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Cancel Cable: How Internet Pirates Get Free Stuff |
Chapter 8 – Finding Torrents
To find a torrent, go to a BitTorrent search engine (Chapter 7), type a search phrase in the Search box, and then press Enter. Search results are sorted by relevance and popularity (swarm size). Usually, one of the first few matches in the results list is the torrent you’re looking for.
Search Tips
General search tips follow. For help with specific categories of torrents (movies, books, applications, and so on), refer to later chapters.
- To determine whether a torrent is relevant, Search compares the keywords in your search phrase to the name of the .torrent file, the names of the shared (content) files, and any title or description that the original seeder added. Words in filenames can be separated by spaces, dots, or hyphens; search engines treat them in the same way.
- Search boxes often have nearby filtering controls that can narrow a search or sort the results. Google-style operators can further narrow a search. To find an exact phrase, for example, enclose it in quotes (“empire strikes back”). Search engines vary in their support for search operators. For help, look for an Advanced Search, FAQ, or Help link on the site’s home page.
- Click Browse to see all of a site’s torrents, sorted by category or popularity.
- Click Recent (or Latest) to see a site’s newest torrents, sorted by age or popularity.
- In any columnar list of torrents, click a column heading to sort by name, category, file size, age, swarm size, or a different measure. To reverse the sort, click the heading again.
- Some sites display a search cloud of the keywords used in that day’s most-popular searches. In some clouds, the font size of keywords corresponds to the frequency of the search. Click any keyword to replicate the search.
- Most sites have RSS feeds, which let you subscribe to a continually updated list of new torrents. Feeds can list all new torrents (like drinking from a firehose) or only certain categories of new torrents. RSS feeds are marked by orange icons
on the webpage or in the browser’s address bar. To subscribe to a feed, click its icon. For details, search for rss in your browser’s help system. - Some torrents will appear as dead (no seeders) but it’s possible the search engine isn’t taking trackerless torrents into account. Trackerless torrents use the DHT (Distributed Hash Tracking) and PEX (Peer Exchange) protocols to dilute the need for a central tracker. Open a dead torrent and within minutes you may find peers via DHT or PEX. In uTorrent, DHT and PEX are turned on by default. To view or change these settings in Windows, choose Options > Preferences (Ctrl+P) > BitTorrent (in the left pane). In OS X, choose uTorrent > Preferences (Command+,) > BitTorrent.
- uTorrent, Vuze, and other BitTorrent clients have built-in Search that you can configure to work with your favorite search engines. In uTorrent for Windows, choose Options > Preferences (Ctrl+P) > Advanced (in the left pane) > UI Extras.
- BitTorrent search engines aren’t the only places to get torrents. You can send or receive .torrent files via email or chat or download them via blog links.
Spotting Fakes
Antipiracy groups, scammers, and malware writers plant fake torrents, which can be downloads that never finish, unplayable videos, mislabeled files, or virus-carrying executables. Some fake-spotting tips:
- Delete any movie that requires you to download and install a rogue media player, like the trojan-laden 3wPlayer, DomPlayer, or x3 player. Be wary of videos that won’t play in VLC media player
. For details, see “Media Players” in Chapter 11. - Delete any torrent that makes you visit a website to get a password, install a codec, or “activate” something.
- Don’t download movie, music, picture, book or other media files packaged as or with executable (.exe) files.
- Suspect .rar and .zip archives (see Chapter 5) and .url files (see “Malicious Links” in Chapter 4). Many legitimate torrents have these files, but be vigilant nonetheless.
- Scan the torrent’s user comments. Look for “Fake!” or queries about passwords or special media players. For popular torrents, comments like “Contains a trojan” can mostly be ignored as false positives from rookie pirates.
- Beware of heavily seeded torrents with few user comments. If a two-year-old movie has twenty thousand seeders, it’s a fake.
- Avoid too-good-to-be-true torrents, like a DVD or Blu-ray copy of a movie seeded just as it premiers in theaters.
- Favor torrents released by organized piracy groups. Group aliases (MAXSPEED, aXXo, or EZTV, for example) are part of torrent names. Some sites flag trusted groups with special icons, foiling scammers who forge group names on fake torrents. VCDQ lists and rates group releases.
- Compare the size of the torrent to its description. The size of a two-hour .avi movie should between about 700 MB and 1.5 GB.
- Look for torrents that are verified as safe or high-quality by site operators or privileged users, or are heavily upvoted by ordinary users. Sites that verify torrents flag them with special icons.
- Some BitTorrent clients carry malware and are banned by various BitTorrent sites. Use one of the clients listed in Chapter 6.
- Download torrents from private sites, if possible, or popular public sites (Chapter 7) where fakes are more likely to be quickly spotted and removed.
- If you search for an approximate title, ignore results that mimic your search phrase. If you search for indiana raiders ark movie, stay away from any result that includes indiana raiders ark movie exactly.
- Never click a “sponsored” link.
- (Advanced.) If you don’t recognize a torrent’s tracker, type or paste the tracker name into a general search engine (like Google). Fake trackers get few search results (which often contain “fake” or “spam”). Some fake trackers have names deceptively similar to those of well-known trackers.
- See also Chapter 4.