Private Trackers And How They Work

April 2, 2012 by
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Downloads, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

While portals like ThePirateBay, Kat.ph, isoHunt, Mininova and so forth, offer their services publicly, there are thousands of other websites that like to keep a low profile, comprised of small but strong communities of file-sharers. A LifeHacker.com article explains the “hows and whys” of this topic.

Imagine that you meet with your small but trusty circle of friends at a bar, and, while talking with each other and have a good time, you also share photos, songs, and all sort of digital information. Well, this is basically what a private tracker is: based on an invitation you gain access to thousands of exclusive torrent files. However, there are several rules that you must follow in order to be “accepted” by the private tracker and its users, but we’ll talk about that a bit later.

As for “How to get invited?” there are several ways: you either have a friend that’s already a member of a private tracker and can invite you, ask for one based on a short “interview process” or simply wait for the opportunity.

Most private trackers follow the same code (or as we called them before, rules) – it’s basically common-sense, rather than something imposed by the website’s administrators just for the fun of it – that you must follow. Let’s take them one by one.

The Ratio Rule: When you seed for a period of time the ratio goes up; many private torrents accept a ratio of 1.00 – meaning that you have an equal amount of downloaded and uploaded data. If you fail to contribute to the ratio, you risk having your account suspended or even blocked; however, you are given an amount of time before that happens.

The Invite Rule: While some private trackers offer you few invites just after you’ve created your account, others give them based on your activity. But be careful who you invite, because this will reflect on you later on if, let’s say, the person you’ve invited is not “worthy” of being part of the community.

The Upload Rule: Again, not everyone gets to be an uploader. However, if you have access to other private trackers or sources of getting material to put on the tracker your chances of becoming one are definitely higher. If that’s the case, you can usually fill in a form where you agree with certain terms and conditions – such as uploading high quality formats, following a certain pattern when uploading (like posting links to IMDB, high quality pictures to represent the uploaded content and so on) and wait for the approval. Another way is to write to the site’s administrator(s) directly, either by e-mail or private message.

Other rules may occur, depending on the website. Be sure to read them, regardless if you’re an uploader or simple user. In addition, most private and public trackers reward your activity, promoting you to let’s say “power user”. This promotion comes with certain benefits, such as using avatars, rating, and so on.

Why would I use a private tracker, instead of a public one? I don’t like rules that much, one may say. Well, there are many advantages, and we’re going to write about some. On one hand, you get access to out-of-the-oven torrents, such as newest episodes of your favorites TV shows, movies, games, music, etc. On the other, the quality of this content is significantly higher compared to a public tracker. Also, usually in private trackers you find more seeders than in a private one, and more seeds means higher download speed, an amazing feature if we consider that nowadays torrent files are pretty big (just as an example, a 2012 game could have at least 12 GB). Last, but not least, there is some privacy involved when talking about private trackers. However, you should not disregard completely your anonymity by relying solely on private trackers – make use of proxies, VPNs, etc.

So if you’re curious to try this alternative, we hope this article helped.

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