL: http://scenesound.org/signup.php
Stats: 1500+ users and 1200+ torrents (both users and torrents are being added at a rapid rate so these stats may not always be up to date) 
Description: SceneSound is a scene MP3 releases tracker that is a great alternative to now defunct SoftMP3. The site has recorded explosive growth both in terms of torrents and users although it’s only a week old. For more information on site features and screenshots, please refer to the full review located here.

DVDSeed

According to a notice posted on DVDSeed, the site is running a holiday promotion – public registrations will be open for one whole week. A translated version of the aforementioned notice is posted below:

Holiday Promotion - Registration open

Dear users Dvdseed,
Approaching holidays - in connection with this club together with the DS we decided to open registration for the DS for a week.
Registration will open on 6 June 2009 to 14 June 2009
At the same time, a reminder that people who set up the second account should reckon with the fact that in accordance with the Rules of Procedure may lose both accounts. Also, accounts parked immediately after registration will be banned.
Staff DVDSEED

Site Name: DVDSeed (http://dvdseed.org)
Signup URL: http://dvdseed.org/signup.php
Stats: 3500+ torrents
Description: DVDSeed is a full DVDR and untouched Blu-Ray movies tracker with lots of English and some Polish releases. For more details on available releases, screenshots and language options (including signup page translation and how-to), please refer to our recent review of the site which can be found here.

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Earlier on we reported how items available for purchase on ‘The Sims Store’ were leaked by the game’s users through various online gaming forums. Well now it seems that groups from the warez scene too have jumped on the bandwagon and released more Sims 3 premium content online. FASDOX and BAT, two leading scene groups specializing in DOX (game trainers, cracked updates, add-ons, mods, etc) releases, have leaked over 300MB of content which are not included in the game by default and need to be purchased online separately.

About two days ago group BAT released the RiverView town, the infamous second city in Sims 3 which is only available for those who legally register the game on EA store. Following is quoted from the BAT .NFO:

Heres the fabled missing half of the game - the extra city - available for those who sign up and register at the online store.

Please insert your credit card before playing, thanks !

The last line of course is a joke.

Today, group FASDOX released a whole bunch of content which are available for download for a fee on The Sims Store. On the release NFO, the following is mentioned:

Requirements.: The Sims 3-Razor1911, The.Sims.3-RELOADED or whatever

NOTE: This set contains: Bayside Fullset, Hewnsman Fullset, Tiki Fullset, Storybook Fullset and many more sets.

Also included are instructions to get the packs working with a pirated or legit copy of The Sims 3.

Although both these releases were meant to be used only by scene members, they’ve leaked onto private and public BitTorrent trackers, one click hosting sites, warez blogs and so on. In short, bulk of the content in EA’s The Sims Store are now available to the masses for free.

The decision by EA to include additional content for a price on The Sims Store (despite complaints about the lack of content in original game) has not been a very popular one amongst gamers. The following comment made by one of our readers in a previous thread sums it all up:

Mooe:

It's just crazy how much EA is milking their consumers. I mean, 1 dollar for one freaking sofa? A member from a forum that I regularly visit counted up all the items and their cost and estimated a value of about $420 if you buy everything. Pretty crazy.

And if you have a look at Sims 3 threads on popular gaming forums, you’ll find a lot of similar responses to the one above.

Note: Please do not post download or torrent links to leaked content here. This post is for informational purposes only.

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Just a quick update on private tracker open signups. Most private BitTorrent trackers out there either do not open signups at all or opens them up at random intervals. But did you know that there are a few trackers that open their doors on a monthly or weekly basis? This article features summarized information about three such sites that usually open to the public on weekends; AvistaZ, Extremebits and PTN (invite applications). AvistaZ is an Asian movie tracker, Extremebits is an extreme sports tracker while PTN is a ratio free movie tracker.

AvistaZ
 
Site Name: AvistaZ (http://bt.avistaz.com)
Signup URL: http://bt.avistaz.com/account.php
Signups open on: Every Sunday. Will open on 17.00GMT this Sunday (7th)
Stats: 122000+ users and 8100+ torrents
Description: AvistaZ is an Asian movie tracker with Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indian, etc movies. For full tracker details and screenshot, refer to our recent review located here.

ExtremeBits
 
Site Name: ExtremeBits (http://www.extremebits.org)
Signup URL: http://www.extremebits.org/signup.php
Signups open on: Every Saturday and Sunday
Stats: 3200+ torrents
Description: ExtremeBits is an extreme sports tracker with videos, TV shows, magazines and DVD releases related to action sports. Full tracker review can be found here.

PTN
 
Site Name: PTN
Invite Application URL: http://*********.***/comeandplay.php (do not use ‘www’ in the address)
Signups open on: Invite applications have been open on weekends for the past two weeks. It is likely that this trend will continue. On the site it says “External Application is currently open! It will be automatically closed in 1d 17h 39m 25s“ (At time of this post)
Stats: 2275+ users and 5300+ torrents
Description: PTN is a ratio free movie tracker with a large focus on community. For detailed tracker info including screenshots and discussion, refer to this article.

Bonus: Demonoid
 
Site Name: Demonoid (http://www.demonoid.com)
Signup URL: http://www.demonoid.com/register.php
Signups open on: Random times – usualyl once a month. Currently open.

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Yeah I know all of you might probably have it already but an updated version of the popular XViD codec was released just about a week ago. XViD 1.2.2 is a bugfix release which contains several security related fixes and is the first update to the codec after about 6 months. Also, if you are looking to download just the XViD codec separately (not an entire codec pack), use the download links towards the end of this article. XViD 1.2.2 consists of the Xvid DirectShow decoding filter and the Xvid VFW Codec. For those who don’t know what this codec does, it allows you to play movies and TV shows (or any other video file for that matter) encoded in Xvid – a popular format for stuff released on BitTorrent.

What’s new in XViD v1.2.2

xvidcore library 

• Workaround for nasm bug with Mach-O/OSX target
• Fix for missing resync marker range check (reported by IBM X-Force. Thanks go to John McDonald and Christopher Valasek)
• Improved precision for RGB<->YUV conversions
• Fix for potential RGB24 access violation
• Updated compiler options for Apple PPC target
• Fixed MSVC6 projects to work for path names with spaces

VFW frontend

• Updated mingw makefile

DShow frontend

• Bugfix for wrong handling of xvidcore XVID_ERR_MEMORY return code

Download & how to install

[Click Here] to download XViD 1.2.2 from official server – Direct download

Note: The official download link above container only the source code. If you are looking for the one click installer version, use one of the links below:

[Click Here] to download XViD 1.2.2 with installer (32-bit)

[Click Here] to download XViD 1.2.2 with installer (64-bit)

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Today we feature another private torrent tracker which is heavily underrated but has excellent, unique content. In our last mention of MakeGreatMusic (MGM), we categorized it as a ‘music' torrent tracker’. This is only partly true because MGM tracks stuff that most other normal music trackers doesn't have – stuff that’ll help you ‘create’ music. It is also one of the best BitTorrent trackers on the planet for both fiction and non fiction audiobook torrents. MakeGreatMusic crew recently launched MGM V2 with lots of new features and a completely new site layout. For those looking to get in, public registrations are currently open as well.

Even though you might have never heard of it, MGM is not necessarily a small private tracker. As of 6/6/2009 the site has over 4200 active members and tracks close to 2000 torrents. The number of indexed torrents is actually a lot more than 2000 (around 4500). A small issue that arose during the transition to MGM v2 has caused some of the torrents to go ‘dead’. However even the ‘lost’ torrents are seemingly being added to the to the tracker – to see them all select ‘including dead’ option in the search filter.

As for the content on MGM, this tracker is heaven for audiobook fans. There are over 1500 audiobook torrents (both fiction and non fiction – this number could go as high as 3000 once lost torrents are all added back to the tracker) currently indexed on MGM. In addition, there are a lot of material that’ll help you create music - music instruction books, guitar/bass tabs, sheet music, music documentaries, lick libraries and other similar torrents are plentiful on this tracker. The following screenshot captures a part of MGM’s torrent index:

Image: On the left are some audiobook torrents and on the right some educational material 

This site’s layout has gone through significant enhancements with the launch of MGM v2. It now features a sleek new top toolbar, a fully customizable start page and of course a new stylesheet.

As we mentioned earlier MGM is currently open to the public - user limit of the site has seemingly increased from 5k to 10k with the launch of MGM v2. This is good news for those who were waiting to get into this tracker including a number of people who left invite requests in our previous thread :p.

Site Name: Make Great Music (http://www.makegreatmusic.net)

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

Categories:

• Audiobooks – Fiction
• Audiobooks – NonFiction
• Complete Editions
• Concert Videos
• eBooks
• Guitar/Bass Tabs
• Lick Library
• Music Documentaries
• Music Instruction Books
• Music Instruction Media
• Radio Drama/OTR
• Sheet Music
• Sheet Music + MP3

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If you were a member of the semi private BitTorrent tracker SnowTigers, you might have noticed the site’s recent downtime. Unfortunately, SnowTigers is not offline due to a hardware failure or any other technical fault of that sort. The the site has been hit by one of the worst things that could happen to a BitTorrent tracker – a police raid. According to available information French police have seized 21 severs associated with SnowTigers and have also arrested 10 of the site’s administrators.

At the time of its demise, Snowtigers had a huge user base of over 250000 members (Alexa rank of ~5000) and was one of the largest French BitTorrent trackers. It was an extremely popular tracker for French content and tracked movies, music and drama including some rare, unique, local releases not found on most other BitTorrent trackers. As things stand right now, it is highly unlikely that the site would make a return anytime soon. More information about the raid can be found in this article (you might need Google translate as it’s French news source).

To be honest France has not been a file sharing friendly place from the very beginning. They’ve only recently passed a ‘three strikes’ anti piracy law that could be easily be manipulated with a little money and power to rape all file sharers in the country.

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As always, it was definitely a mistake on the part of Swedish anti piracy agencies to threaten Sweden based torrent sites with legal action immediately after the court trial of Pirate Bay. Although this initially triggered a mass shutdown, Sweden’s BitTorrent scene seems to be returning with more power with trackers that closed down coming back online, new trackers being launched and existing trackers opening signup for new members. Newest Swedish tracker to open signups to the public is Swepirates – a General/0Day tracker that’s been around since 2006.

Swepirates tracks general content which includes movies, music, games and software. Something I’ve noticed on this site that is has a lot of untouched DVDR releases (nearly one third of all torrents). These DVDRs are usually ones released for Nordic regions but spoken language is English with optional Swedish subtitles (always check torrent description when in doubt). Swepirates however lacks exclusive content – there are almost no packs or unique torrents to speak of apart from a few Swedish releases (even those scene releases). Most of the indexed torrents are very well seeded.

 

Currently there are close to 500 active torrents (added since February 2009) and over 4700 registered users on Swepirates. Open registrations will continue till they reach 5000 users (that’s around 250 free spots remaining).

Site Name: Swepirates (http://www.swepirates.org)

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

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