Things you should know about private trackers
While public trackers can be nice in the sense that you can simply download whatever and not have to worry about ratio or seeding rules that also means that torrents are often going to be poorly seeded and a lot of content (if seeded at all) and a lot of content never make it to any public tracker to begin with.
Legal safety
Private trackers are safer in the sense that it's harder for copyright trolls or law enforcement to gain access to them but private trackers also tend to push people to seed more which increases the risk.
With public trackers you should definitely stop seeding right away once you have finished downloading but if everyone is doing that nobody will be able to download anything. Public trackers is a viable option thanks to people seeding against their best interest.
A private tracker being hard to access does not however mean that no bad actor will be able to gain access to it. Both OPS and BiB got exploited from a ghostleeching attack from someone looking to archive their content (resulting in loads of ip adresses being leaked).
Maintaining private tracker accounts
Different private trackers have different rules for maintaining your account.
Almost all private trackers will prune at least the lower user classes for inactivity, that may not be the end of your account right away but to get your
account re-enabled again you will typically need to contact staff via IRC (and hope they are actually going to re-enable your account).
There are sites (generally the better ones) where you can get immunity from inactivity pruning
RED: power user (5 uploads, 25GiB uploaded and ratio above 0.65)
GGn: pro gamer (1200 points)
Animebytes: power user (5 uploads and 10GiB uploaded)
PTP: power user (1 upload that has been checked, 80 GB uploaded and ratio above 1.05)
OPS: power user (5 uploads, 25GiB uploaded and ratio above 1.05)
There is also a minimum time for power user (or pro gamer) for all those sites but i am not aware of any site where that minimum time is shorter than the time before automatic pruning for inactivity. Thus even if you stop using the site before getting promoted due to minimum time rule you should still get promoted (while not using your account) before you are about to get pruned for inactivity (not something i can guarantee though).
I recommend uploading at least double the minimum number of torrents in the case some of your torrents get deleted for some reason.
Milkie doesn't disable any accounts for inactivity (as far as i know at least) so it's actually a bit underrated as a tracker.
BHD also let's you counts seeding their as activity unlike most sites where you actually have to login.
HDB: donation required for immunity unless you are "VIP" which is hard to get (a few uploads is definitely not enough). You are also required to download at least 1GB / week on average or risk getting disabled for not actually using your account (the freeleech doesn't count).
exoticaZ: To avoid account deletion you must login at least 1 time every 60 days, and you must download at least 1 torrent every 90 days.
digitalcoreclub. VIP required for immunity.
BTN: donation required for immunity.
No immunity available at all: FL, happyfabby, empornium.
Ratio and seeding time requirements
Almost all sites at least have minimum seeding time or minimum ratio.
On animebytes you do have to seed up to 3 weeks unless you get ratio 1 on that torrent but they do not count partial seeding so if you have not downloading everything you better have good internet or you might have to wait years to avoid getting "Hit & run" from not meeting their seeding requirements.
RED does not have any minimum seeding time for torrents you download but there you actually want to seed permanently since they have a "hard economy" where people are pushed to seeding/uploading to maintain their ratio or to gain access to desirable user classes. You do at least have the option to delete some of the stuff you download and you will not run into any issues for having only downloaded partially.
One redditor got banned from HUNO (shit tracker) for moving files to another location, it took too long time so he/she got too many "hit & runs" (stupid rules of course).
https://vintologi.com/threads/private-trackers.1515/#post-10361
The better trackers do not ban you outright for not seeding enough but you may still lose your leeching privileges preventing you from downloading anything more from the site until you have seeded more.
No H&R rules: RED, OPS, milkie, EMP, JPS, HDB, HDT, KG, SCMT, UHDBits, the geeks, PB, DB9
GGn does give immunity from H&R rules once you reach elite gamer or higher which is fairly easy to get.
Hard economy: RED, BiB, DB9, the geeks, etc.
I recommend prioritizing trackers with hard economy for seeding since a GiB uploaded to RED is a lot more valuable than a GiB uploaded to GGn.
It's also generally more worthwhile to upload new content to a site with hard economy, especially if there is a request there of significant size.
Trackers with hard economy is good for people who contribute to the site by uploading, seeding, filling requests while trackers with easy economy is better for freeloaders.
Regarding people who claim to sell account(s)/invite(s)
Of course most of the time it's a full scam, most likely you will simply be ghosted if you are stupid enough to pay them money.
But if you actually get an invite that way the consequences will be pretty brutal:
Generally people who are active on private trackers (uploading, using forums, etc) are going to be good users who are not willing to sell invites even for say 4000$ so the 'sellers' end up having to resort to outright scamming people or using hacked accounts (inviting as many people as possible and then selling the account before it gets banned).
How to properly gain access to private trackers
Best option is generally official recruitment with RED being the best place to start.
https://vintologi.com/threads/private-trackers.1515/#post-8343
You can also accept an invite if it's offered to you by someone you can trust (with no expectation of you providing anything in return) but even that is not completely safe.
Private trackers i can recommend from my experience
RED: Good music library and most requests get filled, also useful for software. Also allows you to gain access to most other good trackers by ranking up your user class.
AnimeBytes: Good for bluray remuxes missing on nyaa.
GGn: By far the best tracker for games.
Milkie: You don't have to do anything to maintain that account (if it even counts as a private tracker).
Note that i am not really into TV or movies other than anime so i cannot really review sites focused on that fairly (and i didn't join most sites focused on that to begin with).
Private trackers that seem good based on what other people have told me
PTP: Very large library of movies.
HDB: Good for TV and movies if you are an active user.
BHD: Easier to maintain than HDB but you have to put up with H&R rules.
MaM: Good for books (including audiobooks).
Those trackers also typically take a lot of effort to join such as by uploading 500+ torrents on RED and getting at least 500 GiB uploaded. There are easier to join trackers to consider (such as UHDbits) but have not done much research on those mid TV/movie trackers as of now.
I tend to focus on the top trackers and avoid lower tier trackers.
While public trackers can be nice in the sense that you can simply download whatever and not have to worry about ratio or seeding rules that also means that torrents are often going to be poorly seeded and a lot of content (if seeded at all) and a lot of content never make it to any public tracker to begin with.
Legal safety
Private trackers are safer in the sense that it's harder for copyright trolls or law enforcement to gain access to them but private trackers also tend to push people to seed more which increases the risk.
With public trackers you should definitely stop seeding right away once you have finished downloading but if everyone is doing that nobody will be able to download anything. Public trackers is a viable option thanks to people seeding against their best interest.
A private tracker being hard to access does not however mean that no bad actor will be able to gain access to it. Both OPS and BiB got exploited from a ghostleeching attack from someone looking to archive their content (resulting in loads of ip adresses being leaked).
Maintaining private tracker accounts
Different private trackers have different rules for maintaining your account.
Almost all private trackers will prune at least the lower user classes for inactivity, that may not be the end of your account right away but to get your
account re-enabled again you will typically need to contact staff via IRC (and hope they are actually going to re-enable your account).
There are sites (generally the better ones) where you can get immunity from inactivity pruning
RED: power user (5 uploads, 25GiB uploaded and ratio above 0.65)
GGn: pro gamer (1200 points)
Animebytes: power user (5 uploads and 10GiB uploaded)
PTP: power user (1 upload that has been checked, 80 GB uploaded and ratio above 1.05)
OPS: power user (5 uploads, 25GiB uploaded and ratio above 1.05)
There is also a minimum time for power user (or pro gamer) for all those sites but i am not aware of any site where that minimum time is shorter than the time before automatic pruning for inactivity. Thus even if you stop using the site before getting promoted due to minimum time rule you should still get promoted (while not using your account) before you are about to get pruned for inactivity (not something i can guarantee though).
I recommend uploading at least double the minimum number of torrents in the case some of your torrents get deleted for some reason.
Milkie doesn't disable any accounts for inactivity (as far as i know at least) so it's actually a bit underrated as a tracker.
BHD also let's you counts seeding their as activity unlike most sites where you actually have to login.
HDB: donation required for immunity unless you are "VIP" which is hard to get (a few uploads is definitely not enough). You are also required to download at least 1GB / week on average or risk getting disabled for not actually using your account (the freeleech doesn't count).
exoticaZ: To avoid account deletion you must login at least 1 time every 60 days, and you must download at least 1 torrent every 90 days.
digitalcoreclub. VIP required for immunity.
BTN: donation required for immunity.
No immunity available at all: FL, happyfabby, empornium.
Ratio and seeding time requirements
Almost all sites at least have minimum seeding time or minimum ratio.
On animebytes you do have to seed up to 3 weeks unless you get ratio 1 on that torrent but they do not count partial seeding so if you have not downloading everything you better have good internet or you might have to wait years to avoid getting "Hit & run" from not meeting their seeding requirements.
RED does not have any minimum seeding time for torrents you download but there you actually want to seed permanently since they have a "hard economy" where people are pushed to seeding/uploading to maintain their ratio or to gain access to desirable user classes. You do at least have the option to delete some of the stuff you download and you will not run into any issues for having only downloaded partially.
One redditor got banned from HUNO (shit tracker) for moving files to another location, it took too long time so he/she got too many "hit & runs" (stupid rules of course).
https://vintologi.com/threads/private-trackers.1515/#post-10361
The better trackers do not ban you outright for not seeding enough but you may still lose your leeching privileges preventing you from downloading anything more from the site until you have seeded more.
No H&R rules: RED, OPS, milkie, EMP, JPS, HDB, HDT, KG, SCMT, UHDBits, the geeks, PB, DB9
GGn does give immunity from H&R rules once you reach elite gamer or higher which is fairly easy to get.
Hard economy: RED, BiB, DB9, the geeks, etc.
I recommend prioritizing trackers with hard economy for seeding since a GiB uploaded to RED is a lot more valuable than a GiB uploaded to GGn.
It's also generally more worthwhile to upload new content to a site with hard economy, especially if there is a request there of significant size.
Trackers with hard economy is good for people who contribute to the site by uploading, seeding, filling requests while trackers with easy economy is better for freeloaders.
Regarding people who claim to sell account(s)/invite(s)
Of course most of the time it's a full scam, most likely you will simply be ghosted if you are stupid enough to pay them money.
But if you actually get an invite that way the consequences will be pretty brutal:
- The invite seller will get treebanned
- The invite seller will get blacklisted from pretty much all private trackers (at least all the good ones).
- You will get blacklisted from all private trackers, this is permanent.
Generally people who are active on private trackers (uploading, using forums, etc) are going to be good users who are not willing to sell invites even for say 4000$ so the 'sellers' end up having to resort to outright scamming people or using hacked accounts (inviting as many people as possible and then selling the account before it gets banned).
How to properly gain access to private trackers
Best option is generally official recruitment with RED being the best place to start.
https://vintologi.com/threads/private-trackers.1515/#post-8343
You can also accept an invite if it's offered to you by someone you can trust (with no expectation of you providing anything in return) but even that is not completely safe.
Private trackers i can recommend from my experience
RED: Good music library and most requests get filled, also useful for software. Also allows you to gain access to most other good trackers by ranking up your user class.
AnimeBytes: Good for bluray remuxes missing on nyaa.
GGn: By far the best tracker for games.
Milkie: You don't have to do anything to maintain that account (if it even counts as a private tracker).
Note that i am not really into TV or movies other than anime so i cannot really review sites focused on that fairly (and i didn't join most sites focused on that to begin with).
Private trackers that seem good based on what other people have told me
PTP: Very large library of movies.
HDB: Good for TV and movies if you are an active user.
BHD: Easier to maintain than HDB but you have to put up with H&R rules.
MaM: Good for books (including audiobooks).
Those trackers also typically take a lot of effort to join such as by uploading 500+ torrents on RED and getting at least 500 GiB uploaded. There are easier to join trackers to consider (such as UHDbits) but have not done much research on those mid TV/movie trackers as of now.
I tend to focus on the top trackers and avoid lower tier trackers.