AudioGrabber 1.83 – One of the best CD Ripper software for Windows

I have come across many CD ripping applications in the last few years and Audiograbber definitely is one of my favorites. This is a great software that allows you to cleanly rip tracks from CD music albums with ease. Note that Audiograbber’s ripping process does not use the computer’s sound card unlike in other similar apps – it copies audio digitally. This leads to much less compatibility issues, increased performance and ultimately results in quality ripped music. Additionally, Audiograbber can normalize audio, remove silence and retrieve music album info from freedb instantly.

You can use an array of 3rd party encoders with this app which will allow you output music to a number of different file types. I suggest you use the LAME MP3 encoder (download here) if you plan to save your tracks in MP3 format – it’s an excellent combination.

Another great thing with this software is that it does not put a single file in your windows directories! No DLL's, OCX's, device drivers, spyware, adware or whatever else that messes up the computer. Not a single entry in the registry or win.ini. If you delete the Audiograbber directory it's all gone, that's it!

Download

[Click Here] to download Audiograbber 1.83 from official page (Edit- fixed link to point to FileForum hosted file as official server seems to be currently down)

GForces Tracker (GFT) – IRC invites will open on 9/5/2009

GForces Tracker (or GFT) is a private torrent tracker that has gained immense popularity over the past few months. This ratio free tracker is well known for it’s amazing pre times and good download speeds. GFT, being a private community, is almost always closed for public registrations. Getting into this tracker is not easy – invites are hard to find (they are given to donors only) and the site has strict rules regarding invite trading/selling. GFT however has several times offered members free invites via their IRC channel (as we reported before). Good news is that IRC invites will again open on the 9th of this month.

UPDATE: Looks like this won’t happen, after all.

Invites: CLOSED!!!!!!!! \o/ There wont be any invites in saturday most you can thank to Traders! We will be open when FST closes for good ^^

As we mentioned before, GFT hates traders.

Original Article:
Following is quoted from the topic set on GFT invites IRC channel:

Topic is ::: The GFTracker Invite Channel :::
Invites: 09/05/2009 12:00 EST aka 17:00 GMT :
Idle: Do Not Idle This Channel Until Then :
Note: Invites/Interviews will be done in PM only : Please wait till you are pm'd :

First of all don’t join the invites IRC at this point – there is no use since the invites won’t open till the 9th. Only thing you might achieve by joining the channel and requesting for an invite now would probably be a ban from the IRC server. Just hold onto your testicles till invites open up :) Once this happens, we will post an article with IRC channel addresses as well as step by step instructions on how to proceed to get an invite, as usual. Note that you may be asked to provide profile links/ratio proof from private torrent trackers that you are already a member of.

Sprink – Run YouTube videos outside your browser

Up until now YouTube videos were something you viewed using a web browser. However, with Sprink around, this is all going to change. Sprink is a standalone application based on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) which allows you to search and play YouTube videos without the need for an web browser. The application is in beta testing phase and is currently available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems. We have included download links to the April 2009 preview below – check it out if you are interested.

Make sure you have all the required software’s installed in order to run Sprink:

• Microsoft Windows 7 Beta (from Build 7000 - Build 7106) or Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 or above
• .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
• Adobe Flash Player

Download

[Click Here] to download Sprink version 0.677 (April 2009 Preview) – Direct Download

Digital Hive torrent tracker – Free leech and open signups for one whole week

Digital Hive (DH), a well established private torrent tracker, is celebrating its 3rd birthday this week. If you are a member of this tracker, you probably already know the good news – all torrents on the site have been made free leech for one whole week until the 13th of May. If you aren’t a member and is looking forward to get in, there’s even more good news - DH has opened registrations to the public till the 13th as well. Note that this is not a specialized tracker – DH is a general/0day tracker with movies, music, games, software, packs and other general content.

Digital Hive is one of the larger and well established general trackers out there. As of 6/5/2009 it tracks close to 8000 torrents and has an active user base of 15200+ members. DH is a pretty active place and is not a ghost town like some trackers – some of the more popular torrents have more than 150 seeders. Don’t forget to check out the Digital Hive FireFox extension which will enable you search the site right from within FireFox browser.

Speaking of the content on Digital Hive, expect a lot of scene and p2p releases to be available given that this is a general/0day tracker. There are however a lot of unique torrent collections; TV packs and movie packs. DH currently has around 70 movie packs and 175+ TV  packs. The screenshot below captures some of the movie packs on Digital Hive:

As we mentioned above Digital Hive signups are now open to the public and will continue to remain open till the 13th of May. Following is quoted from the official news post on DH about free leech and open signups:

Its that time of year again, Wednesday May 6th is DigitalHives 3rd birthday!
HAPPY BDAY DH!
As a birthday gift to all our loyal users we have set freeleech on -ALL- torrents until Wednesday May 13th! We have also opened the signups here to allow more people to join in on the celebration!
We will also be having contests through out the week, expect more news on this later today!
Thank you to all the Uploaders/Donors/Users who keep this place alive and heres to another great year!
UPDATE: There was a small issue with Uber Users still recording download stats, it has been fixed.
UPDATE#2: If you were getting HTTP500 errors they should also be resolved, update your torrents if needed.
//DH Staff

This tracker had been closed for the most part in the past year except for a few open signup windows which lasted for a mere few minutes. If you were waiting to get in, here is your chance – all new members start with 5GB free upload credit.

Site Name: Digital Hive (http://www.digitalhive.org)

Signup URL: http://www.digitalhive.org/signup.php

Thanks to ‘Chetan’ for the heads up!

ArenaBG tracker – Now with 0-Day appz, music and a brand new interface

We’ve posted about ArenaBG tracker here on FILEnetworks Blog before but our previous article is now almost 6 months old – it’s time for an update. For those who don’t know, ArenaBG is a huge private torrent tracker which has it’s roots in Bulgaria. It’s a lot similar to Zamunda.net in terms of size and content – both are huge trackers with plenty of torrents and users. Just like in Zamunda, don’t let the Bulgarian text in the layout fool you – majority of the content on ArenaBG is English and there is an option to change interface language to English as well. Since this tracker does not ban users for not having a good ratio, it is likely to be popular among those with low bandwidth connections as well.

ArenaBG has undergone a lot of changes in the past few months. The site now sports a brand new look with a sleek new interface. There have been some improvements to site content as well. New categories for 0Day appz and music have been introduced. With over 2700 torrents, ArenaBG’s 0Day section is one of the largest I’ve seen on a private tracker. Music section is also filled with lots of English music in WavPack, APE, FLAC (Lossless) and MP3 and other popular audio formats.  In addition to the new categories, ArenaBG continues to track movies, games, TV shows and other general content as usual. The screenshot below captures some of the torrent packs available on this tracker:

As we mentioned earlier ArenaBG is a huge tracker. There are well over 250000 members and it currently tracks close to 25000 active torrents. This tracker has a similar ratio system to that of Zamunda – ratio is only used for user class promotions. Users that do not have a good ratio are not banned unlike in most other private torrent trackers. While this should be good news to those without high upload bandwidth, please try your best to avoid hit and running (stopping the upload immediately after you finish download).

Registrations for ArenaBG are always open – anyone who wants in can create an account for free. Check it out – it’s a decent General/0Day tracker. Also, this site is also a good place to start if you are new into private trackers (migrating from public trackers maybe).

Site Name: ArenaBG (http://0.arenabg.com/torrents.php)

Signup URL: http://0.arenabg.com/register.php

Note: To change interface language to English, use the drop down menu to the top right corner of the page

REdownLOADED – New Steam games release group on the scene

Valve’s Steam content distribution platform was initially thought by many as the perfect solution to PC game piracy. However pirates eventually found ways bypass the protection and nowadays it’s not uncommon for Steam released titles to be leaked to the public. This article is about a new scene group called REdownLOADED who specializes in Steam protected titles. As you can see from the name, REdownLOADED seem to be inspired by the veteran scene group RELOADED. In fact, some interesting comments can be found in the NFO file of their first release The.Maw-REdownLOADED

Following are excerpts quoted from the said NFO:

note: This game is retail steam. We downloaded it. We made a winrar sfx installer copied it into a bin/cue and rarred like any iso release just like RELOADED does for all their steam games. If you nuke this homemade release you need to nuke:

• The.Last.Remnant-RELOADED
• NBA.2K9-RELOADED
• Zeno.Clash-CPY
• Wallace.And.Gromit.Ep.1.Fright.Of.The.Bumblebees-CPY
• The.Path-CPY
• Watchmen_The_End_Is_Nigh-Razor1911

and many more! Watch out for more redownloaded releases!

.

.

Greetings to RELOADED for making invalid valid!

Towards the end of the NFO, there is a personal greetings section which names several individuals. This IMHO was a bad idea because I instantly recognized several posters from one of my favorite gaming forums (they had used the same username in the NFO). Although this may not be a big issue, it could draw some unnecessary attention towards the members because REdownLOADED after all is connected to the warez scene. Anyways it’s always good to see a new group on the scene, specially a one that caters for Steam releases – good luck and stay safe!

‘TheVault’, ‘ThePlace’, ‘TheOccult’ and ‘TheBox’ trackers open for signup

In today’s open signup update, we feature four very special private torrent trackers; The Vault, The Box, The Place and The Occult. Although these are sister sites, the content tracked by each is completely different - The Vault is a business/money making tracker, The Place is a lifestyle tracker, The Occult is a Cult/Mythology/Astrology tracker while The Box is a British TV series tracker. All four sites have vast amount of content, most of which is very rare and not found on any other private tracker. We have provided screenshots and mini reviews for each tracker below – if it interests you, signups are currently open.

The Vault

The Vault is a private tracker that is focused primarily on money making (both online and offline) and business. It has E-Books, videos, audio files, text documents and various other media associated with business related topics such as SEO, money making, sales/marketing, money management, economics, finance, customer service, copywriting, management, leadership, investing, trading, stocks, E-Commerce, real estate, recruitment/interviews, blogging, biographies and lots of other subjects similar to these.

Site Name: The Vault (http://www.thevault.bz) 
Signup URL: http://www.thevault.bz/signup.php
Stats: 8000+ users and 17200+ torrents
Invites IRC Channel: irc://irc.thevault.bz:6667/thevault-invites
Tracker Specific Instructions for IRC invites: Yes. If you missed out on the open signups, please refer to this article.

The Place

The Place is a private tracker that specializes in lifestyle content. From Food, Drinking, Dancing, Health, Fitness, Seduction, NLP and Cooking to Magic Illusions, this tracker has a wide array of content spanning across over 13000 torrent files. This includes videos, e-books and audio files related to day to day human life.
 
Site Name: The Place (http://www.theplace.bz) 
Signup URL: http://theplace.bz/signup.php
Stats: 6000+ users and 13300+ torrents
Invites IRC Channel: irc://irc.theplace.bz/invites
Tracker Specific Instructions for IRC invites: Yes. If you missed out on the open signups, please refer to this article.

The Occult

The Occult is the newest tracker out of these four. It has some of the most unusual & uncommon torrent categories ever seen on a private tracker (Mythology, Scientology, Drugs, Shamanism, Astrology to name a few). As the name suggests, it specializes in torrents related to various cults, ways of living, religions, healing and so on. Media on TheOccult include PDF E-Books, DVDs, MP3 audio, etc.
 
Site Name: The Occult (http://theoccult.bz)
Signup URL: http://theoccult.bz/signup.php
Stats: 2680+ users and ~1250 torrents
Notes: Unlike The Vault, The Place and The Box, signups for this tracker have not closed ever since it’s inception.

The Box

Out of all torrent sites featured in this article, The Box is the largest and without a doubt the most popular. It’s specialty is British (UK) TV series including Entertainment, Sports, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Drama, Kids and many other categories. There is a huge collection of UK TV series available on this tracker, spanning across over 36000 torrents. The Box focuses on both old and new TV series.
 
Site Name: The Box (http://www.thebox.bz)
Signup URL: http://www.thebox.bz/signup.php
Stats: Over 70000 users and 36000+ torrents
Notes: Signups for this tracker are known to open and close at regular intervals. If you couldn’t get in the first time, keep checking.