It was so easy when I was growing up. I would just type my search into LimeWire and if it turned out to be weird porn I would delete it. Then we had The Pirate Bay, and I could go through reviews to see whether something was a virus or not. Now all public sites I am aware of are riddled with viruses, and I am warned that attempting to download any of them will result in me receiving threatening letters from copyrights holders in the post.

Here is what I have discovered today, trying to pirate things again:

  • The safest thing you can do is direct download from file share websites, but nobody says where these websites are.
  • If you want to torrent files, you need to subscribe to an exclusive private tracker. To get access to a private tracker, you need to get lucky, or you need to go through a painstaking process of levelling up over months and months of seeding torrents from semi-private trackers until you get to an actual good one that may or may not have the content you are looking for.
  • If you don’t want to do this, you need to pay for a UseNet provider, then you need to register for a similarly exclusive UseNet index service, probably paid as well. There is no guarantee you will find what you are looking for on here either, and there is a chance that your download will fail.
  • Whether you are using torrents or UseNet, you need a service to help you find the content in the first place, for example Sonarr, Radarr or Lidarr. Something called Jackett also fits into this somehow and apparently links to whatever indexes you are using.
  • If you are torrenting, you then need a torrent client such as qBitTorrent to actually get the files.
  • If you are using UseNet, you need a UseNet downloader such as jdownloader.
  • Alternatively, for either option you can pay for a Debrid service such as Real-Debrid or Premiumize to download the files for you, if you send them the links. Besides protecting your privacy and your bandwidth, these services are also great for bypassing the limits on the elusive direct download sites nobody can tell me any more about.

I don’t really think of myself as a stupid person but this shit is so confusing. It is harder than paying for drugs on the dark web with illegal crypto currency. Am I nearly there? Is this everything? If I pay for a UseNet provider and somehow register for a UseNet index, is it as simple as connecting the two together to something such as Sonarr to find the content and jdownloader to get it?

I just wanna have my own home streaming service.

  • WanderingVentra@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    What’s the advantage of downloading these over setting up the qbittorrent search function to search multiple torrent sites when I type something in there, as it does for me now?

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.socialEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      They allow you to search for files of a specific size range and resolution automatically based on profiles that you configure during the setup process. Once configured, you just tell them what movie or show you want and they take care of everything else. 15 minutes later (or however long it takes to download) the files will appear in your library ready to watch. Also, for stuff that hasn’t been released yet, it will monitor those and download them automatically once someone uploads a copy.

    • kureta@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      you don’t need to search anything. that’s the difference. you add a TV show and it downloads every new episode according to your specifications as they come out. for movies automated downloads are less relevant but it rename, organizes, adds metadata etc. also you can add a movie before it is released and it will download the movie when to becomes available.

      So, automated search, download, rename, organize etc. Not necessary at all. Just a convenience for those who like that sort of thing.

    • ccdfa@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      I’ve never used the qBittorrent search function so if everything mentioned in my earlier comment is included in qBittorrent directly, then I don’t know. Use what works best for you. As I understand it, the main appeal of the *arr stack is that it does everything automatically and without you having to intervene to get what you want.

      Correct me if I’m wrong, but I imagine that qBittorrent doesn’t automatically search for better versions of your media, automatically rename and move files to your specification, automatically evaluate search results to choose a download that matches your desired quality, automatically search for desired media when it is released (like new episodes of a currently running TV show), automatically import subtitle files or extras to your library, or automatically grab metadata for all your media.

      • WanderingVentra@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        Correct me if I’m wrong, but I imagine that qBittorrent doesn’t automatically search for better versions of your media, automatically rename and move files to your specification, automatically evaluate search results to choose a download that matches your desired quality, automatically search for desired media when it is released (like new episodes of a currently running TV show), automatically import subtitle files or extras to your library, or automatically grab metadata for all your media.

        Those parts do sound pretty good lol