Long time readers of this blog may remember the name iTN (short for InspireThe.Net). iTN was a ratio free private torrent tracker which was quite popular back in 2009. Although the site was off to a good start, it unfortunately shut down after a few months, citing bad financial situation and internal disputes among top ranking members. There’ve been rumors of a possible iTN resurrection for some time and now, after almost a year since the shut down, the tracker has finally returned. Although the new version is dubbed iTN v2, this is a completely new project started under a different owner. Site has been rebuilt from scratch some similarities do exist between old iTN and v2, for example the ratio free bonus system based on total traffic. In addition, new iTN is armed with an automatic uploader bot and seems to be faster in indexing new torrents than its predecessor.
A formal announcement on the sites return has been posted on homepage:
Dear members , after couple of long months ITN is back. Current staff and lots of users have put a lot of work to make iTN rise once again. We have prepared for you a lot of surprises and pleasures that you will know soon. The site is equipped with AutoUpload system that fills our site with scene torrents. But we have also our uploaders and dedicated encoder group. We hope you enjoy your stay on iTN. If you have any questions or problems just join our main channel #itn or if u need come to #support. Staff is here to help you.
We first announced the impending launch of iTN v2 almost 5 months ago, when we were contacted by the site’s new owner. In his E-mail, he promised several new features for the upcoming site, some of which are quoted below (you can view the full article here):
- Old account will not be restored
- There will be no more credits - only total traffic
- New kick-ass bonus system
- New layouts (+ old layout)
- Tracker will be translated full in English
- New iTN will allow: scene, non-scene and homemade torrents
Almost all of these promises have been upheld in v2 apart from one minor glitch. The category icons set ‘Old iTN’ does not seem to be working. Anyways this is a non-issue, given the site has two fully functional visual styles.
Image: Part of iTN’s new torrent index, sporting the ‘Feel The Inspiration’ visual theme
Speaking of visual layout, you’ll notice that there are now two browse buttons on the main toolbar. However, clicking on either of these will show you the same list of torrents. At first, I though this was a mistake on the part of iTN coders but later I learned that this was indeed a feature. You can customize and map any specific category of torrents to the two browse buttons. For example, you can have browse 2 to open movies only while the first button showed all torrents. This can easily be set up from the profile page.
Just like the old site, iTN v2 remains to be a ratio free tracker – users do not have to maintain a minimum global upload:download ratio to survive here:
We don't have any kind of ratio system. We have total traffic system which means your upload and download amounts are counted as one. This definitely means the more you leech , seed and upload the more your position get better and higher.
However, this does not mean you can hit and run on torrents. According to site rules “You have to seed to a 1:1 ratio or for at least 48 hours within 11 days after you finish the download”. Leeching/Seeding a torrent will increase your total traffic amount. You can convert upload traffic into points through the bonus shop and spend the points to unlock upgrades for your account. Some of the unlockable options such as the permanent 2X and 3X upload multipliers are actually pretty cool. Note that you can directly earn bonus points too - Seeding will generate bonus points at the rate of 0.25 points per torrent, per hour. Idling on the IRC channel will generate 1.25 points every hour.
If you are wondering how to get into iTN, it is currently closed for signup. However, it does have official invites IRC channel open, through which you can request for a free invite. You will have to go through a short interview process and those who pass it will gain entry into this promising tracker. Channel details are as follows – do as the channel topic says once you are in:
Server: irc.inspirethe.net
Channel: #itn-interview
Direct Link: irc://irc.inspirethe.net/itn-interview
Help: If you are a newbie to IRC, please read this brief tutorial on how to join channels.
Special thanks to iTN staff for the support provided.
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