I mainline used torrenting to download tv. shows, music and movies.

What are some viable free options and paid legal options that you guys use?

I'd prefer free obviously. Does your ISP track you if you download stuff from sites like mega, zippyshare, mediafire, etc. or only torrents?


Any suggestions and ideas are awesome! Thanks!

My ISP doesn't track anything that I do to the best of my knowledge.

I've never used a Torrent however I tend to use only Mega and Mediafire and at no time has my ISP tracked that.

I use Century Link btw. I thought they didn't track anything but my dad got an email this morning and they blocked his internet until he accepted their policy.

Yikes that's scary!

One solution I've heard to put an end to tracking by ISP, is seedbox:
Seedbox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedbox)

The ISP aren't tracking you - copyright holders are because you're in the BitTorrent swarm. They join a torrent they don't like, collect all the IP addresses that are downloading it, and complain to the ISPs - and they threaten you because they're legally obliged to. They'd rather not because you're keeping them in business.

The only time you get a letter is because some entity has actively complained about something you did.

Potential solutions (assuming "quit piracy" is not a viable option) are:
a) Give up using torrents - at least for mainstream, current content.
b) Use a VPN.

Using a Seedbox will not help you. It merely means that instead of getting your IP address, they get the IP of your Seedbox provider instead. Guess what the Seedbox provider is going to do when somebody complains that somebody is using his service for piracy? (Answer to rhetorical question: He looks in his logs, discovers it's you, and terminates your Seedbox account. Different guy, same shit.)

Tango the wise and I won't say old because I think he's still awaiting his 30th birthday has spoken.

What he speaks is truth by the way.

... I could comment, but with how most people here nowadays are regarding topics like this... I'll refrain... for now.

Sorry to break it to you but you just commented. (Hugh Grant voice which I do quite effectively in real life).

Don't be pedantic. This topic is one I have strong feelings about, not just the topic itself, but with how it's affected this site, since GH went down and the download sections came here.

GH was long before my time but commenting just to comment with no intent makes little sense to me.

Apparently it's served you well however these past 11+ years.

As you were.

While GH was 'before your time', it's tainted legacy is here. No wonder other sites now hate this forum...

Trying to get a rise out of me by that attack eh? Sorry, not going to work child.

For the past 11 years I've been a active member posting here... not some damn leech. However it appears people like yourself WildwoodPark feel that your owed all the stuff you download and shouldn't have to pay for it.

Keep on trucking.

I don't download I upload just check my body of work.

Posting what exactly? it doesn't seem like you have posted much over the past 11 years.

Oh... so you're one of those contributing to the decay of this forum eh? ... lovely.

A high post count means zero. Do a search and you'll find out. Besides, I don't post here every day... I've taken breaks from this site due to other matters, which do not concern you. I do have something called a life. Try it sometime.

Well just for the record Darth..since September 2012 I have made exactly one new post to the site and that was 10 days ago.

So if that's contributing to the decay of the site then so be it.

You must be a Virgo.

Well just for the record WildwoodPark, even one upload is still contributing to the decay.

Astrological signs mean nothing in the great scheme of things.

a) Give up using torrents - at least for mainstream, current content.
b) Use a VPN.

Using a Seedbox will not help you. It merely means that instead of getting your IP address, they get the IP of your Seedbox provider instead.

It's unclear how a VPN would be more anonymous than a seedbox then.

I switched over to torrenting a long time ago. I only got a letter once and that was because I forgot to delete a tracker when I was downloaded something. Free means being a home seeder and if you stick to private sites you should not get too much trouble. The only letters I get now are for going over my bandwidth caps.

What was GH like? And what was shrine for before the downloads? I mean by that, what did you all do that is now gone? I am honestly curious about the history, not stirring the pot.

A lot of us tend to forget that the shrine was not formed to be a pirating community, originally. I can see how the dl forum could overrun all the others....

@Amanda : From what I recall of GH, it was pretty much a site similar to the download section here. The Final Fantasy Shrine was far more active in the past, there were more subforums then (There was a clubs subforum, where users could form clubs and interact with others about the same... even a reviews & recommendations subforum amongst others... I did raise the possibility of the return of these and other subforums (most were deleted by TK iirc, citing 'inactivity'... when they were 'active')) and the activity of the site wasn't just in one section as it is now. I admit, with the lapse of any prominent activity on the main site, that is a possible detracting factor to any worthwhile contribution to the forum in general.

Ever since the download section was introduced and increased to what it is now (from when GH closed down from what I recall...), the quality of new members posts has declined drastically. High percentage of new members do NOT make any worthwhile contribution to the forum as a whole, indeed the increase of spam posts, thread necromancy etc has increased just for these new members to get their post count high enough to send PM's to uploaders here for links to Mediafire (or other such DL sites) to download anime/movies/music/etc because they can't be bothered to spend their own money and/or go to a store to purchase a physical copy.

Final Fantasy Shrine was a good site, where members could gather to speak about anything FF related, amongst other things. There was a General Gaming and Role Playing sections amongst others, but it was a good community (though there were some... 'eccentric' sorts here). Now... all it seems is that people are here wanting stuff without doing anything else for this forum to grow.

Well, what sort of things can we do to "help it grow"? You know some of us in the dl section DO care about the bigger forum. What sorts of things could we do?

If I may butt in, one thing I've noticed is that a lot of people rarely want to actually discuss things, but would rather post in simple threads such as "What are you doing now, etc." type threads. I see this on other forums too. Whether it's just to increase post count or not, it makes others like me want to give up on the forums altogether. I feel like if I made a thread to discuss something, I would get no replies. Very few people are being social now, which means those who do join because they were initially attracted to downloads won't stay after they get what they want.

Any suggestions and ideas are awesome! Thanks! http://newfinancehelp.com/hu3i.jpghttp://interinsurances.com/huht.jpg

Yikes that's scary!

The idea that 'your' ISP is tracking 'you' is indeed a disturbing one. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this directive (for the UK/EU) came from Peter Mandelson (European Commissioner at the time) after meeting with David Geffen. Yes, the same as the music label. No doubt other lackeys did the same in countries outside the EU. I don't know what carrot and/or stick was used and who pays for the tracking, but frankly it's unlawful. Any such action without a court order is illegal. Hence the push for all these SOPA and other BS laws. But this appears to be the way things are now moving. Anyway, I'm ranting. There is a solution. If you live in the UK you could get an unregistered PAYG 3G or 4G modem and use that for your downloads, and stick two fingers at David Geffen and Peter 'look at me I'm hanging out with the Rothschilds' Mandelson.

It's unclear how a VPN would be more anonymous than a seedbox then.

What he's saying is that with a seedbox only one person is connecting to the designated ip provided; that is you. Whereas with a VPN (that clears logs) there are multiple users going through one ip so you get a "needle in haystack" effect.
What some people do is combine both to get the best of both worlds, but you're never perfectly anonymous as you will always be traceable at some point.

Well, what sort of things can we do to "help it grow"? You know some of us in the dl section DO care about the bigger forum. What sorts of things could we do?

I made some suggestions in the I don't know... (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f2/i-dont-know-125397/2.html#post2244482) thread some time ago... Sarah didn't really seem interested in those suggestions, soo....

IDK

Aside from the sub-forums being formed, you'd need for people to get involved. I am not sure many members here these days would. Unfortunately.

Let's face facts here Amanda, no one really cares about the rest of the forum: only the download section. The majority of new members join solely for the purposes of leeching anime/mp3's/etc. If the download section wasn't here, this forum would be dead (just like another FF forum I used to go to).

The only people who would miss FF Shrine's departure, would be the leechers... until they found another site to leech from, then they'd forget about this place.

I use Century Link btw. I thought they didn't track anything but my dad got an email this morning and they blocked his internet until he accepted their policy.

I too use Century Link but I never received any such letter however once I received one saying based on my activity that I was a "power user" and suggested a faster service package. I have always been very leery of torrents and only use them as a last resort but I do prefer direct downloads.