Good news for all those who missed signing up for Blackcats Games (BCG) when it was open to the public 2 days ago. According to site owner stoi, BCG temporarily halted accepting new members to fix a few bugs in their registration process. As we predicted, signups have once again been opened and you should now be able to create a Blackcats account without issues. If site statistics are correct, open signups have so far been a massive success - there have been ~10000 new accounts created in this month (August 2010) alone, increasing the user base to ~43000. BCG’s current max user limit is set to 50000 which leaves space for around 7000 more new users. If you want to be part of one of the best PC and Console games torrent trackers around, there can’t be a better time than now to sign up.

Here’s what stoi wrote on FileSharingTalk (FST) forums, explaining the sudden closure of open registrations 2 days ago:

BCG is open again, its not a test but we are watching it incase anything goes BOOM! like the other day.
We have changed the signup procedure as well, if you cant get in the first time just keep trying, but the reason we closed the other day was a lot of members tracker IDs were getting mixed up with other members Forum ids, because they use 2 different databases, so the change is to stop that, its not to annoy anyone.

According to the SysOp, BCG may even extend their current max user limit beyond 50k to facilitate new users – this however is not confirmed as of yet. Either way there’s still plenty of room left and everyone should be able to get in without issues if they try right now. We strongly recommend reading our recent review of BCG before signing up - it includes a detailed description of the tracker (along with screenshots), the type of content it tracks and why you should join. Use the signup URL below to create an account.

Site Name: Blackcats Games (http://www.blackcats-games.net)

Signup URL: http://www.blackcats-games.net/signup.php

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If you use a USB flash drive or a portable hard drive, you are likely to have come across viruses that spread via such media. I’ve had many experiences with these pests - no matter how good your anti virus software is, some of these just manage to penetrate all shields to bite you in the ass. And when one of them does, all your portable media are at risk of getting infected– it could be your flash drive, portable hard drive, your phone’s memory card, your digital camera’s memory stick, etc. If you are annoyed by viruses that spread via USB based removable media, here’s a security solution you can try. USB Security Utilities is a free set of tools that can safeguard your portable storage media from viruses, trojans and other malware (and it can be used with your resident anti virus scanner as well).

USB Security Utilities uses several layers of protection to ensure maximum security for your media. First and foremost it uses good old virus signature based scans to look for most common viruses that spread via USB devices – these scans have to be run manually – this software does not have a memory resident scanning module. Additionally, it scans for techniques commonly used by most viruses such as an exploited autorun.inf file or executables placed inside every folder and subfolder of the drive. USU can also protect your data by immunizing the portable device using it’s ‘Vaccine’ tool (this will prevent suspicious files from being copied to your USB).

All of this functionality is integrated into a single, easy to use interface. Note that the program may switch to Spanish on first launch – to change interface language to English, switch to the rightmost tab and hit the ‘English’ button. Also, I noticed that it does not place a desktop or a start menu shortcut – you have to run the exe from the install location to run in.

Download

You can download USB Security Utilities from the official download page. The tool is free and does not include any form of adware.

[Click Here] to download the latest version of USU. The page is in Spanish, but the download link should easily be identifiable.

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The moment you all have been waiting for is finally here. Blackcats Games (aka BCG), one of the best private torrent trackers on the planet for PC and Console games, has opened its doors to the public. You can now directly sign up for a BCG account without the need for a referral code (or in other words, no need to have an invite). This is the first time BCG has opened registrations in more than two years so don’t let this opportunity go waste. If you are a fan of video gaming on PC, Console and Mobile devices, BCG is a must have tracker which indexes both new and old video games for multiple gaming platforms including DOS/Windows PC, Playstation, PS2, PS3, XBOX, XBOX 360, Wii, Gamecube, Dreamcast, Android, iPhone and lots more others. Additionally, this is one of the oldest torrent communities on the internet and Blackcats is set to celebrate its 7th birthday in a couple of months, a feat only a handful trackers have so far managed to achieve.

BCG temporarily opened signups sometime early this week but it only lasted for 8 minutes. This was actually a test to iron out the bugs in their registration system. This time however, we can confirm it’s the real thing – although it’s not currently known how long the signups will remain open, it’s likely that open registrations will continue at least for a few days. As we stated in a previous article, they are seeking to expand their user base (which is already 25000+ strong) by several thousand members members, bringing in fresh new blood into the site.

If you don’t know much about BCG, here’s why you should get an account (if you are into video games that is). 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. In addition to individual releases, lots of games packs & collections (including full games sets for several consoles) have also been uploaded. A screenshot showing some of the indexed collections can be seen below:

In some areas, BCG behaves drastically different from regular private trackers. For example, they have the seed points mod replacing the common bonus system on most torrent sites. This is an innovative system that lets you maintain a healthy global ratio and avoid hit and runs even on torrents that do not have that many leechers. To get a hang of many features and mods of BCG, we recommend you read their site Rules, FAQ and the Wiki immediately after signing up (Wiki contains BCG game reviews and tutorials as well – you do not need to login to read it).

Anyways as mentioned in the title of this post, BCG is currently open for signup. Use the signup URL below to create an account.

Site Name: Blackcats Games (http://www.blackcats-games.net)

Signup URL: http://www.blackcats-games.net/signup.php

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Over the years, we have covered many torrent sites that specialize in magic such as Art of Misdirection, AOMKiller, MagicWarrior and several others. Some of these sites are now defunct and today the BitTorrent community only has a handful magic trackers that aren’t dead. But if you are into magic, we have some good news – this article features a promising new magic tracker that’s a new entrant to the BT scene. MagicTorrents, a 2.5 months old private tracker, has done extremely well and shown a lot of promise during the short period of time it’s been online. Although not receiving too much publicity, MT seems to have attracted a lot of professional magicians who share their knowledge over P2P, making it one great resource for all kinds of materials related to this wonderful art.

In comparison to other similar magic trackers, MagicTorrents looks very solid and stable. During it’s first 2.5 months online, the site has attracted nearly 600 users and tracks around 2700 torrents which is downright impressive for a rare niche site such as this. Don’t forget that they achieved the feat while being a closed community that is highly selective in recruiting new members.

As for the content indexed on MagicTorrents, it’s all related to magic. From videos to E-books, this site tracks a lot of material across many categories such as card tricks, Money Magic, Mentalism, Close-up, Rope, Rings, Levitation, Kids Magic, XCM, Gambling, Comedy Magic, Balloons, Juggling, LockPicking, TV Shows, Magic Music, etc. A screenshot of the torrent index can be seen below:

Next question that arises when talking about a magic tracker is how to obtain an account. These types of sites are often difficult to get into due to their highly selective recruitment policies. Getting into MT is equally hard – especially if you don’t know magic. They are currently closed for signup but recruitment is open for FILEnetworks readers. However, please note that you’d actually have to know magic if you want to get in. To quote the words of one of the administrators:

we are very selective on our users. we dont need leechers, kids, interested ones, not new YouTube generation guys who just want to know the secrets or guys who are not in Magic!
we accept only ones who are really in Magic. so if someone thinks he can meet the conditions will be interviewed and maybe accpeted.”

If you think you are up to the task, send us an E-mail to invites[dot]filenetworks[at]gmail[dot]com – make sure to set the subject to MagicTorrents. Include a brief description of your ‘magic’ experience (to the best you can - include proof if possible), other magic trackers you are a member of, etc in the message body. We will be forwarding your E-mails to MT staff who will in turn contact select members over E-mail for an interview.

Site Name: MagicTorrents (http://magictorrents.com)

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When it comes to BitTorrent related articles, we usually bring you good news such as the launch of new trackers or open signups of existing ones. However, today is not one of those days and the news we have is not so good if you are a fan of BitTorrent. One of the few Mac trackers on the planet, Save The Coratee (STC), has shut down its operations possibly for good. Needless to say this is a critical blow to the Mac torrent tracker scene which is now left with only 1-2 specialized trackers such as Brokenstones or Mac-Torrents. STC’s decision to shut down was sudden and left a lot of their users wondering what happened to the tracker as it disappeared overnight. While there were no announcements displayed on the now defunct site, their official Twitter account offered some explanation as to what happened to the site.

Quoted below are two status updates Tweeted by http://twitter.com/coratee

Sorry guys and no we were not shut down. The site just could not be maintained any more :(

StC is officially closed. I apologize for the lack of warning. There has been a creation of a non-official replacement site. :( & <3

The unofficial site they mention is http://corate.es/ – a spin off site started by an ex staff member of StC (currently closed for signups). In the meantime, we’ve seen some interesting offers from other trackers intending to take over StC operations. For example. Awesome-HD, a leading HD tracker, made such an offer over Twitter:

@Coratee Hey, are you guys interested in us taking over operations? We'd love to help out :) about 1 hour ago via Tweetie for Mac in reply to Coratee

StC’s official response for this is currently unknown. Either way it isn’t likely that the site will be back in its previous form. R.I.P Save The Coratee and it was fun while it lasted. If you want to see how this tracker looked when it was alive, refer to our recent review  located here.

Alternatives

If you are looking for alternatives, BrokenStones is a great site for Mac content (and is the largest specialized Mac tracker currently online). To obtain a BS invite through their invite site, follow this guide.

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When you talk about top TV torrent trackers in the world, BitMeTV, TVTorrents.Com, Freshon.TV and BTN are usually the sites that come to mind. However, you don’t often see ‘TV-Vault’ being mentioned as a ‘top’ TV tracker. While TVV may not index newest episodes of modern television shows, it pretty much kicks any other torrent tracker in the ass when it comes to rare, classic, old series that are hard to find. Just a couple of weeks ago, this site surpassed the 2000 indexed TV shows mark making it one of the best online resources for retro TV content. “Because Chuck Norris Karate Kommandoes is clearly better than that Lost shit” was a tagline the tracker used when it launched back in 2008 – if you tend to agree, you might find yourself at home on TV Vault. For those who still haven’t become members, signups are open and around 1500 free slots are currently available.

A project started by the crew behind Cinemageddon, TV Vault has been online for more than two years. This was one of the first trackers to utilize the now famous Gazelle codebase and it remains to be one of the best Gazelle implementations you can find to date. Over the years, TVV has done pretty well in terms of member recruitment and expansion of the torrent index. It currently tracks 6000+ torrents related to 2200+ different television shows and the registered user base hovers somewhere around the 13500 mark.

Although most major TV torrent trackers do index classic TV shows to a certain extent, nothing ever comes close to the vast array of content found on TV Vault. From black and white TV serials made in the early 1930s to relatively new shows made in the 2000s, this site is a heaven for fans of retro content. TVV’s 6000 strong torrent index looks mediocre at first but there is actually a lot more content than it meets the eye. Most of these torrents are full season packs, each carrying around 10-20 episodes of a particular show – this would easily amount to 25000+ torrents on a regular TV tracker. Season packs are grouped together so that finding all available episodes of a show is very easy.

We know we have covered this site in the past and some of you might already be members there. In case you missed our previous article and you still haven’t got into TVV, registrations are currently open. The site has a max user limit of 15000 leaving around 1500 free slots up for the taking. If you like classic TV shows, this is a torrent site you shouldn’t miss.

Site Name: TV Vault (http://tv-vault.me)

Signup URL: http://tv-vault.me/register.php

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How many HD torrent trackers does China have? I don’t think anyone knows the correct answer. However, we seem to run into a new Chinese private tracker for HD content every other day. What’s cool about these sites is that they aren’t just stubs with a few members and a handful torrents. These are fully fledged torrent trackers with strong user bases and content rich torrent indexes. For example ChinaHDTV, the site we are featuring today, has nearly 15k members even though it’s not a site you hear about every day. ChinaHDTV is a private torrent tracker for high definition content. It tracks movies, TV shows, music videos and documentaries, majority English releases. In addition to the usual uploads found on most HD trackers, ChinaHDTV has an interesting section (which is just starting up) for 720p MP4 video optimized for the Apple iPad .

With over 14700 registered users and nearly 2500 active torrents in its index, ChinaHDTV is a decently sized private tracker. And the fact that it’s taken them less than three months to reach this state makes it even more impressive. Leecher activity on most of the indexed torrents is excellent with popular releases usually having 50+ seeds each. Download speeds too are pretty good on this site.

As mentioned earlier ChinaHDTV tracks high definition content. This includes movies, music videos, TV shows and documentaries. Majority of available releases are English and are pre’d by renowned scene and P2P groups. Apart from English (United States and European releases) content, you can find movies and TV shows from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and other regions on this tracker. Most of the video files are obtained from Blu-ray, HD DVD, MiniBD (variant of Blu Ray Disk), HDTV or DVDR media sources (untouched or ripped) and usually have excellent video quality. If the translation I read on their homepage is correct, ChinaHDTV will soon ramp up its iPad TV shows section with uploads by an internal release group.

Being a China based private tracker built on NexuxPHP script, ChinaHDTV by default has a Chinese language interface. You do have the option to switch to English but we recommend you use Google’s Chrome’s built in translation to automatically translate the site to English.

How to translate CCFBits to English with Google Chrome

1. Download and install the latest version of Google Chrome browser from here.
2. Visit ChinaHDTV signup page through this link: http://www.chinahdtv.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 CHTDV 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.

Signups for ChinaHDTV are currently open. This is usually a closed community but the doors will be open between 31st of July to 9th August only (or until the site reaches 20k users, whichever comes first).

Site Name: ChinaHDTV (http://www.chinahdtv.org)

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

Special thanks to buzi li for the heads up.

If you liked this tracker may also like:

• PIG2PIG Tracker Open For Signup – For HD Movies, TV Shows & Documentaries
• BDMKV & TorrentCCF – Two HD/Blu-Ray/MKV Torrent Trackers Open For Signup
• OurDiSC – Private Tracker For Full R1, R3 DVD And Blu-Ray Disks
• HDCity – Another HD BitTorrent Tracker From China
• CHDBits – High Definition Private Tracker
• CCFBits – Chinese HD torrent tracker with English releases
• HDRoad.ORG - Private HD Torrent Tracker
• HDStar HD BitTorrent Tracker Open For A Limited Time Only
• TorrenTGui (TTG) – Private Tracker For Games, Movies & TV Shows

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If you’ve been reading us for some time you probably have read about PTN, a ratio free private torrent tracker for movies. And if you have read about PTN, you are likely to have read about PTN v2, the major site overhaul that’s been on the cards for some time :) Good news is that PTN v2 is now finally live – has the wait been worth it? Short answer is Yes. So much has changed in v2 that PTN now looks like an entirely new site. From browse pages to notification windows to category icons, virtually everything has changed. And it’s not just the new visual layout and new themes that are highlights of the new version, the site’s coders have managed to put together some useful, interesting new features into the mix as well (which is a good thing). Another notable change is that from now on PTN will become a pure movie torrent tracker – TV shows are no longer allowed on site after v2 launch.

There’s an entire forum section dedicated to explaining the new features (along with screenshots) introduced in PTN v2. Below is a summarized list of features compiled using the information available in this forum. In some cases, we directly quoted the feature descriptions on PTN as there really was no way of explaining it better:

• Faster load times and on-the-fly-searches - The browse page was entirely re-designed and it now loads, navigates and searches faster.
• Browse by Torrents/Movies - You can now browse by Movies, which allows you to easily find and download torrents using a movies context rather than the usual torrents context. If you don’t like the new layout, the old list based layout is still available.
• Movie details page – A single page capturing all available information about a particular movie including  Movie Information, Directors Information, Actors Information, Images - Thumbnails, Posters and Banners, Trailers, Torrents, Soundtracks, Other movies you might like, Tags, References & subscriptions
• Director details page – A single page capturing all available information about a particular director including Director details and links, Director 's movies in PtN and Director 's Filmography with direct link
• Action details page – Lists all available information related to a particular actor including Actor details and links, Actor's movies in PtN and Actor's Filmography with direct link
• Compression (RAR’d and UNRAR’d torrents) - compression notation has been added to allow uploaders to mark their releases as rared/unrared. An "Unrared torrent" icon will then appear next to unrared torrents in the browse page.
• New visual elements -  For those of you who use a 1280x720 resolution or higher two new wide-screen styles have been added: v2 Blue & v2 Grey. For those of you who use lower resolutions - a new v2 Black theme has been added.
  To better utilize the space, the use panel has been narrowed down and the site's links have been moved to a new panel on the left side of the screen.
  A Movie of the Week section has also been added to the left side panel.
  A new right side panel has been added to hold the site notifications (message, announcements, etc...) This panel will only be visible when there are notifications.
• Tags - Tags allow you too add words or phrases that best describe a movie. Tagging a movie will later allow other users to search/find that movie by running a search that is indirectly related to the Torrent/Movie information. This allows much easier search and to easily find movie by interest rather than by category and name. 
  For example: Adding the tag "Boxing" to the movie "Million Dollar Baby" will allow users to find this movie when searching for a boxing movie.
• Subscriptions - Subscriptions allows you to automatically receive a notification when certain torrent qualities has been released for a specific movie. Subscriptions can save you that lazy browsing, looking for a good quality release for a movie that you would like to see. In the future, you will be able to subscribe to a movie even if no release of that movie even exists.
• Category Icons - You can now choose your preferred category icons through your profile page (In the Torrents section). You can also select the default categories that you would like to view in the browse page and movie details page. Torrents are strongly bounded into movies now (Or to multiple movies). Torrent/Movies can now have multiple categories, these categories are set automatically when the movie's data is retrieved. You can also manually add/remove categories from a movie. Searching by categories - If a movie has the categories Drama & Comedy. Filtering out Comedies will not make the torrent/movie invisible. Only when Comedies and Dramas are filtered out, the torrent/movie will become invisible.
• Filtering -  Movies and Torrents can be now filtered using Name, Year, Rating, Language and ofcuz.
• Bookmarks - The bookmarks view was incorporated into the main browse page.

As you can see it’s a long list of features. Below is a screenshot of the new ‘Browse by movies’ view on PTN, which is without a doubt one of the most notable new additions to the site:

In movies view mode, this is how movies are listed in the main index (this is not the torrent description page, which is much more detailed). If you prefer the old list based view, you can switch to it using the top toolbar.

And the screenshot below showcases the new main toolbar and search box, through which you can instantly change the look and feel of the torrent index:

There are tons more new features but we obviously can’t include screenshots of all of them  - to read more about them in detail, login to the site and browse the PTN v2 forums – each feature has its own thread and you can find detailed information about a particular feature along with screenshots.

Signups for PTN v2 are currently closed and so are the online invite applications. Invite apps were open just a month ago (prior to v2 launch) and most of our readers should have got in when we announced this in the blog. In case you haven’t got in yet, don’t lose hope as PTN have been recruiting on a regular basis and there is a possibility that invite applications will open again in future (although we cannot tell when).

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We’ve pretty much said everything there’s to be said in this article in the title itself. If you tried to access the popular private torrent tracker RevolutionTT (aka RevoTT and RevTT), you might find yourself redirected to WordLinker, apparently a social media site. Initially, it would seem the site was hacked by some script kiddies but the good news is that it’s not. First up, you won’t even notice this problem if you’ve been accessing the site over HTTPS – the redirection happens only when it’s accessed over HTTP. We are not exactly sure as to why it happens but there’s a simple fix for the problem until RevTT staff restore HTTP accessibility.

To fix this issue simply use the URL https://www.revolutiontt.net instead of http://www.revolutiontt.net/ to login to the site. If you have bookmarked the HTTP URL, edit the bookmarks to reflect the change. There is absolutely no harm in accessing a torrent site such as RevTT over HTTPS – HTTPS traffic is encrypted and is way more secure than regular HTTP. Only downside is probably the increased overhead due to key management and encryption involved. But in almost all cases this is barely noticeable. You can read a basic description of the two protocols here (used a snopes link as it explains everything in simple language without unnecessary complexity).

Special thanks to kayhaytha and everyone who emailed us about the issue.

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As we mentioned in a previous post, StarCraft 2 : Wings of Liberty is one of the most anticipated PC games of this year. According to various reviews floating around the net and from my own experience after playing the game for several hours, it looks like Blizzard had delivered yet another great Real Time Strategy (RTS) title. No matter how great the game was, it did not escape the eyes of pirates – SC2 was leaked on scene topsites and various file sharing sites on the street date itself (the game did ship with anti piracy measures including online activation and authentication over Battle.Net). Single player campaign was working on most cracked versions of the game but offline skirmish mode was broken in all of the early releases. Now, several days later, one of the oldest groups in the gaming scene have stepped up to release a SC2 version that has the single player component including skirmish fully working.

So far, many different leaked versions of SC2 have made their way onto file sharing networks across the world. Initially, a CloneDVD leaked on a well known pirate tracker – this was an untouched image of the original game and did not include any modified files. CloneDVD was probably the source for cracked releases that appeared next –first of which pre’d by group LIBERTY and then another by RELOADED. LIBERTY’s version did not actually circumvent the copy protection in the game. It appeared to use a built in function in the Starcraft 2 patching framework to launch the game, bypassing the authentication screen. This however lead to some issues and in some cases broke the game. RELOADED’s release on the other hand was better. It had the SP campaign working but still, skirmish play was broken. A method to unlock & enable skirmish mode on RELOADED release was posted on a leading warez forum but this included renaming game files and modifying registry entries.

Pirates however did not have to worry about skirmish issues for long – yesterday Razor1911 pre’d yet another version of SC2 which according to the group had skirmish fully working. Quoted below are PROPER notes from NFO:

StarCraft.II.Wings.of.Liberty-RELOADED left single-player 'skirmish' mode completely uncracked and had some wholly uncalled-for patching to the original game files (much like the web 'crack' having been around for some time) thereby modifying in-game menus. We felt this game deserves a proper release, so here's ours which:

• enables you to play all single-player missions including AI ('skirmish') ones
• does NOT alter ANY of the original game files
• will (most likely) work for future game updates
• lets you use your legally bought game key at any time
• contains a nifty 'keytro' (keygen/cracktro mix) for your enjoyment.

The release seemingly works but some people are apparently having problems with the keytro. Due to the method it uses for patching game data, lots of anti virus software are detecting it as a virus (false positive if you got the file from a reliable source). If it keeps crashing you may have to run it in a sandboxed environment such as by using Sandboxie software. Some folks also seem to get the error message “Offline Play Authorization Required – To enable offline play connect to Battle.net …..” when trying to launch a game after patching.

On a side note, no crack out there will allow you to play online multiplayer over Battle.net. It requires an original StarCraft 2 key and you’ll have to buy the game to get one. Speaking of buying, this game is well worth the money – there’s tons of stuff to do in the purchased version (achievements, unlockables, multiplayer features) and if you are an RTS fan, we recommend buying the game over pirating it any day.

P.S. - You may download the StarCraft 2 cracktro from Razor1911 Demo Division homepage located at http://www.razor1911.com/demo
Note: This does not include any cracked/modified StarCraft 2 executable files (and it’s not the keytro). It’s just an animation which introduces the release which in scene language is called a cracktro.

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