Want to join LeechersLair? Final day of open signup

LeecherLair (LL) is definitely one of the better General/0Day trackers that are around. A few months ago LL underwent a URL change as the site was forced offline by the Malaysian government due to possible copyright infringement (without any investigations, as usual). We’ve refrained from posting the new tracker URL thus far but decided to go ahead with this article as the new location has been mentioned in almost every BitTorrent forum/blog currently in existence (in short, it’s not a secret anymore). For those interested in joining LL, the site is currently open for signup – if what we have heard is correct, today (1st of August) is the last day of open registrations.

LL is by no means a tiny BitTorrent tracker. It’s been around since 2006 and has amassed over 18500 active members as of 08/2009. The tracker currently indexes over 6200 torrents. Thanks to somewhat strict ratio rules (“please make sure that you seed everything to at least 1.1! or for a minimum of 48 hours”), most of the indexed torrents are in good health and have good download speeds (some with over 300 seeders).

As for the content, LL has all that a General/0Day tracker should have and then some more. In addition to Scene/P2P releases, they have the ‘LL Xclusives’ section which lists torrents totally unique to this tracker. There are some great packs online as well – some of these are shown in the screenshot below:

Site interface is user friendly and is not cluttered. Every major function is easily accessible via the left side panel. In addition, LL has the usual features of a BT tracker such as a bonus system, free leech, radio, live chat, forums (which are not that integrated to the tracker – you need a separate login) etc.

As mentioned above signups are currently open but this may not last for long. If you want to create an account, now would be a good time.

Site Name: LeechersLair

Signup URL:  http://bit.ly/Ff9n3

ScienceHD tracker open for signup

Wow ScienceHD is open for signup. There are only around 100 spots remaining so you might want to hurry. As we posted yesterday, SciHD has deleted a lot of inactive members. More than 3000 accounts have been deleted and the site’s user base has dropped from 5400+ to 1800+. The new user limit on the tracker has been set to 2000. Anyways if you love Sci-Fi (science fiction) movies, TV shows and premium documentaries related to science, nature, history, physics, etc, go ahead and sign up for an account.

Before signing up, please take a moment to read our full review of Sci-HD and see if the tracker has any real use to you. If you don’t plan on being active on the site, don’t even bother signing up – you’ll get disabled anyways.

Site Name: ScienceHD (https://sciencehd.net)

Signup URL: https://sciencehd.net/register.php

Related Articles

• ScienceHD – Sci-Fi & Documentary Torrent Tracker
• ScienceHD cracks down on collectors - Be active or be gone

TorrenTiT tracker – Open signups after 6 months

TorrenTiT (commonly known as TiT), a gazelle based General/0Day tracker, has opened public registrations after 6 long months. Although many are unaware, TiT has a long history as a private torrent tracker. Torrentit was originally known as 123torrents and was launched in 2004. They had a great run as a private tracker but soon ran into BREIN, the Dutch anti piracy group. In 2005 they lost the 123torrents domain and by mid 2006, the site was entirely shut down due to continuous pressure from BREIN. After a long wait TiT returned in September 2008, this time running on Gazelle codebase pioneered by What.CD.

TiT has opened their doors to the public several times since their return. However the tracker has been a closed community for the most part and it has not had an open registration in at least 5 months. As of 31/7/2009, TiT tracks over 880 active torrents and has a user base of over 3300 members. Hopefully the current open signup brings in more leechers as the site definitely needs more activity.

As mentioned above TorrenTiT is a general/0day tracker. They have the usual content you find on any other general tracker – scene and p2p releases. But that’s not all – TiT has a lot of packs and exclusive releases indexed as well. More than one third of the indexed torrents are packs – there are over 250 of them. These range from wallpaper packs, software packs, siterips, etc. Don’t believe us? Check the screenshot below:

Another point worth mentioning is that TiT has a very high percentage of filled requests (77%+). This is a great sign which shows the helpfulness of the community around the BitTorrent tracker.

As mentioned earlier signups are currently open. We do not know for how long they will remain open – get in now if you are interested.

Site Name: TorrenTiT (http://www.torrentit.eu)

Signup URL: http://www.torrentit.eu/register.php

ScienceHD cracks down on collectors - Be active or be gone

Back in last April, we featured a new private torrent tracker called ScienceHD. Specializing in Sci-Fi and documentary torrents, Sci-HD really was an innovative tracker. During the first three months since launch, the tracker has attracted more than 5000 users. However we all know that some of those 5000 users are folks who just signed up without really intending to use the tracker. And like all trackers do, Sci-HD had surely attracted ‘collectors’ who are frowned upon in the BitTorrent community. If you belong to any one of above mentioned user types, times has come to fear for your Sci-HD account.

Part of a notification posted on site homepage is quoted below. {ay attention to the text in bold:

In the coming weeks expect to see a vast increase in the number of new torrents available daily, including new and improved SciHD Exclusive's that you won't find anywhere else on the net. We also have several great new contests with some truly original themes and prizes on the horizon for our valued community.
However, in taking pause to examine our future, I am also officially announcing that by August 1st, any member below the class of Ph.D that has zero snatched torrents will have their account disabled, and their IP's banned for life. Our community has worked diligently over the last 3 months to bring thousands of torrents packed with quality content to the site. Any member who has thus far not found anything interesting here, simply doesn't need to be here. After the house cleaning, we will also be lowering our max users, which has been the plan from the beginning: To have a small, tight knit community of users emphatically interested in Science and of course our guilty indulgence of Science Fiction
Additionally, though it's not a hard and fast rule for us to ban users with inactive invitees, anyone with grievous numbers will certainly have their accounts reviewed by staff. I highly suggest encouraging your invitees to become active if they desire to keep their accounts.

So there you go, a life ban for inactivity. Some might call it a little harsh but IMHO that’s a pretty good way to filter out collectors and inactive members who just take up site space. And it’s unlikely that Sci-HD will have an open signup soon – take care of your account.

Related Articles

• ScienceHD – Sci-Fi & Documentary Torrent Tracker

SuperAntiSpyware 4.27.1000 Direct Download

Here is the latest version of one of the best Anti-SpyWare products on the market today. You might not have heard about this software before but SuperAntiSpyware (SAS)’s ability to detect and remove malware that slip through popular Anti Virus software such as Norton, McAfee and even NOD32 deserves a lot of credit. As I have mentioned several times through this blog, to get the best out of SAS you need to combine it with an standalone Anti Virus software such as Kaspersky AntiVirus. Let KAV do the real time scanning and if you notice anything odd with your machine, load SAS and run a manual scan. It’ll probably solve your malware issues in a single click.

Another great reason to use SAS is that it’s free. You don’t have to bother with expiring keys, getting blacklisted or having to search for cracks. Of course there is a pro version of the app but the free edition has everything a home user needs, including even unlimited definition updates.

Developer Description

SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition is 100% Free and will detect and remove thousands of Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, KeyLoggers, Dialers, Hi-Jackers, and Worms. SUPERAntiSpyware features many unique and powerful technologies and removes spyware threats that other applications fail to remove.

Download

[Click Here] to download latest version of SuperAntiSpyware from official server (Direct download – link auto updated with latest build)

Torrent Kids – A kids tracker with audiobooks, TV series, movies and more

There are two things most people don’t know about Torrent Kids (formerly known as humor-me) – 1. It’s the sister site of popular cartoon tracker CartoonChaos, 2. It’s open for public registrations even though the signup page asks for an invite token. As the name suggests, TorrentKids is a private tracker for kid’s stuff. They have children’s TV shows, movies and even audiobooks but surprisingly  no Cartoons. Cartoons are tracked by CartoonChaos, TorrentKids is for everything else kids related. To put it short, if you have a kid or if you love kids shows, you’ll most likely become a fan of this tracker.

It’s been a while since TorrentKids entered the BitTorrent scene. Ever since inception it’s slowly been building its user base which has now grown close to 500 members. Over 775 indexed torrents can also be found on the tracker as of 29/7/2009. Download speeds here are average – new users and some more activity would definitely be more healthily.

Torrent Kids, as mentioned above tracks kids torrents - TV shows, movies, audiobooks, e-books, kids games and more are available for the taking. There are some pretty rare stuff too, including VHSRips of relatively old kids movies and entire seasons of Sesame Street.

As specified at the start of this article, Torrent Kids does not require and invite to join, Just leave the invite token fields blank in the signup form and you should get in just fine. If by the time you read this signup have somehow closed, you could always ask for an invite on the official forums ( you’ll have to provide profile links).

Site Name: TorrentKids (http://www.torrentkids.org)

Signup URL: http://www.torrentkids.org/index.php?page=signup

Pirates crack Windows 7 RTM before official release

Sh1t has hit the fan again for Microsoft – pirates have managed to crack Windows 7 copy protection mechanism even before the OS’s official release. It’s nothing surprising though – everybody knew this was going to happen and it was just a question of when. Well that nagging question has now been answered. Windows 7 Ultimate RTM build 7600.16385 (which was leaked a few days ago) has been cracked and this time it’s not with a time stopper hack or a trial period re-arm workaround – the new exploit makes use of Microsoft’s OEM activation 2.1 to bypass WGA and pre activate illegitimate copies of Windows 7 even in offline mode.

They key used for activation seems to have leaked through a Chinese OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) distribution partner. As we Tweeted a few days ago, several OEM product keys were leaked online but these were immediately blocked by Microsoft so online activation was not possible. However it does not matter if the keys are blocked or not with the latest hack – activation bypass happens offline. The leaked DVD image gives pirates access to OEM-SLP (System-Locked Pre-installation) product key along with the OEM certificate for Windows 7 Ultimate via boot.wim file. I wouldn’t go into much detail about how the latest exploit works but it’s something similar to those BIOS emulation cracks that were hugely popular with Windows Vista. The hack seemingly works only with Windows 7 Ultimate. Pirates wouldn’t complain though – it’s the most featured filled Windows 7 edition out there yet.

We wouldn’t directly link to cracks or leaked product keys for obvious reasons but it’s a fact that they are now all over the internet, readily available for download. It’s safe to assume that warez community will keep improving the OEM hack and eventually more easy to use versions of it such as one click activators and pre-cracked editions will surface, taking Windows 7 piracy to the masses. It would now be interesting to see Microsoft’s next move. Maybe they’ll come out with a completely new WGA mechanism that hopefully would not be too intrusive than it already is. Maybe they’ll roll out a hotfix to detect and disable the OEM hack via Windows Update like they did for Windows Vista (with minimal success of course). Anyways right now it’s Pirates 1 and Microsoft 0. The battle continues…

Full Contact Zone – Wrestling, MMA, Rugby Torrent Tracker Now Open For Signup

If you like Wrestling and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) other action sports events, you’ll love this site. Full Contact Zone (better known as FCZ) is a private torrent tracker that specialize in sports such as Wrestling, UFC, Boxing, Kickboxing, Rugby and more. A few months ago FCZ was accessible via www.fullcontactzone.net URL. This has now changed – the site somehow lost the old domain name sometime back but it is now accessible without any issues via http://fullcontactzone.tv/. For those interested in joining, FCZ opened public signups on the 3rd week of this month and they remain open to date.

For a specialized action sports tracker, FCZ has pretty good statistics. They currently track close to 1000 active torrents and most of these are well seeded/have good download speeds. A steady number of new torrents are added to the site daily as well. The exact number of registered members is not known.

Speaking of content, FCZ is full of media related to UFC/Wrestling/MMA and other similar sports (they even have Rugby and Nascar torrents) – site lists 18 different sports events in the torrent index. In addition to videos, several Ebooks and instructional which can be pretty useful for beginners are also available on this tracker. Following screenshot captures part of FCZ’s torrent index:

  

Public sign ups for FullContactZone are currently open. In fact, they’ve been open since the 15th of this month. Following notice is posted on site homepage which is about the current open signup window:

Sign-ups are open so if you have any friends who want to join let them know
But remind them to keep a good ratio (below 0.5 gets you into trouble, below 0.35 gets you in serious trouble, below 0.2 gets you a direct flight off the tracker) and keep your downloads seeded. We have updated the rule page to be more clear for everyone - and we may do it again to refine the amount of seeding time required by torrent sizes for example.
Seeding time is a requirement for everyone. So even if you have a good global ratio, when there are only few seeders on a torrent, you MUST seed it for 24 hours - or risk a warning / have your download rights taken.

We do not know when the signups will close. If you are interested, get in while you can.

Site Name: Full Contact Zone (http://fullcontactzone.tv)

Signup URL: http://fullcontactzone.tv/signup.php

Categories:

• Audio
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Boxing
• E-Books
• Football US
• Football World Game
• Formula 1
• Indy Wrestling
• Instructional
• KickBoxing
• Misc
• MMA
• Nascar
• Reality
• TNA
• UFC
• WWE

VideoSpirit – Free, lightweight video converter (RMVB, FLV, MP4 & more)

Stumbled across a relatively new media converter application called VideoSpirit today. Played with it for a few mins and it actually looked like a decent piece of software. VideoSpirit allows conversion between popular multimedia file formats. The app comes free of charge and does not take a lot of system resources.  User interface is simple and even a complete newbie can figure out how to handle the software in a matter of minutes. In addition, there is support for a wide ranging of multimedia formats including MP4, FLV, OGG, SWF, WMV and even RMVB.

Some of the major features of the application are listed below:

• Convert Video Files among VCD / SVCD / DVD / MPEG / AVI / DivX/ASF / WMV/DAT / SWF / FLV / 3GP / RM / MP4 / MOV;
• Extract audio tracks from video files;
• Extract images from video files;
• Smart and neat interface, very easy to use.

Video editing capabilities are supported but are only available in the pro version of the software (featured in this article is the ‘lite’ edition). One issue I had with the app so far is that it refused to start on two occasions (it threw a ‘could not load conversion library’ error). If this happens to you try right clicking the application icon and choosing ‘run as administrator’.

Download

[Click Here] to download VideoSpirit from official download page

NonScene BRRip-x264 and BRRip-XviD releases now on TorrentLeech tracker

Here is a news update from the hugely popular general/0day torrent tracker TorrentLeech (TL). TL have added two new categories to their torrent index - NonScene/BRRip-x264 and NonScene/BRRip-XviD. BRRips are nothing new to TL – they’ve been around for ages and have been downloaded by members hundreds of times. However the addition of new categories would make their presence somewhat official, more organized and easily searchable. NonScene/BRRip-x264 category currently (as of 27/7/2009) has 38 torrents under it and NonScene/BRRip-XviD indexes 175+ torrents.

Interestingly, a search on TL for keyword ‘BRRip’ returns a list of 850+ torrents. I can’t figure out why all these releases are not moved under the new categories. If I’m not mistaken all BRRip releases are non scene – scene groups have released BDRips but I’m not sure if they have released any BRRips at all. Scene XViD releasing standards 2009 do not mention of HD rips apart from the text quoted below:

HD retail may be used as source only if no DVDRip has already been  released (and vice versa). Such releases must be tagged accordingly (e.g. BDRip, HDDVDRip).  

Note that XViD encoded BRRips are not true HD releases. They are ripped from Blu Ray disks - just like DVDRip but using a Blu Ray source. BRRip quality is generally better than DVDRip and file size is usually larger( weighs between 1.4GB – 2.5GB in most cases).

Don’t have TL but still want to download BRRips? Look in BitTurk and LeechTurk trackers – both have a nice collection of such releases and both are currently open for signup.

Related Articles

• LeechTurk – Turkish Private Tracker With Blu-Ray Rips And Other Torrents
• BiTTuRK – Torrent tracker with BRRips, BDRips and other general content

iPlay tracker v4 launched – Now with a dazzling new look

More private tracker news – this time regarding the popular General/0Day tracker iPlay (not to be mistaken with metal.iplay.ro which is a music tracker). iPlay, which is arguably the most sought after Romanian private tracker, has launched the 4th version of their site. V4 is primarily about the looks. For starters  iPlay was never a bad looking tracker at all – however the new skins introduced in V4 kick ass and makes browsing the site a pleasure. Given below are two screenshots of the tracker running on new Starfall and Tyrian skins for those interested (signups remain closed btw):

Image: iPLay running on the new ‘Starfall’ skin


Image: New ‘Tyrian’ skin 

A total of four new skins have been introduced with the launch of iPlay v4; Tyrian, Starfall, Helios and Coagulate. Each of these skins completely revamp the user interface with custom category icons, and even the main toolbar. In addition to the looks, iPlay retains those great download speeds, good pre times and the massive torrent index of over 15000 active torrents. IMHO this is a great overall general tracker (keep in mind that seeding here is somewhat difficult) and is a site worth pursuing an invite for.

Please don’t post invite requests here.

BitMeTv site changes and unlimited invites via What.CD

Update: It was our fault this offer ended on What.CD. We should not have gone public with the info. We publicly apologize everyone who was affected, specially MusicalMind on What.CD who got spammed by invite requests.

Original Article: BitMeTV is probably the best private TV torrent tracker out there. However with only one public open signup in the last three years, it’s a pretty hard tracker to get into. This article intends to keep you up to date about a few rule changes on BMTV. In addition, we intend to share news of an unlimited BMTV invites offer we came across on What.CD forums. To make things clear this is not an official invite giveaway – it’s done by a What.CD member on What.CD forums. There is no guarantee that you’ll get a BMTV invite this way but it’s definitely worth a shot.

Here is what MusicalMind posted on What.CD forums:

Hi all,
I have unlimited invites to BitMeTV and anyone who wants an account there just Message me your email address and that you haven't had an account before.. (If you've never had an account)
If you had an account there before and it's been over a year and it was disabled for any reason besides trading or cheating I will see about getting the account re-enabled and some compromise being met.
If it's less than a year, you can still message me and we can see what can be done.
If you can see this post, you've already met my requirements, so ... Message away.
MusicalMind

We’d rather not directly link to the forum post due to various reasons – if you are a member of What.CD you should be able to find it. Once again note that this is not a FILEnetworks invitation giveaway. We are just passing the news.

And it’s probably a good time to get into BitMeTV too. Just a few days ago they relaxed some inactivity related rules rules. Changes are quoted below:

A new user needing to use their account in 30 days has been bumped up from 30 days to 90 days.

Inactivity (a user needing to log in to their account via a web browser) has been bumped from 60 days to 90 days.

Parking an account has been bumped up from 6 months to 9 months.

Also the inactive disabling only affects the user classes under VIP. Which has always been the case anyway.

As of 27/07/2009, BitMeTV tracks 20500+ active TV torrents (including full TV season packs) and has an active user base of 19700+ members. Good luck on finding an invite through the specified method. Please do not post invite requests here.

Related Articles

• Free What.CD invite via IRC interview – How to get in

Sparvar : Great DVD & Blu-Ray Torrent Tracker – Invite Applications Open

If you’ve been a reader of this blog for the past two months it shouldn’t be news to you that SweDVDR got shut down spawning several replacements such as DVDRSource, SceneDVDR, TVSource and CareStreet. This article is about Sparvar, another new full DVD/Blu-Ray tracker that’s making waves in the sea of BitTorrent. Compared to other SweDVDR spinoffs, Sparvar has better content, better download speeds but is relatively hard to get into. Additionally, the tracker is growing at a rapid pace; within just two months since launch, Sparvar tracks as much torrents the TheDVDClub, the veteran DVDR tracker.

At the time this post is being written, Sparvar tracks over 4400 active torrents. Note that the browse.php page (denoted by “Nytt”) will only show you the newest torrents. To browse older torrents you need to click on the “Arkiv” link (which means ‘archive’). Even with a somewhat strict recruitment policy (coupled with closed signups of course), Sparvar has already managed to attract over 2100 members. However tough requirements to get in (ex- 500GB minimum upload in ratio proofs from most trackers) seems to have paid off - The user base here is one of the most active ones I’ve seen on a BitTorrent tracker. It’s not everyday you see torrents with over 100 seeders on a tracker that has less than 2500 users.

Speaking of the content tracked by Sparvar, both movies and TV shows can be found on the site. There are 6 main torrent categories defined; PAL DVDR, Custom DVDR, TV DVDR, TV XviD, Film XviD, Film HD, TV HD. Lots of movies in untouched DVD formats (DVD5/DVD9) and Blu-Ray formats are indexed. Check out the screenshot below:

 

Another great thing about Sparvar is their staff. They’ve got some pretty cool folks on board who do not behave like immature jerks. Best example is how they kicked a user from the support IRC channel (where idling is not permitted)

****** was kicked by ****** (A friendly kick in the butt. We prefer no idling in the support channel. You are always welcome back if you have questions or need support.)

And I can imagine quite a few trackers where the kick reason could easily have been “Fukc off noob”.

Anyways as mentioned earlier public signup for Sparvar are closed. However if you are interested in joining there is an invite application form online. If it gets approved by tracker staff, you’ll be invited in for free. Note that the app is in Swedish (so is the site interface). It shouldn’t be a problem for English speaking users since Google Translate is always there to help.

Site Name: Sparvar (http://www.sparvar.org)

Invite Application URL: http://www.sparvar.org/invitationform.php

Translated Version of Invite Application: http://bit.ly/JKJ93

How to attach the special code to your profile:

• This differs depending on the tracker but you can usually add comments or information to be displayed in your public profile via the ‘Profile’ option (on most trackers this is my.php page). If you have cloaked public profile display though tracker options, please make it visible to everyone before sending the invite application.

Special thanks to Clyde and rest of the Sparvar staff for the support given.

PasteBay – Free uncensored text hosting service from TPB crew

The word ‘uncensored’ seems to be attached with whatever service TPB crew launches – one of their recent projects, PasteBay, is no exception. As you might have guessed, PasteBay is a free text hosting service that is similar to Pastebin. Oh and yes, it’s uncensored. Although you can post whatever text you like to this service and share, PasteBay is designed with the focus of helping developers collaborate on debugging code snippets. If that didn’t make any sense, here is how it usually works (quoted from PasteBay FAQ):

1. submit a code or textfragment to pastebin, getting a url like http://pastebay.com/1234
2. paste the url into an IRC or IM conversation
3. someone responds by reading and perhaps submitting a modification of your code
4. you then view the modification, and collaborate with others
   End Quote.

Hope that cleared things up a little. One important fact that’s worth mentioning is that even if someone modifies your submitted post, the original is never changed. A new post is generated and you can easily compare the differences between original and modified version – a godsend if you are a software developer. However this doesn't mean you have to use the service exactly as described above nor do you have to be a software dev to make use of PasteBay. It hosts text and you can use it for your convenience any way you like (I.E. – you can even share SceneNotices :D )

Pastebay has several other great features such as code snippets highlighting, free subdomains, private pages, ability to password protect your text, post retention up to 1 day/1 month or forever, etc. The help page has more information on how to use these features.

[Click Here] to visit PasteBay

TorrentBits and FreeTheScene – Two 0-day trackers now open

With Pirate Bay poised to become a pay site, the focus is now back on General/0-day torrent trackers. For those of you who are seeking to join a decent general private tracker, here are two more choices TorrentBits and FreeTheScene. TorrentBits is a well established torrent tracker with a huge userbase/torrent index and FreeTheScene is a relatively new tracker that is based on Gazelle codebase. If it’s movies, games, music, software, TV shows or E-Books you are looking for, these two trackers will probably cover most of your usual requirements. As mentioned in the title of the article, both these sites are open for signup at time of this post.

FreeTheScene

FreeTheScene (FTS) has come a long way since the last time it was featured on FILEnetworks Blog. The tracker which only had less than 2000 users and around 1200 torrents back in January 2009, today tracks over 2200 torrents and has around 7000 registered members. Pre times and download speeds remain average. If you care about the looks, FTS now has six different working themes to choose from – some of which look pretty cool indeed.
       
FTS signups are currently open. All new members will receive 5GB free upload credit and 2 invites upon signup.
Site Name: FreeTheScene (http://freethescene.net)
Signup URL: http://freethescene.net/register.php

TorrentBits.Ro

TorrentBits (TBS, not to be mistaken with TorrentBytes – TBy which is also open) is undoubtedly one of Romania’s finest private torrent trackers. With a user base of over 50000 active members and over 21000 torrents (12000 active), TBS is a huge private community. Download speeds are generally very good and pre times are average. A few months ago TorrentBits V4 beta was launched with a revamped user interface but they seem to have reverted to V3 again. Screenshot below shows some of the many torrent packs available on this tracker:

TBS signup are currently open. However there is no way of knowing how many free slots are available. If you find the signup to have closed, check back from time to time since this tracker opens up at regular intervals.
Site Name: TorrentBits ( http://www.torrentbits.ro)
Signup URL: http://www.torrentbits.ro/signup.php

Windows 7 Ultimate RTM leaked on torrent sites (build 7600.16385)

This time it’s real and confirmed news – no more speculations. The Release To Manufacturing (RTM) build of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system has leaked online. Untouched ISO images of both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the OS can now be downloaded from various BitTorrent trackers across the world. There had been several different leaked builds of Windows 7 floating around the web for some time - some of these were mislabeled as RTM and some could not be verified as the official RTM build. However this time there is confirmation. How was this possible? With the help of Microsoft itself of course.

It was none other than a Microsoft employee who posted CRC and hash values of all available official RTM DVD ISOs on his blog on Technet. These values precisely match the allegedly leaked DVD images now being tracked by various public and private BitTorrent trackers. It couldn’t get any more real than this – Windows 7 build 7600.16385 is RTM and it has leaked online.

Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULFRER_EN_DVD.iso
Size: 2501894144 bytes
Date Modified: Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 17:32:44 PM
CRC: C1C20F76
MD5: D0B8B407E8A3D4B75EE9C10147266B89
SHA-1: 5395DC4B38F7BDB1E005FF414DEEDFDB16DBF610

Name: 7600.16385.090713-1255_x64fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso
Size: 3224686592 bytes
Date Modified: Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 17:40:25 PM
CRC: 1F1257CA
MD5: F43D22E4FB07BF617D573ACD8785C028
SHA-1: 326327CC2FF9F05379F5058C41BE6BC5E004BAA7

As we mentioned earlier leaked version is an untouched DVD ISO – it’s exactly the same as the one that’ll be released by MS and there are no modifications, cracks or activators embedded with the release. For those who are still unclear what an RTM build (in Microsoft’s terms) is, it’s an advance release given to PC manufacturers to bundle with their future hardware sales. In simpler words Win 7 RTM will have the same code as the final retail of Windows 7 that is supposed to be released to the public later this year.

Note: Please do not post/ask-for torrent or direct download links to any of the leaked images here. This post is for informational purposes only.

Animatoonic – Anime, Manga, Cartoon and Comic Torrent Tracker

Back in last April, we gave away 75 free invites to AnimaTooniC (ATC), a private torrent tracker specializing in anime, manga, cartoons and comics. Although it’s been almost four months since that giveaway was conducted, we still get ATC invite requests in our E-mail inbox. Well here is some great news for folks who longed to get into this tracker; AnimaTooniC is now open for public registrations (old news for those who follow us via Twitter). Open signup will no doubt attract lots of new members and bring some much needed activity into the tracker.

Even though it’s been invite only (with member recruitment mainly via IRC), ATC had managed to attract over 1300 members in the last three-four months. Over 1200 torrents have also been uploaded to the tracker during this time – pretty good statistics for a niche torrent tracker. However the site definitely needed more users as some of the torrents had low seeder/leecher activity leading to relatively slow download speeds.

It’s not only users and torrents ATC had been adding during the last four months. They’ve added several major new features to the site such as the Karma bonus points system, ‘Shows’ section, ‘Collages’ section and more. AnimaTooniC has gone through  a redesign as well (see how it looked in the past) and now comes with three working stylesheets to choose from.

ATC’s main content categories have not changed over the past few months. It’s still a tracker specializing in Comics, Anime, Manga and Cartoons. There are some pretty unique releases on this tracker including some of ATC internal encodes. An updated screenshot of AnimatooniC’s torrent index (well a small part of it) is posted below:

Since registrations are now open, you no longer have to bother with IRC invite requests. A notice posted on the site reads:

Open signups

Hello everyone, in order to be able to grow we have now decided to have open signups for everyone who wants to join. These will be open for an unspecified amount of time until we haved reached a certain number of registred users. So go on and tell all your friends about ATC!
NewComers Check The Rules Before doing anything. Then Say Hi!
ATC Staff

Note that sometimes the confirmation E-mail might go to the bulk mail folder (happened to me once with Gmail). If you are still having registration problems Join: #animatoonic-support on server: irc.p2p-network.net

Site Name: AnimaTooniC (http://animatoonic.org)

Signup URL: http://animatoonic.org/register.php

In case you are late and signups have closed, try the invites channel:

Server:irc.p2p-network.net
Channel: #animatoonic-invites
Direct Link: irc://irc.p2p-network.net/animatoonic-invites

CCFBits – Chinese HD torrent tracker with English releases

With all the censorship cr@p going on, one might assume that China doesn’t have any BitTorrent trackers at all. This is not true – they have several and today’s article is about one of them. CCFBits is the second Chinese BitTorrent tracker to be featured in FILEnetworks Blog (first one being HDChina). It’s a private torrent tracker specializing in HD movies, TV shows and documentaries. What’s great about this site is that even though it’s based in China, there are plenty of English releases uploaded to the tracker.

With 25000+ users and over 700 active torrents, CCFBits is a pretty large private tracker. Download speeds are generally very good and there are a lot of freeleech torrents around. That being said, CCFBits does not have the best interface around. Primary interface language is Chinese (with English labels for main functions) and the presence of Chinese characters makes the layout somewhat cluttered (at least for those who don’t know jack whack about Chinese). However if it’s the releases you are looking for, CCFBits is a great site to have.

It tracks both Chinese and English content - bulk of the releases are English, released by scene/p2p groups such as ESiR, CtrlHD, EuReKA, CTU, etc (there is in fact an option to search by group name). In addition, CCFBits is home to some huge HD torrent packs – for example there is a movie pack that exceeds 500GB in size.

Presence of Chinese characters in torrent name does not mean it’s dubbed in Chinese. All releases shown in the above screenshot have English audio.

CCFBits is currently open for signup. However we don’t know when the doors will be shut – it could be within a few hours or within a few minutes. This is a tracker that frequently opens/closes registration so keep trying if you couldn’t get in the first time.

Site Name: CCFBits (http://ccfbits.org)

Signup URL: http://ccfbits.org/signup.php

How to fix “The update could not be installed” error in Mozilla FireFox

This has got to be one of the most annoying errors associated with the popular web browser Mozilla FireFox. If FF encounters a problem when an update is being applied, an error message "Software Update Failed. The update could not be installed…” will be displayed every time you try to start the application. I was unfortunate enough to face the issue myself and luckily managed to solve it wihout having to waste a lots of time. If you are encountering the same issue, here are a few things you can try to hopefully get the problem sorted out.

Note: Before you try any of the fixes below please backup your personal settings, bookmarks and saved passwords.

1. Browse to Start Menu –> Programs –> Mozilla FireFox and right click the FireFox shortcut. Choose ‘run as administrator’ from the menu and execute. If it doesn’t work the first time, try 2-3 times. If FF cannot update due to insufficient user account privileges this should solve it.
2. Browse to C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Mozilla\FireFox\Mozilla FireFox (path is different in Windows XP). Delete the updates directory, updates.xml and active-update.xml files if they are present. Start FireFox. If FF encountered an error during the update process, this should clear the last update and start fresh from the beginning.
3. If it still doesn’t work, go to Mozilla download page and download the latest version of FireFox. Without uninstalling the existing version, execute the new setup. If the existing version is 3.X/3.5.X, newest version will be installed over the existing installation, clearing any update mishaps.

Good Luck!

Interview with vgmTorrents creator

Although BitTorrent trackers have grown in popularity, very little is usually known about their creators. Wouldn’t it be cool to know more about folks behind your favorite torrent trackers (as longs as it doesn't harm their security)? Techloid, a new P2P related blog has done something you don’t see everyday. They’ve interviewed Rosario (aka ‘hangman’), the creator of vgmTorrents – a private video game music tracker we recently reviewed. First part of the somewhat lengthy article is quoted below:

“Ahh, Italy. Home to Ferrari, Valentino, the Renaissance, The Mafia, Pizza, Leonardo da Vinci, Enrico Fermi and many beautiful women!
But that's not all. Italy is also home to Rosario, a game developer who lives and works there. Rosario is the creator of vgmTorrents, a private video game music tracker. After discovering his how-to on building a torrent tracker, we exchanged emails and sent him a bunch of questions on vgmTorrents, video game music, The Pirate Bay and the future of torrents and file-sharing”
[Continue reading at Techloid]

VIPMusic Tracker – First ever open signup, no invites needed

Big news folks. As we Tweeted earlier today, VIPMusic tracker has opened signup for the first time ever. If you don’t know what it is, VIPMusic is a highly sought after private torrent tracker specializing in scene released MP3 music albums. As you might already have noticed from various invite request threads on BitTorrent forums, this is not a very easy tracker to get into. Anyways this should be great news for English music fans as VIPmusic tracks a huge database of music torrents related to a number of different music genres such as Electronic, House, Indie, Metal, Industrial, Pop, Punk, Hardcore and lots more.

At a glance VIPMusic might look like a small BitTorrent tracker. This is only partially true - It’s user base is small when compared to other similar sites but the torrent index is not (registered user stats on the homepage are incorrect, btw). With over 25500 active torrents VIPMusic has one of the most content rich music libraries on the net.  

VIPMusic actually tracks torrents under 40 different genres which means it has something for every music fan. Most of the torrents are scene released material (by groups such as FNT, DV8, APOLLO, BCC, OMA, etc)  in MP3 format. This includes promos/advance releases. In addition to individual albums they have some awesome torrent packs which can be accessed via the ‘Collections’ menu. The following screenshot should give you a better idea on the content available on this tracker:

This tracker has a pretty unique interface which I found to be quite user friendly. There are separate browse pages for each music genre and the torrent index itself has a clean look to it. VIPMusic boasts a good set of features such as the ‘Monitor functionality (You can monitor certain Artists/Groups and the tracker will alert you when new releases by them are uploaded), bookmarks, freebies (which are similar to freeleech slots) and requests.

As we mentioned at the start of this article VIPMusic has never hard an open signup before. A notice posted on site homepage explains why the floodgates were opened:

2009-07-22 - ViPMusic open for signup.
We've decided to open registration page for the first time. Unfortunately there are many reasons for that: there aren't enough snatches and very little percent of users seed good 95% of the releases what eventually causes many releases to die quickly, we're having a serious problem covering the servers cost (please take a look at the donation bar); These are the main two reasons.
The signup page is here. Feel free to spread the word around.
Also don't hesitate to discuss the issue in our Forum.
We would also like to mention that donations have been slowing down again since the start of summer. If you have any spare cash laying around please donate, and help this site continue.

Anyways we are not sure till when the signups will remain open. It’s always a wise decision to signup ASAP when you can still get in for free without begging for invites from strangers :)

Site Name: VIPMusic (http://vipmusic.org)

Signup URL: http://vipmusic.org/opensignup.php

Related Articles

• SceneSound : New MP3 torrent tracker - possible alternative to SoftMP3
• Underground Ravers – BitTorrent tracker for hardcore music (unlimited invites)
• Vibes.fm – Ratio free Jazz music tracker open for signup
• ‘The Scene’ music BitTorrent tracker – Now a ratio free site
• MakeGreatMusic tracker – Audiobooks, guitar/bass tabs, sheet music, ebooks & more

SceneDVDR and CareStreet – Two new DVDR trackers open for signup

These days seem to be particularly good ones for fans of untouched DVD movies. More and more private torrent trackers specializing in DVD5/DVD9 movies are being launched and this article features two more such sites; CareStreet and SceneDVDR. CareStreet of course originally debuted as a scene MP3 tracker but they seem to have converted into a movie tracker overnight. SceneDVDR is also new and is only around one month old. Both these sites are based on the recently released source code of SweDVDR and have identical site layouts. Anyways considering what happened to SweDVDR, you can never complain about too many torrent sites these days. The more heads the hydra has, the better it is for file sharers.

SceneDVDR

SceneDVDR started out silently back in June and recorded an impressive growth in both user base and torrent index during the past month. The site which only had around 46 torrents and 160 members when we last featured it now boasts a userbase in excess of 2600 registered members and a torrent index with 370+ torrents.
 
As you can see from the above screenshot SceneDVDR tracks untouched DVD movies. Most of the DVDs tracked are released for the Nordic region – English speaking users need not worry since most releases do carry an English audio feed (check the spoken audio in torrent description just to make sure).
Site Name: SceneDVDR (http://www.scenedvdr.org)
Signup URL: http://www.scenedvdr.org/signup.php

CareStreet

Didn't’ see this one coming but CareStreet has converted from a scene MP3/Lossless music tracker into an untouched movie tracker all of a sudden (looks like SceneSound who had a head start as a Scene MP3 tracker attracted most of SoftMP3’s user base). Either way  CareStreet’s statistics so far are looking good with 132 movie torrent uploaded in the last few days. They currently have over 630 active members.
 
Once again most of the DVD releases found on this tracker are for the Swedish/Nordic region. Just like in SceneDVDR, an English audio feed is usually available in the DVDs with optional Swedish/other language subtitles.
Site Name: CareStreet (http://www.carestreet.net)
Signup URL: http://www.carestreet.net/freesignup.php

By the way congratulations to the Swedish Anti Piracy agency. You’ve managed to destroy one tracker (SweDVDR) and at the same time givenbirth to three more new sites. Way to go!

Some other DVDR trackers recently featured on FILEnetworks Blog:

• DVDRSOURCE – New untouched DVDR tracker based on SweDVDR source
• onlyDVDs tracker – Download full DVD movie torrents
• Filmdom – Gazelle based DVDR tracker

TorrentFetcher – Windows application for torrent search

When it comes to desktop torrent search tools, BitChe is perhaps the most popular. TorrentFetcher is a similar utility that allows you to search for torrents without the need for a web browser. It’s a simple windows application that can search for, display information about and even download the .torrent file chose from the list of search results. It supports category based search and search results come complete with seeder/leecher information, file size, date, etc. TorrentFetcher does not display information about it’s sources or where it searches online for torrent files. Most of the torrents I found in the app’s search results were either tracked by TPB tracker or the Demonoid tracker.

Features – Quoted from developer page

• Search through multiple pages of torrents at once.
• Automatically move downloaded torrents to a specified output directory (good for bittorrent clients that monitor a specific folder, like uTorrent).
• Automatically launch downloaded torrents.
• Know which torrent files you already have in your downloaded folder through automatic highlighting.
• Results highlighting lets you know if a torrent is well or poorly seeded or if it has negative comments left about it.
• Automatic detection and removal of "denis stalker" trackers using the MonoTorrent library.
• Minimize-to-tray option to keep the utility handy at all times.

Download

TorrentFetcher is freeware and is only 420kb in file size. You can download it from the link below

[Click Here] to download TorrentFetcher 1.02 from official server (Direct Download)

Megaups – General tracker open for signup

Ever since we started blogging about private torrent trackers, we’ve posted about no less that 175 General/0Day trackers (the total no. of tracker reviews exceed 400). Although some readers blame us for posting too many such sites, we have no plans of stopping anytime soon. Whatever we post, it all comes down to user preference which we’ve found out to be quite varied among readers. Anyways this article is about Megaups.com, a relatively unknown but large general/0day tracker open for public registration. There is a good chance that you’ve never heard about this site before but it’s statistics are somewhat surprising.

Megaups actually is one of the larger general trackers that are around. It has over 18400 registered members and tracks over 8000 torrents. This tracker definitely is not a ghost town when it comes to seeder/leecher activity. Some of the popular torrents have over 100 seeders each. What’s more, Megaups is not a foreign language tracker – the site is completely in English.

As a General/0Day tracker megaups mostly have torrents you can find elsewhere. Movies, music, games, E-books and even wrestling torrents – it’s all here. Apart from the usual P2P and scene releases, Megaups tracks something called ‘Mega Multi Collections’ – most of the time these are untouched DVDR movies on free leech and double upload. There are of course some exclusive packs indexed as well. Screenshot below depicts part of Megaups torrent index:

Based on TS Special Edition tracker script, Megaups comes with all the standard features of a private tracker. This includes a bonus system, requests, forum,lottery, radio, casino, integrated speedtest, etc.

For those interested in joining the site, it’s currently open for registration. The catch here is that it doesn’t allow free E-mail addresses –  your ISP provided email should work. And surprisingly, I even found Slopsbox to be working as well. However you need to delete a ‘;’ in the middle of confirmation link you get in the Slopsbox inbox for signup to work properly (otherwise it would throw ‘your account could not be found’ error). 

Site Name: Megaups (http://megaups.com)

Signup URL: http://megaups.com/signup.php

Categories:

• Anime
• Apps/Misc
• Appz/PC ISO
• Dvd Multi
• Ebooks
• Episodes
• Games/PC ISO
• Games/PC Rips
• Games/PS2
• Games/PSP
• Games/XBox360
• Linux
• Mac
• Misc
• Movies/DVD-R
• Movies/XviD
• Music
• MusicVideos
• Nintendo DS
• Sport
• VIP Downloads
• Wii Games
• WWE

FaceBook Photos Uploader – Upload images right from desktop

Here is another useful utility for FaceBook addicts. If you upload a lot of photos to FaceBook (like many people do), FaceBook Photos Uploader can save you lots of time. It’s a java based desktop application through which you can upload multiple photos to the social networking service without even the need for a web browser. Not only can it upload images to an album of your choice, it even includes support for tagging and captions as well. Since it’s a java based, the software is platform independent – it’ll work as long as you have a compatible version of Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed.

Latest available version of FaceBook photos uploader is v1.4.1.It now supports uploading a maximum of 200 photos per album.

Changelog

• Changed number of photos per album back from 200 to 60.
• Fixed problem with dragging photos onto upload panel in Linux ( issue 48 ).
• Added "Choose Photos" button to allow people to browse filesystem from within the uploader.
• The photo browser has gone, to be replaced with a panel which lets you drop photos or folders onto it.
• Minor UI change in about box

Download

This software is free and is only 4.5MB in file size.

[Click Here] to download latest version of FaceBook Photos Uploader from Google Code

Related Articles

• File Uploader 4.1.2 – Upload files to RapidShare, Megaupload, SendSpace & More
• Automatic image uploader for ImageShack and Tinypic hosting services

Underground Ravers – BitTorrent tracker for hardcore music (unlimited invites)

If you are a fan of hardcore/hardstyle music you’ll love this site. Underground Ravers (UR) is a specialized music tracker focusing only on hardcore music, music videos and a limited number of music related applications. Although it’s a relatively unknown site, UR has been around for more than three years and actually has a long history. Underground Ravers has always been a tracker that preferred secrecy – however it is now seeking more members to expand its user base. Tracker admins have been kind enough to give an exclusive signup key for FILEnetworks Blog readers which will support an unlimited number of registrations during a limited period of time.

Underground Ravers was launched back in mid 2006 – It was started as a replacement for Ravetracker, which shut down due to legal threats on the same year (Ravetracker itself was started after happy2bhardcore was shut down). Since then UR has slowly but steadily grown into a small community based hardcore music tracker. As of  19/7/2009 this tracker has close to 600 members and indexes over 1850 active torrents.

As mentioned several times in this article Underground Ravers specializes in hardcore music. Releases span across 6 main categories; live, tape, video, vinyl, CD, other and digital. Note that there are a lot of non scene user uploads on this tracker which are probably not found elsewhere. You can preview a part of UG’s torrent index in the following screenshot:

If you are planning to become a member of this site and is planning to use Azureuz/Vuze as your BT client, you might want to read the following:

Please DO NOT use Azureus/Vuze bittorrent client on this tracker. There is a problem with this client where it can double the stats you send to the tracker.
We recommend using uTorrent.
If you Azureus/Vuze then staff will not fix any ratio problems you may encounter. You have been warned!

Underground Ravers has always been a ‘secret’ tracker. Even posting tracker URL in public is usually prohibited (this article is which is approved by site admins is an exception). They currently have open signups however judging by the reactions in the shoutbox, this isn’t a very popular decision among the site’s existing members. However it should definitely be great news for hardcore music fans looking forward to get into Underground Ravers (EDIT: Already closed. Only way in is via our signup link).

Site Name: Underground Ravers (http://www.underground-ravers.com)

Signup URL: http://www.underground-ravers.com/signup.php

FILEnetworks Signup Key: http://www.underground-ravers.com/signup.php?key=FLNW190709

Note: This key is for FILEnetworks Blog readers only. If you are posting it elsewhere please link to this article instead of just posting the key – people who sign up should at least know what the tracker is about.

Special thanks to UR admins and staff for offering FILEnetworks Blog readers a chance to become members of this tracker.

Fix Bionic Commando (PC) 2009 crashes, unlock content & troubleshoot video issues

Bionic Commando has finally arrived for the PC. Note that this is not the previously released platform game 'BC : Rearmed’ we are talking about. This article is about the FPS that was released on the 17th of July. I’ve just installed the game, played it for a few mins and it doesn’t look bad at all. However if you are thinking of playing this with a Mouse+Keyboard setup be prepared to go through hell until you get used to the controls – everything seems to be optimized for the XBOX360 controller. That being said this article as usual discusses troubleshooting information for various audio, video and other technical issues you might encounter with Bionic Commando 2009 (and how to unlock content, of course).

Note that this article is a work in progress. More troubleshooting information will be added as we get information.

How do I unlock bonus content, additional skins and other unlockables in Bionic Commando 2009

It appears that Bionic Commando 2009 (PC) has at least three unlockable items; Prototype weapon, the purple matrix and retro skin. Right now we can tell you how to unlock the retro skin.

The retro skin is automatically unlocked if you beat previously released Bionic Commando Rearmed. However not all of us have the time to do that so let’s try a registry hack to make the game think you completed it :)

1. Launch the Windows Registry editor (in Start-->Run type regedit and press enter)
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Grin\Shared\
3. Once in the ‘Shared’ directory, right click on empty white space on the right hand panel and select New->String Value
4. Type db_retro_skin as the name and press enter. Right click db_retro_skin and select modify.  Enter e03ae879d5441029e52f31b33a4181de in the value field and press ok.
5. Close registry editor and start Bionic Commando

The classic skin should now be unlocked.

How do I enable Anti Aliasing (AA) in Bionic Commando 2009?

If you were wondering whether you can enable AA from the in game menu, well you can’t. The only hope is to force AA through your video card’s control panel. However I wouldn’t recommend this as the game uses the Diesel engine which does not like driver forced settings.

How do i disable the intro movie and splash screen from being shown every time BC loads?

Intro movie is very cool the first time you see it. But when it plays every time you launch the game it becomes a pain in the ass. Luckily you can disable both the splash screen and the intro through a command line parameter.

Create a shortcut for Bionic Commando exe on your desktop. Right click the desktop shortcut, go to properties and append the following at the end of ‘Target’ field.

• -nointro 
• -s

-nointro disables intro movie while –s disables splash. To disable both use –nointro –s

Bionic Commando crashes to desktop, hangs at loading screen or does not load at all.

This seems to be quite a common issue among many gamers but the actual cause in most cases seem to be related to not having the proper software required to run the game. Make sure you have the following installed before you run the game. You can also check this thread on official support forums which is started by a user with similar problems.

1. NVIDIA PhysX – Bionic Commando requires NVIDIA PhysX installed in order to run. If your display driver did not install PhysX automatically (some driver versions do not), you can manually download and install the PhysX system software from here.
2. Updated version of DirectX – If you are using Windows XP, please update to the latest DirectX monthly runtime. This will get rid of all the ‘missing dll file’ errors and will reduce the possibility of in game crashes. Latest monthly runtime can be found here.
3. Update Video card drivers – Both NVIDIA and ATI have recent video drivers out – you should always try updating to the latest official driver version available for your hardware for best performance. If anything goes wrong, the option to rollback to previous release is always there.
   ATI Drivers: Download the latest ATI Catalyst drivers from this link: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
   NVIDIA Drivers: Download latest official NVIDIA drivers from this link: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
   For Beta ATI/NVIDIA drivers for Windows 7, XP and Vista, check out this page: http://downloads.guru3d.com/. If you are having video issues with official drivers, do not hesistate to give beta drivers a go. They are not always evil as the sound like.
4. Update sound card and motherboard drivers - Click Here to download 3DP Chip for Windows Vista/XP – This program will automatically detect your hardware (video card, sound card and motherboard) and find available driver updates.

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