RDS-Zone – Private torrent tracker for general content (Open signups)

We have reported about a number of private torrent trackers based in Romania but those guys seem to have an endless supply of new trackers. Having said that, RDS Zone is not exactly a brand new BitTorrent tracker – it has been around for several months but we somehow managed to miss it in our open signup updates. RDS Zone is a general tracker which has movies, music, games, zero day releases and other content. Although the tracker is based in Romania, 90% of the tracked content is English releases.

One of the first things you’ll notice after logging into RDS-Zone will be the flashy user interface - like most Romanian trackers this site too has a cool layout. As said before RDS Zone is around 6-7 months old. The site currently has close to 7500 members and tracks 2300+ torrents.

In addition to usual scene and p2p releases, torrents exclusive to this tracker too can be found. These torrents are usually denoted by ‘rDs’ tag on title.  We found an impressive number of over 100 exclusive torrents and packs on RDS Zone – some of these however were not well seeded.

RDS Zone is another private tracker which has the ‘Crazy Hour’ feature ; the site is placed in global free leech and a 3X upload multiplier is applied to all torrents during a randomly selected hour every day. A seed bonus system is also present on this tracker.

Public signups for RDS Zone are currently open. If you are interested, you can join and check the site out for yourself.

Site Name: RDS Zone (http://rds-zone.ro)

Signup URL:  http://rds-zone.ro/signup.php

foobar2000 0.9.6.4 Final download – Freeware audio player for Windows

We’ve talked about freeware media players such as VLC in the past – foobar2000 is another free media player that has often been overlooked in our previous articles. It’s a fully customizable audio player which supports a number of different file formats. One of the great things about foobar2000 is that it does not eat half your system’s resources – the software has very low memory footprint even when a file is being played back.

 

Core features

• Audio formats supported natively: MP1, MP2, MP3, MPC, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC / Ogg FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, AU, SND, CDDA, WMA, and more.
• Full Unicode support.
• Customizable user interface layout.
• Advanced tagging capabilities.
• Support for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component.
• ReplayGain support - both playback and calculation.
• Gapless playback support
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.

Download

[Click Here] to download foobar2000 from the official download page. Changelog, readme and other information too can be found here.

Free SceneRace Invites On IRC – Ratioless General Torrent Tracker

Back when we reported about the launch of SceneRace v2 and the tracker going ratio free, there was huge demand for invites of this tracker. If you are still looking for one, here is some good news. Visit the ScR IRC channel and you will easily be able to obtain a free invitation, directly from tracker staff. In case you don’t know what it is, SceneRace is a general/0day private torrent site that runs on the Gazelle codebase. Since the launch of ScR V2, the site’s ratio system has been removed and ScR is now effectively a ratio free private tracker.

In addition to the many new improvements introduced in ScR V2, new features are continuously being added to SceneRace by its coders. One such addition is ‘Otto’ – a bot that can automatically upload zero day releases to the tracker.

Thanks to your support and heroic work by our newest developer, OTTO is finally here!
He's uploading stuff as we speak, although some categories will be temporarily excluded as we cycle through to find what gets hits and how much bandwidth each category uses.

Otto’s introduction will no doubt improve the site’s pre times and minimize the number of missing uploads since the process is now fully automated. ScR however needs more members –currently there are around 2700 users and 700+ active torrents. Some of the indexed torrents can definitely do with more seeder/leecher activity. Anyways let’s get back to the topic of this article – invites.

How to obtain a free SceneRace invite via IRC channel

UPDATED: ScR have added a web form for invite requests. You no longer need to login to IRC channels to request for invite (apparently a lot of readers were logging into their IRC after reading this post that it overloaded their server). Just visit http://scenerace.net/index.php?page=apply and apply for an invite!

Good Luck!

Thanks to Braiden for the heads up.

Related Articles

• SceneRace now a ratioless tracker
• Gazelle based private torrent trackers open for signup
• SceneRace – New general torrent tracker running on Gazelle

Pirates crack Wanted : Weapons of Fate + How to unlock characters & costumes

RELOADED are back with another cracked SecuROM protected title. This time it’s the licensed game of the 2008 movie Wanted. Wanted : Weapons of Fate continues the story of Wesley Gibson after the event of the movie. RELOADED are a veteran group from the warez scene who are well known for cracking SecuROM (among other anti piracy measures). It seems that this game was using the regular version of the DRM and not SecuROM PA component – the part that enforces online activation.

 

RELOADED’s release consist of a full DVD ISO of the game, a cracked executable and the release NFO. It has already leaked all over the place, including onto private torrent trackers:

[ Wanted.Weapons.Of.Fate-RELOADED ] [ Uploaded first SCC 2m 58s after pre, followed by [ ScT, GFT, TV, PTM, TL, NT, TGB, HT, SCL, TD, THB, RBy, TB, CT ] ]

Source: Torrent-Racers IRC Channel

Unlockable characters and costumes

The following unlockable characters and costumes are available in the XBOX360 version of the game. They can be unlocked using the following code/effect. It is unknown if they still work on the PC version (worth a shot):

• Wesley - Starting Outfit / Playable Through Story
• Wesley Special Suit - Unlocked with Code 01100001
• Wesley Special Suit without Mask - Unlocked with Code 01000011
• Cross - Playable Through Story / Unlocked with Code 01010100
• The Immortal - Beat the Game
• The Original Spider - Beat the Spider Boss Battle
• Janice - Unlocked with Code 01000100
• Nightmare - Beat the game on Close Combat mode
• Airplane Bodyguard - Beat the game on Headshot Mode / Unlocked with Code 01010111

Related Articles

• How to find which DRM or copy protection mechanism is used by PC games & software

NVIDIA ForceWare 182.47 Drivers Direct Download (XP/Vista)

We bring you news of another brand new NVIDIA beta driver release – NVIDIA have released the ForceWare drivers v.182.47 although the official download page is not yet updated.  v182.47 is almost identical to 182.46 (another internal build) and features OpenGL 3.1 and GLSL 1.40 on G80 GeForce based graphics cards. Drivers were released for both Microsoft Windows XP and Vista Operating systems. Note that this driver build does not come with bundled PhysX software.

Note that if you need to download NVIDIA PhysX software seperately you can do so for free via this link. If you already have a PhysX version installed, new driver setup will continue to use that particular installation.

Download

Direct download links for v182.47 are given below. All links point to official NVIDIA servers – no 3rd party links have been provided.

• Windows Vista 32-bit
• Windows Vista 64-bit
• Windows XP 32-bit
• Windows XP 64-bit

RoTorrent – General/0Day torrents tracker signups open

After posting several niche torrent trackers in the last few days, today we have a General/0Day tracker. RoTorrent (RoT) is a Romanian private tracker which has lots of English scene and p2p releases. This includes movies, music, mobile appz, E-books, games and other general content. RoT is a relatively new site which has only been around for several months but a nice little community of BitTorrent users has already been formed around this tracker.

One of the first things you’ll notice with RoTorrent is that it has four different torrent indexes (browse pages);  One for general content, one for adult content, one for music and another for mobile content. Altogether around 1200 active torrents are currently being tracked by RoT.

Speaking of the content, RoT tracks the usual stuff that can be found on most general trackers. They however do have quite a few exclusive releases and packs in addition to common scene and p2p releases. Note that most of the DVDR releases on this tracker contain the ‘RoSub’ tag on title – this only means that release comes with optional Romanian subtitles, not that it’s dubbed in Romanian.

As you can see from the above screenshot, most of the packs on RoT have free leech and double upload enabled – these torrents are perfect for ratio building. Pre times and download speeds on RoT are average.

Another positive fact about RoT is that it seems to be managed by the right people. I’ve seen one of the admins taking the trouble to gather user opinions & feedback on how the tracker could be improved, etc on various BitTorrent forums. Having an admin who takes user opinions seriously is always a good thing for a private tracker.

If you are interested, the site is currently open for registrations. It was closed to the public some time ago and there is no guarantee till when the open signups will continue. Check it out.

Site Name: RoTorrent (http://www.rotorrent.ro)

Signup URL: http://www.rotorrent.ro/signup.php

Fallout 3 The Pitt DLC Leaked – No Crack Needed

Another Downloadable Content (DLC) pack for Fallout 3 has been leaked on BitTorrent. The Pitt is the second DLC for last year’s hit RPG title Fallout 3 (first one was Operation Anchorage, which too was leaked by the scene). DLC for Fallout 3 are available exclusively from the Games for Windows Live Marketplace and users need to purchase the packs in order to download the additional content into the main game. However, p2p group THEPIRATEGAY have leaked the DLC files which can even be used on cracked versions of Fallout 3, enabling even pirates access to new content.

All three files required to run the DLC have been included in THEPIRATEGAY’s release – apart from these files a crack does not seem to be required. However in order to play The Pitt, users are required to have Fallout 3 update 1.4 installed (a mandatory requirement that applies to both cracked and  legitimate versions of the game).

How to get The Pitt working on Fallout 3 (Quoted from homepage)

You must play the game (have your character out and about in the
Wasteland, not be in Fallout 3's menu system) for a couple minutes for the The Pitt content to appear. After a couple minutes, a radio beacon and the quest line will become available.

What’s new in Fallout 3 – The Pitt

• Explore an entire new area - the post-apocalyptic ruins of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, known as The Pitt!
• Find and use new weaponry, such as the AutoAxe, a new melee weapon with a powerful, serrated rotary blade hungry for flesh.
• Discover new side quests and subtle plot elements and determine your path in this place where nothing is "right" or "wrong."
• Exclusive new perks and achievements!

Note: Please do not post torrent or direct download links for cracks, key generators or anything of that sort here.

Related Articles

• Pirates crack Fallout 3 : Operation Anchorage DLC
• Fallout 3 Mods – Where to download them
• Possible solution for Fallout 3 crashing to desktop at start screen
• Pirates crack Fallout 3 (English) DRM
• Clone DVD of Fallout 3 leaked before official release

Trading GFT invites? Think again..

Invite trading has always been a hotly debated topic in the world of BitTorrent. No matter how traders try to justify invite trading, the number of private torrent trackers and BitTorrent communities that prohibit this practice are increasing by the day. Latest tracker to join the ‘no trading’ club is GFT – a ratio free private tracker that has risen to popularity in a short period of time. GFT now has new rules against invite selling/trading and as per them the entire invite tree of a known trader can be banned by tracker staff.

The following news post is quoted from the GFT homepage:

would everyone please be very aware and very careful when giving people an invite make sure you know them very well and that they are completely trustworthy because if this is not the case and your invitee is found to be a trader/seller this will be reflected back down the invite tree to you and will result in not only your invitee being banned but also yourself

The invites section on GFT FAQ is also updated to reflect the new rules:

How do I get Invites?
You have to donate to get invites.

Who can I give my invites to?
You can give them to people you trust, if the user you invite does something wrong, your account may be disabled.

Can I sell my invites to other people?
No, you can not sell your invites to others.

Can I donate with my friends money so he can get an Invite?
Yes you can, but remeber, your friend is your responsibility.

Since we’ve posted news of several GFT IRC invite giveaways before, we know that a lot of FILEnetworks Blog readers are members of this great tracker. If you are thinking of trading GFT invites, think again – it could be the last thing you do before getting banned :p

Wheelman trainer with 11 options - Download

You probably already know about the release of Vin Diesel’s Wheelman for the PC several days ago. I played it for several hours and honestly it was a lot better than what I initially expected. For those of you who are looking for trainers for this game – here is some good news. KelSat has released a cool trainer for v1.0 of Wheelman which has 11 options including unlimited life, unlimited ammo, unlimited stamina and more.

How to use it

Run the trainer while the game is running and press any of the keys below to activate corresponding effect:

Key	Effect
Numpad 0	Unlimited Life
Numpad 1	Unlimited Stamina
Numpad 2	Unlimited Vehicle Life
Numpad 3	Unlimited Ammo
Numpad 4	No Reload
Numpad 5	Unlimited Boost
Numpad 6	Most Wanted
Numpad 7	Never Wanted
Numpad 8	Freeze Timer
Numpad 9	Vehicle’s Nightmare
Insert	People Have No Mind

Download

Unlike some services that are online, you don’t have to have paid accounts to download and use this trainer. You can download it for free from any one of the locations below:

Links Removed

Note: This trainer is MULTI5 (compatible with ENGLISH/GERMAN/FRENCH/SPANISH/ITALIAN releases of the game)

PeerHub, PS2P, BiTTuRk and Demonoid Signups Open – 29 March, 2009

Saw four more private torrent trackers open for signup including the much sought after Demonoid so though of posting an update. BitTorrent trackers PeerHub (General/0Day), PS2-P (Playstation and PSP Games), BiTTuRK (BDRip/BRRip/General) and Demonoid (General – this in fact is semi private) are all open for signup as of 29/3/2009. To read summarized information including statistics and signup URLs for these private trackers, read on.

PeerHub
 
Site Name: The Peer Hub (http://www.thepeerhub.com)
Signup URL: http://www.thepeerhub.com/signup.php
Stats: 3500+ active torrents
Description: TPH is a decent general/0day tracker with some good packs. Full tracker review (somewhat old) can be found here.

BiTTuRK
 
Site Name: BiTTuRK Tracker (http://www.bitturk.net)
Signup URL: http://www.bitturk.net/signup.php (Click on English flag on top banner to translate from Turkish)
Stats: 7500+ torrents and an unknown number of users
Description: BiTTurk is a  General tracker with lots of BRRip and BDRip movies ripped by p2p groups such as D-ZON3, ALiS, PRoDJi, and FLAWL3SS. For full review including screens, visit here.

PS2P
 
Site Name: PS2-P Tracker (http://ps2ptt.com)
Signup URL: http://ps2ptt.com/signup.php
Stats:
Description: PS2-P is a Playstation, Playstation 2 and Playstation Portable (PSP) games and a Lossless video game music tracker. Has some unique content and a cool layout. For full tracker description including screenshots and available game categories, refer to this article.

Demonoid
 
Site Name: Demonoid (http://www.demonoid.com)
Signup URL: http://www.demonoid.com/register.php
Stats: 241000+ torrents and possibly more than half a million users
Description: Demonoid is a popular semi private BitTorrent tracker with a huge torrents database that has some truly rare content. They recently upgraded servers so site performance should be better.

Where to find and download Robin Hood (2006-2009) TV series torrents

Heads up - third series of the popular UK television series Robin hood has just started airing. First episode of season 3 has already been leaked on BitTorrent by scene group BiA (note that we are talking about the Robin Hood series that began airing in 2006). This series is aired in the UK on BBC One as well as on BBC HD. However thanks to BitTorrent technology viewers across the globe are able to enjoy the show. So far 38 episodes of this series have been produced – almost all of them can be found on public and private BitTorrent trackers for free download.

Following table summarizes which BitTorrent trackers have torrents of Robin Hood 2006 - 2009 series. Note that we have not provided direct download links to torrent files – you’ll have to search the sites below to find actual torrents.

Site Name	Tracker Type	Availability	Signup Status
BitMeTv	Private	Full season packs of season 1 and 2 with 10+ seeds, Individual episodes of season 3	Closed
Tvtorrents.com	Private	Full season packs of season 1 and 2 with 20+ seeds, also has 720p versions of the same with 2-3 seeds	Closed
Tv.Torrents.Ro	Private	Full season packs of season 1 and 2 with 8+ seeds, Individual episodes of season 3	Closed
The Box	Private	Full season packs of season 1 and 2 with 15-30 seeds, Individual episodes of season 3	Open
EZTV	Public	Full season packs and individual episodes of seasons 1,2,3 with hundreds of seeds, Lots of episodes missing	Open / Optional

Download WavPack lossless music torrents from WalVe BTSound tracker

Among the thousands of private trackers with General/0Day content, there are few small and rather unknown torrent sites specializing in specific niches – just like the the tracker featured in this article. Those of you who are interested in lossless music have probably heard about the WavPack format (WavPack is a hybrid lossless audio compression scheme that is growing in popularity – more info here). WavPack music is not commonly found even on the biggest music trackers around. This is where WalVe BTSound comes in – it’s a new private tracker that specializes in music in WavPack format.

WalVe BTSound is a relatively new private tracker which has Russian origins. Although the site is from Russian, majority of the content tracked is English music. Currently there are over 500 torrents on this site, most of which are music albums encoded in WavPack format (See categories below for music genres information). In addition to music, Walve BTSound has some DVD-VIDEO releases of live shows as well.

 

Note that the site layout except for the signup page is in Russian language. However, navigation should not be a problem even if you don’t know the language - the site follows standard private tracker layout (the second button on top toolbar “Обзор” is the browse button which is probably all you’ll need help with).

Walve BTSound is currently open for public registrations. Interested readers may create an account for free.

Site Name: Walve BTSound (http://btsound.net)

Signup URL: http://btsound.net/signup.php

Categories:

• Blues
• Classical
• Country
• Disco
• Drum 'n' Bass
• DTS-CD
• Electronic
• Folk
• Hip Hop
• Instrumental
• Jazz
• Metal
• Music Video
• New Age
• Other
• Pop
• Retro
• Rock
• Rock 'n' Roll
• Soundtrack / OST
• Super Sound
• Techno
• Trance
• Vinyl Rip

How to find which DRM or copy protection mechanism is used by PC games & software

DRM and various other copy protection mechanisms are commonly used in today’s software and games. According to most software/game publishers, such measures are absolutely necessary to fight of modern pirates. However DRM and anti piracy measures have become more intrusive in the past couple of years and are nowadays heavily disliked (or may I say hated) by many end users. So how do you know which DRM or anti piracy measures are embedded into the latest PC game or application you just purchased?

The answer is simple – use Protection ID. Protection ID is a freeware application that is capable of identifying over 100 various DRM and copy protection technologies used. This software is capable for detecting DRM such as SecurROM, Starforce, Safedisk along with a number of exe packers, exe protectors, PC game trial protections, malware cryptors, .NET protections, dongles, licenses, installers, PC/ISO protections, CD/DVD sector scans and more (You can see a full list here). Given below is a screenshot taken after running Protection ID on a GTA : San Andreas exe i had on my hard disk:

As in the above case, sometime the software is able to identified any cracks applied to circumvent the protection by various scene and p2p groups. To scan an exe with Protection ID, all you need to do is to click the ‘Scan’ button located on bottom left corner of the screen.  Notice the little icons on the left hand panel – those are useful little extra tools which can be used to perform additional tasks.

Download

This software is free and you can download it directly from the following location:

[Click Here] to download Protection ID v6.2.2 from GCW server

List Of Private Torrent Trackers Currently Open For Signup – 27 March, 2009

We are back with another collective open signup update – this post presents summarized details of 9 private BitTorrent trackers that are currently open for signup. Notable sites featured in this update include RmvBusterS – an RMVB movies tracker, POiNTX – a music tracker, ScareThe.Net – a Horror tracker, TTOKTV – kids tracker and several other sites including some of the new Gazelle based trackers recently featured on FILEnetworks Blog. If you missed these sites when they were posted earlier, here is your second chance for free registration.

RmvBusterS
 
Site Name: RmvBusterS (http://rmvbusters.pl)
Signup URL - English: http://rmvbusters.pl/signup_key.php?lang=en
Signup URL – Polish : http://rmvbusters.pl/signup_key.php?lang=pl
Stats: ~9000 users and 7600 torrents
Note: Rmvbusters is celebrating their 3rd birth day – 3X upload and entire site on free leech.
Description: This is a private tracker dedicated to movies and TV shows in RMVB format. To know more about this file format and the tracker, please refer to full review located here.

POiNTX
 
Site Name: Point X (http://share.pointx.ro)
Signup URL: http://share.pointx.ro/signup.php
Stats: 2000+ torrents and 4750+ users
Description: POiNTX is a music torrent tracker – a relatively new on at that. You may find more information and screenshots in this article. They’ve switched to a cool layout since our last post.

TheScene.Ro
 
Site Name: The Scene (http://thescene.ro/)
Signup URL: http://thescene.ro/signup.php
Stats: 550+ active torrents
Description: TheScene is another music torrent tracker that’s shown good progress over the last few months. For full torrent category details and screenshots, refer to this article.

PTFiles (ptf)
 
Site Name: PTFiles (http://ptfiles.org/)
Signup URL: http://ptfiles.org/register.php
Stats: ~3500 users and 2300+ torrents
Description: PTFiles is a  General/0Day tracker with a great community. They have something called crazy hours during which you get 3X upload and freeleech on torrents. More information about this tracker can be found here.

ScareThe.Net
 
Site Name: ScareThe.Net (http://scarethe.net)
Signup URL: http://scarethe.net/signup.php
Stats: 1140+ users and ~750 torrents
Description: Scarethe.Net is a Swedish horror tracker with English content. Full tracker review can be found here.

The Tao of Kids TV (TTOKTV)
 
Site Name: The Tao Of Kids TV (http://www.ttoktv.com/)
Signup URL: http://www.ttoktv.com/signup.php
Stats: 9700+ users and ~920 torrents
Description: TTOKTV is one of the largest kids trackers out there. Lots and lots of children’s TV torrents. More info here.

ICTorrent
 
Site Name: ICTorrent (http://www.ictorrent.com)
Signup URL: http://www.ictorrent.com/forums/register.php
Stats: 10300+ members
Description: ICTorrent is a new and promising Bollywood/Hindi/Indian tracker. There was a recent review of this site posted on FILEnetworks Blog – you can read it here.

World Wrestling Torrents (WWT)
 
Site Name: World Wrestling Torrents (http://worldwrestlingtorrents.net)
Signup URL: http://worldwrestlingtorrents.net/register.php
Stats: 4000+ users
Description: WWT is a Gazelle based Wrestling tracker. Full review can be found here.

JuicyBitz
 
Site Name: JuicyBitz (http://juicybitz.net)
Signup URL: http://juicybitz.net/register.php
Stats: ~575 users and ~60 torrents
Description: JuicyBitz is a brand new retro games tracker that’s based on Gazelle codebase. A few days ago we posted a full review of this tracker which can be accessed by this link.

Pirates crack Wheelman (PC)- SecuROM pwned again

Nothing makes me more happy than seeing latest DRM software get raped at the hands of scene and p2p groups. ViTALiTY, a group from the game scene have returned with a yet another cracked PC title – Vin Diesel’s Wheelman. Wheelman is a 2009 driving game published by Ubisoft (developed by Midway games). The game was released on the 24th of March in NA and on the 27th in Europe. Thanks to ViTALiTY, the game has now leaked all over the internet.



Unlike most recent games published by UBISoft such as H.A.W.X, Endwar and Prince of Persia, Wheelman was not DRM free. Instead, it included SecuROM v7.39.0005 DRM protection developed by Sony. Anyways ViTALiTY has made thing much simpler for pirates and DRM haters alike – their release contains a cracked executable which seemingly has the protection removed.

As mentioned earlier the release has spread everywhere including private torrent trackers:

Wheelman-ViTALiTY ] [ Uploaded first @ RBy 11m 51s after pre, followed by [ GFT, TV, TL, TGB, THB, SCC, ACE] ]

Source: Torrent-Racers IRC

Speaking of the game, Wheelman seems like a fun game to play. There are not many reviews of this game around yet but you can see some trailers here.
EDIT: Here are some of the problems that have been reported with this game. These are based on various E-mails we received and from information posted across various gaming forums:

• Cannot change controls and some display/graphics settings
• Stuttering or pauses on certain hardware configurations - even on some high end systems.
• Disappearing road bug - Sometimes when you are driving along a road, the road suddenly dissapears nad you fall in and die an instant death. No fix for this bug yet.
• Note that there is a fake release with the same name as VITALITY's circulating in various public BitTorrent trackers. Apparantly the installer of this release is a trojan downloader so beware.
  

Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows XP SP2/Vista
• Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2 GHz
• Memory: 2 GB
• Hard Drive: 9 GB Free
• Video Memory: 512 MB (NVidia GeForce 7900/ATI Radeon x1950)
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
• DirectX: 9.0c
• Keyboard & Mouse
• DVD Rom Drive
  

2GHZ C2D and 2GB RAM minimum for this game? Seems like a tad too high.

S.I.T.R’s new look and SCL tracker 3rd expansion phase

The past week was not that good for private trackers with major sites such TL and SCC encountering problems. Don't worry – this time around we have some good news regarding two popular private torrent trackers in the BitTorrent scene ; SmokingInTheRain (SITR) and SCL (The Clover). Smoking In The Rain has just upgraded to a brand new shiny new layout while the secret yet popular tracker SCL has launched it’s 3rd phase of expansion. Read on for more details.

S.I.T.R. Upgrades Layout

Readers of this Blog should be familiar with the private torrent tracker Smoking In The Rain (SITR). It’s a general/0day tracker with a good community that’s been around for a while. As we mentioned in our review of this site, SITR used to have a very dated, cluttered and less navigable layout. Fans of the site can now rejoice - SITR has just gone through a complete UI overhaul and it now sports a brand new look.

Not only does the site have a new logo but everything from category icons to main toolbar layout has been changed. There is a note posted on site homepage regarding the new updates:

WELCOME TO THE BRAND NEW SMOKINGINTHERAIN

Please take the time to look around and get to know things. There have been MANY changes and I am sure it will take a bit of getting used to. Please take the time to re-read the new FAQ and RULES and see the FORUMS for information on changes.
HAVE FUN AND ENJOY THE NEW SITE

SITR currently has around 5000 members and tracks close to 2500 torrents. If you want to become a member of this site, signups are currently open.

Site Name: SmokingInTheRain (http://www.smokingintherain.us)

Signup URL: http://www.smokingintherain.us/signup.php

SCL launches 3rd expansion phase

After about a month since their last expansion, SCL (The Clover) has launched the 3rd expansion phase in order to recruit more members. Under this scheme, existing SCL members are given several invites which are only valid for a limited time – members can use these invites during the validity period to invite their friends in.

A note posted on the site regarding the 3rd expansion phase reads as below:

Yes you read it right! SceneLife is expanding once again! With the new peer stats (made by you guys) the new users should have more then enough content available! and hopefully they will join us in the community part of ScL (forums and IRC).

How it works

• Cadets get 2 invites
• Privates and higher get 5 invites
• Start date: Tuesday 24th of March at 19:00 PM
• End date : Tuesday 7th of April at 19:00 PM

Rules

• You are responsible for your invitee!
• If we catch you selling, trading, or offering you will get banned No questions asked!
• Additional information can be found in our Rules section.
  All invites, ALL of them, will be removed after the invite round.

Make sure you read the rules (both expansion related and site rules) carefully.

SCL currently has over 5600 members and tracks close to 4000 torrents. It’s a community based tracker with one of the best looking layouts for a private tracker ever.

File Uploader 4.1.2 – Upload files to RapidShare, Megaupload, SendSpace & More

Nowadays one click hosting sites such as RapidShare, MegaShare, FileFactory, Depositfiles are hugely popular. The popularity of these sites have given birth to a number of tools associated with them in the form of hacks, automatic downloaders, uploaders, leechers, etc. One bad aspect of such tools is that most of these are either fakes, scams, malware or simply useless non functional software. File Uploader 4.1.2 is one of those rare one click hosting site utilities which actually does what it claims to do.

As the name suggests, File and Image uploader is an automatic uploader which supports over 150 file storage services including (but not limited to) Rapidshare, Megashare, Uploading.com, Sendspace, Megaupload and even YoutTube. If you want to upload a file to a one click hosting site, all you need to do is it open File Uploader, select the file, select the host and hit the upload button. The file will be uploaded and the download link will be generated – the entire process is automated and you are not required to visit the site on the web or fill captchas. You can even upload the same file to multiple one click hosting sites at the same time.

The list of supported servers is truly impressive. I did not have the time to check if automatic uploading to each and every one of these sites worked. Most of the major services including RapidShare, Sendspace, etc worked just fine.

Download

[Click Here] to download ‘File and Image Uploader’ from official download page. Virustotal report for FileUploader.exe can be found here – Don’t worry – this file is safe.

Note: To remove the 7 second nag screen window at startup and to enable a few non critical options, you need to make a donation.

TorrentLeech is Back, SCC uploads working

This week has not been that good for users of private torrent trackers. Two popular General/0Day trackers SceneAccess (SCC) and TorrentLeech (TL) were forced offline for quite a long time (actually they were down for only about a day – but in the world of BitTorrent that’s a long time). Those who were eagerly awaiting the complete return of these beloved trackers can now heave a sigh of relive – both sites are back online and fully functional once again.

Out of these two sites SceneAccess came back online about three days ago – however the site was having trouble with the upload function and as a result no new torrents were uploaded in the past three days. SCC’s upload problem now seems to be sorted and torrents are being uploaded at lighting fast pre times, as usual.

TorrentLeech which was down since yesterday has also returned. At a glance all major site functions including the tracker seem to be working:

There is also a news item posted on the site related to the downtime:

Due to a serious network related issue with our ISP, TorrentLeech suffered a many hours downtime. The problem is resolved now, and we are taking precautions in order to avoid such downtimes in the future. Because of a needed maintenance after that incident, there is a chance of a very small downtime (only a few minutes) in the coming day. Thank you all for your patience and we are very sorry for any inconvenience caused.

If you cannot access the site via www.torrentleech.org, try accessing it via http://89.248.163.198/. If you are using FireFox, you may not see the captcha – just enter your username and password and you should get in.

In other news dedicated games torrent tracker bitGAMER has also returned after being down for more than a week. Public signups are currently closed – if they open again we will update in our private trackers section, as always.

DarkForce – Gazelle based Bollywood/General Torrent Tracker

BitTorrent trackers based on the Gazelle codebase were a rarity few months ago. But now things are slowly changing – many new sites that run on Gazelle have been launched and several older sites such as FTS (Open) and Tehconnection have migrated to this new codebase. (Gazelle is a BitTorrent tracker script pioneered by What.CD crew). We present you another new BitTorrent site that is based on Gazelle – DarkForce is a private torrent tracker that tracks Bollywood content and other general scene/p2p releases.

Over the course of last few months we have posted over a dozen specialized Bollywood/Hindi trackers here on FILEnetworks Blog. If memory servers correct, none of these sites were running on Gazelle codebase – DarkForce is perhaps the first ever Gazelle based Bollywood tracker. Although we call it a ‘Bollywood’ tracker, it’s not only that. It does have lots of Bollywood stuff but I also found some general scene releases including English movies on DarkForce.

Note that DarkForce is a brand new tracker. It currently only has 450 users. The site trackers close to 700 torrents which is pretty good stat for a 1 month old private tracker. However DarkForce definitely needs more leechers and seeders.

If you want to become a member and help the tracker grow, signups are currently open.Site Name: DarkForce (http://www.darkforce.cc)

Signup URL: http://www.darkforce.cc/register.php

Two sites to check if a torrent tracker is really down

These days you hear a lot about torrent sites going offline for indefinite periods of time – several days ago SceneAccess (SCC) was down for around 24 hours and today another popular tracker TorrentLeech too suffered from prolonged downtime. One thing we have noticed when a popular tracker suddenly goes down is the increased number of E-Mails and comments posted by site’s users. Such responses are usually something similar to “what's up with [tracker name]? Is it down for you too?”. With the help of the sites posted below, you will no longer need to wait for others to verify this information for you.

1. DownForEveryoneOrJustMe (DFEOJM)

All you have to do is to visit http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com and type in the web address of the site you want to check. If the site’s servers are offline, DFEOJM will let you know. If the service is able to access the site, this too will be communicated to you. If DFEOKM is able to access a site and you cannot, there may be something wrong at your end (note – this is just a possibility) .

2. IsThatSiteDown?

http://isthatsitedown.com/ is another service similar to DownForEveryOneOrJustMe. This too lets you check if a site is really offline. Just like in the previous case, make sure you have no problems at your end if this service is able to reach a site that you cannot.  

Although we wrote this article with BitTorrent trackers in mind, basically any site on the internet can be tested using the two services mentioned above. Note that none of these services check the functionality of a web site. They merely ping the site’s host through their servers.

TorrentLeech temporarily down

UPDATE: TL is now back up. Read all about it here.
Popular private torrent tracker TorrentLeech (TL) has been down for nearly a day. The site’s sudden disappearance without notice has made some users nervous. Since the site was featured in our private trackers section several times, we thought of posting a brief update on the current situation. As per our information the cause of downtime is nothing serious – they have not been raided or been taken down. What’s forcing the site offline seems to be a fire at TL’s datacenter.

TorrentLeech IRC channel (irc://irc.torrentleech.org:7011/torrentleech) is not down and is buzzing with activity. The current channel topic is reads as below:

“SITE DOWN TRACKER DOWN - w00t sold TorrentLeech to Blizzard for gold,stop asking”

This is obviously a joke and was probably set up by a TL staffer who got frustrated by answering the same question again and again :p Anyways as it stands right now, it is only a matter of time the site returns. You can keep checking the homepage or join the IRC channel (which is public and does not require an invite) for latest updates.
P.S. – TL’s sister site PussyTorrents is also down, most likely due to the same reason stated above.

ChildBytes – Children’s Torrent Tracker Signups Open

We have talked about several torrent sites with kids only content in our Kids Trackers section before. ChildBytes (CB) is another private torrent tracker specializing in the same niche - it has lots of cartoons, kids movies, kids TV Shows, music, DVD releases of children's shows, games and many other content targeted at children. This doesn't mean that there is nothing here that adults can enjoy – for example some cartoons such as those Looney Tunes shorts have no age barrier :P.

ChildBytes currently tracks around 900 torrents and has a user base close to 2500 members. Considering the fact that ChildBytes specializes in a rather less popular niche (kids stuff), these statistics are definitely impressive. As for the content on CB, there are some rare gems indexed here – torrents of Timon and Pumba, Aladdin, Ninja Turtles, Looney Tunes, Flintstones, Popeye and a whole lot of other popular (but not usually found on general torrent trackers) kids content can be freely downloaded from CB.

 
Screenshot: Some of the torrent packs on ChildBytes

Screenshot: Categories on ChildBytes 

As you may have already figured out by the above screenshots, ChildBytes has a colorful, eye catching layout which is a perfect choice for a kids tracker. It not just the looks - download speeds on new torrents on CB are pretty good. Most of the large packs too are alive and seeded but there are several torrents without any seeds as well.

Public signups of ChidBytes had been closed for a while – they however are now open once again. In addition to open signups, the entire site is currently on free leech. If you are interested, now would be a good time to create an account.

Site Name: ChildBytes (http://childbytes.eu)

Signup URL: http://childbytes.eu/signup.php

DirectX 9.0c March 2009 Runtime – Redistributable, Standalone, Offline Installer

This is a very important update if you are using Windows XP to play latest PC games. Microsoft have released the latest DirectX 9.0c runtime libraries, updated in March 2009. It’s been quite a while since a new update for DX9 was released as the last one was released way back in November, 2008. Installing DirectX 9.0c March 2009 will ensure that you will have maximum compatibility with latest PC games, optimal performance and added reliability.

Although many people are unaware, the all too common missing dll errors when trying to launch new games (ex- missing d3dx9d.dll , d3dx9_25.dll, missing d3dx9_27.dll, etc) are mostly caused by an outdated DirectX version. Installing the latest DX runtime update should easily rectify such problems as well.

Download

You can download the redistributable installer directly from Microsoft. There are two versions of the installer available – the web setup which will download necessary files over the internet and the SDK which includes a full standalone isetup and more.

[Click Here] to download DirectX Redistributable 9.0c March 2009 (Web Installer) directly from Microsoft

[Click Here] to download DirectX Redistributable 9.0c SDK March 2009 full standalone installer directly from Microsoft

Yahoo! Messenger 9.0.0.2152 – Standalone, Offline Installer

Here we go the newest build of Yahoo! Messenger 9 is here. Yahoo! have released build number 2152 of the popular IM client to the public today. Just like in the last few minor version updates, there is no changelog associated with this release - details of fixes, enhancements or any new features introduced are unavailable. If you hate the web setup that can usually be found on Yahoo!’s official download page, we have some good news.

 

We have provided below the link to download the full, redistributable installer of Yahoo! messenger 9.0.0.2152. With this installer, no files are downloaded over the internet and you can install the program whenever, wherever you want. Just like the web setup, the standalone installer too is hosted on official Yahoo! servers – no 3rd party links are involved.

Download

[Click Here] to download Yahoo Messenger 9.0.0.2152 Final directly from Yahoo!

GameAccess – Games torrent tracker signups open

It’s been less than a month since we posted about SeedGames (Open) and JuicyBitz (Open), two new private torrent tracker specializing in PC and Console games. If you are a gamer, here is some more good news. GameAccess, another dedicated games torrent tracker is currently open and is accepting new public registrations (although the name ‘GameAccess’ is similar to ‘SceneAccess’, two sites have no relation with each other). GameAccess is a private tracker with Polish origins but almost all indexed torrents on this site are English releases.

GameAccess is a relatively new entrant to the BitTorrent scene. It’s a startup tracker which has close to 2900 members and 550 torrents. The site has recently undergone a few changes including the introduction of free download slots (DL), free leech slots (FL) and double upload slots (DU). There is also a great seed bonus system active on GameAccess through which you can buy free FL, DL, DU slots, upload credit or other cool stuff for points you earn.

As for the content, GameAccess is a private games tracker so expect to find all sorts of PC and console games, emulators, ROM and everything else related to gaming. One of the positives I noticed with GameAccess is that they seem to be one of the few private torrent trackers interested in tracking PC game rips by p2p rippers such as Skullptura, Synergy, etc. This is great because earlier the only good collection of PC Game rips I’ve managed to find on a private tracker was in Zamunda.

 
Screenshot: Some of the PC game rips indexed at GameAccess

Note that GameAccess is a startup tracker – they still have a long way to go if they are to compete with the likes of Blackcats-Games and BitGAMER but their start looks very promising. If you want to check the site out, signups are now open - you may create an account for free.

Site Name: GameAccess (http://www.gamesaccess.net)

Signup URL: http://www.gamesaccess.net/signup.php

Signup Notes: It took a while  for the confirmation mail to arrive. Anyways I was able to login to the tracker even without confirming the registration.

Free PreToMe Registration Key – April 2009

Pretome (PTM) sure is a popular private tracker. It’s been only 1-2 days since our previous exclusive PTM key expired and the E-mail inbox is already getting flooded with requests for a new one. As usual, Pretome administrators have not let us down – they’ve agreed to provide yet another free registration key exclusive to FILEnetworks Blog. This key will be valid for one month and an unlimited number of users will be able to signup with it during the validity period - no strings attached.

As you may already know, PreToMe is a large General/0Day torrent tracker with 29000+ registered members and over 22000 active torrents. A valid but often overlooked fact is that PTM is technically a ratio free tracker - there is no global download:upload ratio on the site. You however do need to seed each downloaded torrent for 60 hours or to a ratio of 0.75 (only one of these requirements has to be met, not both). Speaking of new updates, the whole PTM site is now on forced SSL ensuring added security. You might want to read the news update on the homepage since it contains some useful information regarding SSL.

Site Name: Pretome (http://pretome.net/)
Registration Key: 42b1819b83473e4c39452601e20b1ef4
Signup URL with Key: http://www.pretome.net/signup.php?key=42b1819b83473e4c39452601e20b1ef4
Validity Period : 23 March 2009 – 23 April 2009
Stats as of 23/03/09: 22000+ torrents and 29000+ users
IRC Channel: irc://irc.pretome.net:6667/pretome

Special thanks to Floxxx (PTM Owner), Alex and other PTM staff  for providing FILEnetworks Blog with yet another exclusive key.

Keep reading our private trackers section and the giveaways section for latest private tracker news and free invite giveaways!

Download South Park torrents from MrTwig (episodes and full season packs)

Are you a fan of the hit television series South Park? If so, you might find this article to be interesting. South Park is a popular animated sitcom which’s been airing for over 12 years. So far 183 episodes spanning across 13 seasons have been aired. The show has gained hugely popularity in the U.S. as well as in other countries across the world. It’s popularity is such that entire torrent sites dedicated to South Park torrents have surfaced. This article speaks of one such site, MrTwig, a place where you can download almost anything related to South Park ranging from episodes to full season packs.

Unlike most torrent sites featured on FILEnetworks Blog, MrTwig is not a private torrent tracker. It’s a public BitTorrent site which indexes verified torrents of everything related to South Park. This includes individual South Park episodes, full season packs, DVD releases, TVRips, movies, albums and other video clips. Episodes and season packs are available in several different video formats; untouched DVDR, XViD, RM (RealMedia), etc. Indexed torrents use public BitTorrent trackers such as TPB but most of these are well seeded and have adequate download speeds.

Individual episode torrents are well presented – the episode details page lists useful information such as a plot synopsis, screen capture, original air date and torrent download links for all available video formats of the episode. Since this is a public torrent index, registration is not required to download torrents. There is also no mandatory requirement to maintain a minimum upload:download ratio.

[Click Here] to visit MrTwig’s net. Check it out - you’ll love it if you are a fan of South Park.

3DP Chip 9.03 Beta 20 – Automatic driver updates downloader

We first posted about 3DP Chip about two months ago. Since then the article has been referred to in a number of our PC game troubleshooting posts – it’s been pretty damn useful. This is to inform you that a newer build of 3DP Chip is now available for download. For those of you who don’t know what it is, 3DP Chip is a software that can be used to automatically search for new driver updates for your motherboard, video card, sound card, Ethernet adapter and processor.

One of the best things about 3DP Chip is that it does not require an install – the application is portable and doesn’t install any unnecessary system files or startup entries. Just run the small 450kb executable and you will be presented with a list of hardware installed on your system. A single click on the ‘Driver’ button next to a specific device will present you the download link for the latest available driver update for that device. It’s pretty cool.

Download

The official download page is not yet updated with 9.03 beta 20 release. You can however download this version from FIleForum.

[Click Here] to download 3DP Chip 9.03 Beta 20 from SoftPedia (Link Fixed)