Pirate Bay Ordered Shut Down... Almost An Entire Day

The Pirate Bay has long been one of the most popular public torrent trackers on the internet. As a result teams of MPAA lawyers have spend millions of dollars, and numerous years trying to fabricate and exaggerate legal claims to shut down the pirate bay and similar torrent trackers. The Pirate Bay keeps a list of the more amusing legal threats here: http://thepiratebay.org/legal.

Through a lot of legal backtalk, and spreading their exaggerated, if not completely baseless claims, the MPAA finally won a case causing the Pirate Bay to go offline. They were not able to ban The Pirate Bay, nor get TPB's ISP shut down, but somehow managed to scare the Pirate Bays ISP's ISP to get them removed. The end result of all this MPAA legal positioning was that The Pirate Bay had to go offline for about 3 hours. After which point they returned with a David Vs Goliath mentality to show that a lot of money and a team of lawyers isn't enough to abuse the law and squash personal freedoms. The complete Pirate Bay statement is as follows:

Riding out the storm

We have, ourselves, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our Internets, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.

Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Ifpi and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the ef-nets and darknets, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Internets, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the baywords.org, we shall fight on the /. and on the digg, we shall fight in the courts; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, the Internets or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Anon Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in Cerf's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Signed;

The Pirate Bay Crew - Always when needed.

I am personally relieved to see the Pirate Bay is not taking these legal abuses lying down, and is willing to stand up to the MPAA and fight to keep torrents around for the future. If the larger public and private torrent sites don't fight these battles now, and spread the truth about how torrents really work to the general public, smaller sites will not stand a chance in the future. Allowing the internet to become as regulated and corporately controlled as current forms of media and information would be a huge blow to every internet user.

Useful Tools To Improve Torrent Experience

Torrent files are commonly used to transfer popular media between users. There are numerous tools and programs I have found useful to enjoy the media I've shared through torrents over the years. I wanted to make a quick list and share these various programs with torrent world readers.

General Tool: WinRAR

The most common program you will need to open the content is WinRar. Large torrent files are often packed into multiple .zip or .rar files, in order to open these you need to use a program like Winrar, which knows what to do with those file types.

Video Tools and Utilities:

There are a number of useful tools that you can use if you are trying to view a video file. These range from helpful, to required/essential.

• Video player such as VLC or Windows Media Player.
• Gspot Codec Utility - This utility will identify codec errors, and inform you what codec you need to play a particular video file.
  
• The optimal Video and Audio Codecs - Follow this Guide to Codecs which explains why codec packs are bad, and lists the most commonly needed video and audio codecs.

Another video tool that is incredibly useful, is AVS Video Converter. This program supports almost every imaginable video format, and can transfer one file type to any other type. There are also loads of settings that you can set to either maximize conversion speed, or get the best quality possible.

DVD/ISO Emulators, Burners, and Other Tools:

The most common file format DVD files are packed in are .ISO files. The most common program used to read these various DVD formats is Daemon Tools. This program simulates a DVD drive, and treats the .iso file in the same way your DVD drive would read an actual disc. PowerISO is also common and quite similar, but I personally have little experience with that program.

A second handy DVD tools is the DVD burning program ImgBurn. As the name suggests, ImgBurn will burn almost any type of DVD file (referred to as an image) to a physical disc. ImgBurn is one of the best (free) DVD burning programs, and supports even top quality 8.5GB DVD+R DL Verbatim discs, are required for modern systems like blue ray.

DVD Decrypter is the final program in this category and is widely used by PC media users. This program allows you to backup or restore movies you own on DVD, and either change the file format to allow transfer to a hard drive, or save your personal DVD to a preferred storage device.

Hearts of Iron 3 released

Hearts of Iron 2 was one of my favorite strategy PC games of all time, and I am not alone in that belief by any stretch. It had a number of flaws, but due to the huge community of mod makers and scores of developer interaction and patches, much of these issues were improved upon years after release. This community interaction by paradox interactive is nearly unheard of in this day of PC gaming, and the fact that they continue updating all their titles, 4 or more years after release, is reason enough to be excited that Hearts of Iron 3 has finally arrived.

The Skidrow group has had a working torrent version of the game out for a few weeks now, but this is a game you really need to buy the full version of. If supporting the developers of a quality strategy PC game (not a strong gaming market) isn't reason enough to buy it, you should know there is already a 1.1 version patch out, and 1.2 is scheduled for release by the end of this month. If you don't have the retail version you will miss out on all these updates and improvements, which there will be plenty of knowing the quality update history of other Paradox Interactive games.

New Torrent Guide: Increase Ratio at Private Torrent Sites

My New Torrent Guide-Increase Ratio at Private Torrent Sites

is now finished. This guide gives multiple tips on how to increase and maintain a healthy ratio (or share rating) at many private torrent sites. Whether you are a new torrent user at a private site finding it difficult to seed back what you download, or are thinking of joining a private torrent tracker but think ratio requirements are unmanageable; this guide should provide you with the tools you need to increase your ratio. Also covered in this guide are the steps to uploading a new torrent using the uTorrent client, and the information should be useful uploader to be.

New Torrent Guide: Optimize uTorrent Torrent Client

Although based on uTorrent 1.8.3, the information in this guide will work for most of the top torrent clients. This client configuration guide is intended for the both new torrent users who are opening a new torrent client for the first time, and longtime torrent users looking for the best way to configure and optimize uTorrent. Using these settings will normally increase overall performance and speed up your upload and download rates.

Be sure to check out the other torrent guides in the Torrent World archive, or if you have a question on anything not covered just leave a comment.


New TorrentGuide

How IRC Can Help New Torrent Users Join Private Torrent Sites

- The latest torrent guide on my Hub, covers how to easily get invited to some of the best private torrent trackers. I think it is much faster and easier to get invited to a reliable and safe private torrent site than most people would think. Hopefully the reliability, faster download speed, and better computer security of private torrent sites will encourage more user to learn how to use torrents. Torrents one of the most effective way to transfer files directly between peers without waiting in the server download queues abundant throughout the internet.

Use IRC to easily join new torrent trackers

While not vital, it would certainly be helpful to know the information provided in these earlier guides before jumping into the torrent world. Titles should be self explanatory, take a quick minute to glance any you might not be familiar with:

Getting Started With Torrents - Understanding the Basics

Selecting a Torrent Client

Public and Private Trackers - Differences Best Choice

Madden 10 First Impressions Review

As I mentioned in my previous Madden hub, a new torrent of Madden 10 was leaked earlier this week. I had some free time to sit down and play a few games, and wanted to share my overall impressions of the new Madden.

You can get the full Madden review by clicking the Title of this post. I cover the new difficulty customization, player ratings, and new stats. Some minor annoyances and other negative thoughts on the new Madden are also covered in my review of Madden 2010. However, the most attractive and important aspect of Madden is the gameplay. Madden 10 doesn't disappoint in this field and I list all the details in my Madden 10 Review.

New torrent of Madden 10 leaked a week before retail release

I'm a huge Madden fan and own two copies of last years version. With pages of hand written in a notebook, I have been looking forward to Madden 10 eagerly. I played Madden 09 for a couple hours a day most last year, and thanks to the new torrent showing up recently on many sites, have the option of trying out Madden 10 before it hits store shelves. Many torrent sites have been leaked this new torrent over two weeks before the Madden 10 release date; making it the 4th year in a row Madden fans who torrent can begin enjoying the game early if they choose.


I am going to grab Madden when it comes out in stores regardless, and I encourage everyone else who uses this new torrent to support the Madden developers by renting or buying Madden after it is released. A lot of ground breaking features and improvements are unveiled in the newest version of Madden 10, and it is a good idea to encourage those who worked to deliver a game of this quality.

You can check out the IGN review of Madden 2010 here or IGN's HD Madden 10 video review if you just want the highlights and see game footage here. I will add my thoughts on how well everything in Madden 10 works once I can get a better impression in a couple weeks.

Common New Torrent Client Erros Remote Connections

My new torrent guide explains how fix the not connectable error that most new torrent users are faced with, and covers the most common causes for not being able to establish a remote connection. It is important to know how to check for this not connectable error, because the torrent client still functions but at a much slower speed than normal New torrent users may not know this low download and upload speed is not normal, and may go months without fixing this very common torrent. I used the uTorrent client as an example, but checking for this torrent client error is roughly the same in more popular torrent clients. If you don't know how to check whether you're connectable, or understand the importance of being able to establish a remote connection with every peer in the torrent swarm, this new torrent guide will detail everything you need to know.

The first of my advanced torrent guides, it outlines the most effective ways to configure your router and network firewall to avoid torrent client conflicts. Many modern computer components and programs come with a firewall which makes it difficult to pin point which firewall is interfering with the torrent client. port. I will outline the steps involved in port forwarding, and cover specific firewall settings for many popular routers and programs. In most cases these port forwarding and router settings will be all you need to fix your not connectable error, and begin using your torrent client fully.

Network firewall errors and how to determine if you are connectable

Public Vs. Private Torrent Trackers

This new torrent guide covers trackers. Knowing which ones can be trusted, and understanding the differences between public and private torrent trackers and deciding which site will become your new torrent tracker, is the most important decision you will make as a new torrent user. Using a tracker that doesn't have a healthy community and moderators to confirm the quality and safety of all new torrent uploads is a good way to download fake or harmful content.

list my favorite sources for torrents and detail the features and advantages of each. Even if you don't choose the same trackers I trust and use you really need to know this general information if you are a new torrent user. Knowing how to determine if a file is safe will greatly increase your ability o protect yourself and limit the risk of downloading dangerous files. Please either read this guide or someone some other guide if you are a new torrent user and don't fully understand how the transfers work.

New Torrent Trackers Guide

How to Find Torrent Client Best For You

This guide explains what a torrent client does in more detail. It describes what makes some clients more safe and user friendly than others, and should help any new torrent user pick the right torrent tracker for them. This information is intended to help you make the best new torrent client choice possible. I offer my suggestions on which to use and which to avoid. If you already know the torrent client basics or are in a hurry, uTorrent is the best choice for most new torrent useres. I recommend reading the specifics on each torrent client contained in my guide, but going with uTorrent is a safe bet.


Selecting a Torrent Client

Understanding Torrent Basics- Common Torrnet Terms

My first guide is up and it covers the basic terms you need to know if you are a new torrent user. It is very important that new torrent users understand the basics of trackers, clients, and how everything interacts to transfer information. Understanding these concepts will limit a new torrent users risk of downloading harmful or fake content.

Understanding The Torrent Basics

That guide can be found here

Torrent World Guides - Top Torrent trackers, Best Torrent Clients, Torrents Archive Updated Constantly

Torrent World is my new torrent blog intended to offer guides on how to get started enjoying the world of torrents. My torrent set up guide will introduce any new torrent user to the basic and most common torrent terms. Later I list popular torrent clients as well as suggest the best torrent client for new torrent users. Later I will cover public and private torrent trackers, and offer personal suggestions for anyone looking for a new torrent tracker. If you follow my suggestions and tips you will be able to pick the safest and best new torrent tracker for you.

My goal is to give any new torrent user all the tools needed to start enjoying torrents without risking their computer security. Once a new torrent user sees how effective, easy, and fast it is to transfer information through torrents they will likely begin using them as their preferred data transferring method. I have used torrents as my main source for television, gaming, and movies for years now; and hope my experiences with torrents can help both new torrent users and ones looking for more advanced guides.

Due to the amount of information I am keeping all new torrent guides on a separate site. I want to keep this blog as clean as possible and the posts here will mainly serve to inform the community when a new torrent guide is posted. I hope to be able to use this blog to stay in daily contact with the community, and answer any questions quickly.