Before I say anything further, yes I know how much the recommended VPNs cost. I can read. Please do not interrogate me about it.
I’ve been wanting to get into torrenting for a while, particularly contributing to private trackers related to music (and to a lesser extent retro games, though I don’t have much original stuff to put there as it’s harder to find rare games than rare music). FMHY recommends RiseUp if I must get a free VPN while I’m working on my financial situation, though I’m not sure whether it’s been tested in court. What are my options, if any?
this is like asking how to safely hook up with strangers at the bar if you can’t afford condoms to help protect you from STIs. if you can’t afford a VPN, you can’t afford to get disconnected by your ISP for three strikes, let alone afford a settlement because some copyright troll logged your IP as a downloader. just don’t do it until you can properly put some safeguards in place.
Public WiFi exists and it’s also pretty easy to get free condoms.
Why does this anti poor bullshit have so many upvotes? Public WiFi exists and it’s also pretty easy to get free condoms.
hey hows about you go fuck yourself
No u
fair enough
Pro tip: Never use public WiFi without wearing a condom.
Look at newsgroups - some indexers are free, others have a lifetime fee that’s reasonable. I moved to nzbs and haven’t looked back - I can’t get dinged for sharing copyrighted stuff if I’m only downloading, never uploading.
there exists a free newsgroup indexer that contains binaries?
There’s a few - but typically the free ones have limits on the number of downloads per day.
Nzbfinder and bin search used to be okay.
Which ones are okay now?
any specific lifetime fee indexers you recommend?
Nzb geek and planet are two good ones.
I mean you can avoid all that. If you’re just interested in music and retro games then just use soulseek and use the rom megathread. both of which are going to be either peer to peer or direct downloads. no torrenting.
Rom megathread (web search it) has quite literally everything. no need to search, no need to torrent, it’s all right there. And soulseek with Nicotine+ just works like napster. sign up, be sure to share your music library, and then have at it.
I use slsk, I’m just trying to find more places to upload the rare music I have to so it’s less likely to become lost.
right so you just keep your music folder open so people can do just that. More audiophiles are going to be on soulseek than some random torrent tracker.
I don’t understand why you insist on torrenting when you can’t safely do so. You’re going to get way more traction sharing your rare stuff on soulseek than you will torrenting it I can guarantee that.
It’s not that I’m trying to switch away from slsk, it’s that I’m trying to do more in addition to slsk.
Its not a big thing with trackers anymore unless you get into one of the exclusive private trackers dedicated to music, but this requires previous history with other trackers, good upload speeds, etc. I would just stick with slsk for now.
What’s not a big thing with trackers?
Music
Find a friend in a less shit place you can proxy through.
If you don’t have the money for a proper VPN provider, you definitely don’t have the money for a legal defense if it came to that. Save your money and only begin once you can afford reasonable protections.
I’d go for usenet. Only downloading, no uploading. Torrents are shit.
Much of what I want to do is uploading though. Also IIRC Usenet isn’t any better in terms of price. The prices aren’t bad gor Usenet or VPNs, my finances are just in the shitter.
I believe there are free VPN services. Maybe Proton has a free version? I know they offer a basic free version for Vivaldi browser. Just make sure they provider doesn’t log traffic.
Now is black Friday, some VPN services are 75% off, that may be an option if you have at least something to spare. Sure, it’s money, but a fine for illegal downloading costs much more.
Otherwise public wifi spots but speeds are probably shit.
Another option is installing Tails on a bootsble USB stick and connect through tor. But then speeds are also shit.
Proton VPN’s free tier doesn’t let you forward ports and generally doesn’t like torrents. And you’re really not supposed to torrent via Tor.
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Go to the small local library, they usually have free wifi, sometimes without registration and if you’re lucky they don’t filter any traffic.
There is also a map of open wifi hotspots online which work without registration also, but I’m too lazy to dig out the link.
Ask online for somebody to share their VPN. Many subscriptions explicitly allow inviting friends and family and allow multiple simultaneous connections.
Local library worker here. Can confirm we don’t track connections, we only tally how many use our wifi if we can figure it out. Basically the tally just includes whoever brings out their phone in the library.
Just be aware that the state can supply your library with free internet, and I’m not sure how that’s set up. I personally don’t like connecting to random open wifi, official or no.
In my younger years we hid an RPi with a large USB stick in our library. A seedbox of sorts, connected to wifi with semi-random schedule (public hours mostly) and random mac address to avoid detection. Worked like a charm!
If you can share the cost of a VPN with one or more other people (most allow multiple devices to connect at the same time), it’ll be much cheaper. Or if you can’t afford that either, try to find someone who will let you use theirs for free. Maybe you can even find someone who isn’t tech savvy who will pay you a few bucks a month to cover the VPN in exchange for you downloading Linux ISOs for them.
Borrowed WiFi is definitely your best bet. Find a place with a fast public WiFi network you can reach from your car.
I wouldn’t do this because the wifi will make sure you never do this again because of dmca strikes
I would suggest don’t.
For downloading, look at DDL sites.
For uploading, if you can’t do it safely, don’t. Stash it all, make backups, keep it until you can do it safely.
Move down under to New Zealand - although we do have a 3 strikes law, the clament has to pay all fees upfront to thr ISP and get a court order first…
We mostly raw dog it down here
They can’t afford $5/month for a VPN and you’re suggesting they move to a different country? I have a feeling that that’s out of their price range as well.
Doesn’t Proton have a free VPN tier? I think it doesn’t support port forwarding so your connections would be limited, but that might still work?
Otherwise, check the megathread and go with direct downloads. Those happen over https so completely encrypted.
What music DDL sites let you contribute FLACs?
Hmm I’m not sure about contributing. You’ve presented yourself as someone too broke to afford a VPN so I didn’t think you were buying CDs and ripping flacs. Sorry if I misunderstood your goals. I was more focused on the goal of obtaining files.
Edit: ps, not sure if you saw yet, but I pm’d you about another possible solution.
I do sometimes buy CDs, though many of my CDs are from before my financial situation was quite as bad as it is now. They’re all from thrift stores though, so none of them are more than $1.99.
Surprised no one has mentioned using a remote seedbox. There are providers who allow public torrent use, even if some of them discourage it. You can download torrents via a remote server, and then connect to that server via ssh, syncthing or sftp, which are all encrypted, and has the added benefit of giving you a shot at getting into private trackers, if you ever snag an open invite, where having a seedbox is almost essential.
Are there free seedboxes? If they can’t afford a VPN, they probably can’t afford a seedbox.
I mean, I’m poor but can afford such things, I mean, $18 a month for a VPN+seedbox combo is well worth it for some digital freedom, and I could even go cheaper if I wanted less features. The seedbox alone is just $8 CAD a month, so I mean, it’s not crazy expensive.
Is that less expensive than a VPN?
No.
I figured.
I use proton and our local laundry-mats; they have open WIFI…and you can get your laundry done while waiting for the torrent to finish
