and complained on mastodon that it’s stupid design that mod logs are public. [Screenshot]

Maybe they should’ve, you know, looked at the site for 2 minutes before signing up. The modlog is linked at the bottom of every page.

I say this as a die-hard 3D Zelda fan:

I was soooo boooored in BOTW! There was no current main story. It all happened in the past. You’re basically playing through the climax the entire time. And I hated it. I mainly play Zelda for the story, and this was a very poorly told one.

TOTK was somewhat better because it gave us better characters (I will die for Tulin), a bit better characterization (I enjoyed Zelda getting a lot more fleshed out this time), and a somewhat better story… but there were still way too many reused story beats. That is to say, the story was fleshed out much better, but they still reused the overall story structure from BOTW (get the memories fight the four bosses in the four temples, etc.). They did add a fifth temple and a mid-game story thing, but that’s mostly it. They also didn’t even acknowledge how similar some things were to their counterparts in BOTW (ex. the Malice Gloom), which really bothered me. Also, some stuff just felt… unfinished. Like the reporter bird who, by the end of it all, just ends up pondering and trying to figure himself out… and that’s it. It felt like setup for DLC, but there wasn’t any.

… That was a very unintentionally long rant.

To summarize: hated BOTW; somewhat enjoyed TOTK, though it could’ve been much better.

Fair use has nothing to do with this. Fair use has to do with distributing a copyrighted work. Emulators are (ideally) running completely original code that isn’t copied from the company’s source code. This is why, for example, PCSX2 has you use “your own” PS2 BIOS instead of including it.

The PS2 BIOS is copyrighted, so it’s illegal to distribute it (and it’s never been “fair use” to distribute it). But it’s not illegal to do whatever you want with it (including dump it) as long as you own the console you’re dumping it from and as long as you don’t upload it to the internet for the purpose of distributing it to others. As far as the law is concerned, you bought the console and can do to it whatever you wish, provided you keep it to yourself and don’t distribute it to others.

Games fall under the same category. You’re free to dump your games and play them however you wish, provided you don’t distribute the dumped game to other people. However, companies are also free to implement measures (DRM) to stop you from doing that as much as possible, likely because they know more people would illegally distribute them if they didn’t.

I’ve already found two repos that successfully copied everything over before the main repo disappeared. I even built a working copy of Ryujinx from one of them. I’d probably find several more easily if I tried hard enough.

IIRC, they’re legal as long as they don’t explicitly distribute any of the copyright owner’s own code or files. That’s why, for example, PCSX2 requires you to dump “your own” PS2 BIOS and doesn’t provide any itself. Because PCSX2 doesn’t distribute the PS2 BIOS and because its way of talking to the BIOS doesn’t copy the source code, that emulator is in the clear.

Some modern emulators (ex. Ryujinx) don’t even need BIOS files (or whatever they’re called on Switch) to be able to run games. But they also don’t use Nintendo’s original code to run the game.

Take all this with a grain of salt. I’m saying it from memory.

In general, yeah. Private torrent trackers tend to focus on specific types of content. Some might focus on cartoons. Some might focus on anime. Some focus on books. Some focus on video games. Public trackers, on the other hand, generally focus on everything, which, of course, means they won’t have a lot of the older or more niche stuff, and they might be lacking in one or more categories (music, anime, books, TV, etc.).

It’s also much less likely that a torrent on a private tracker will die because most private trackers enforce certain rules about seeding and because the people there are generally much more into seeding than most people on a public tracker. (Probably most people on public trackers simply download what they need and stop before seeding anything back.)

Private trackers are also typically the first (and sometimes only) places to get scene releases. Scene releases, which are done by private groups, are usually higher quality than stuff on public trackers. Sometimes, they leak onto a public tracker, but not usually.

Eh, Aniwave was a pretty big one for the anime community. From what I understand, it’s the one most people fled to after KissAnime was taken down. Aside from that, I’ve never heard of any of the other sites they mentioned.

Me waiting for the next “mothership” to pop up so I can use it:

Aniwave (formerly known as 9anime) was, from what I understand, the site most people fled to after KissAnime bit the dust.

I’m curious if they still have the most downvoted comment on Reddit.

Edit: Yep.

A private tracker I use actually bases their ratios off the time you seed something for rather than the amount you seed. I use a seedbox, which means people are able to leech from me pretty much 100% of the time. Most of the stuff I’ve seeded so far is freeleech. Those three factors combined have given me about +10.0 on my ratio over the course of maybe a week. (I just recently joined it.)

Any Usenet providers and indexers you’d recommend? I tried it a few months ago but couldn’t quite wrap my head around how to use it. (I’m technically literate, but Usenet was completely foreign to me until a few months ago.)

Sorry for the long comment incoming . I went into detail with a lot of things.

The one I use costs a little bit of money and may be a little time-consuming to setup depending on the device, but it costs less than most streaming services these days, and you only need to pay for one of it (versus multiple streaming services).

It’s called Kodi. The program itself is free, and it technically doesn’t support piracy or torrents, but it does support 3rd party add-ons and 3rd-party repositories.

Here’s how it works:

1. Install Kodi on your platform of choice. It supports Windows, Android (including phones, Fire TV, and Android TV), iOS, and Mac. The steps should be about the same regardless of the platform.

2. Sign up for a “debrid” service and subscribe. This will affect what torrents will be available for a show or movie, so choose wisely. (I personally use Real-Debrid..)

3. Sign up for a VPN* and subscribe. (I use ProtonVPN.) Depending on where you live, some Internet Service Providers (the company you pay for Internet service) may not like you using a debrid site since it allows for very high-speed downloads, and it’s generally a good idea to use a VPN anyway. Install the VPN onto the same device you installed Kodi on.

4. Use Google to find an add-on you want to install. Many add-ons cater to different wants. For example, some cater sports, others to anime, and some to live action shows. This site has a good list of available add-ons.

5. Start Kodi. Use this guide to install the add-on of your choice.

6. Once the add-on is installed, start it and go to its settings. Most of them should have a section called “Accounts” or “Your Accounts” somewhere in there. In there, you should find the option to add or authorize the debrid service you subscribed to. (If it’s not there, it’s not supported. This is another reason to choose a good one and another reason I recommend Real-Debrid.) Follow the onscreen instructions to connect the add-on to your debrid account.

7. Turn on your VPN. Find a show you want to watch, pick a cached torrent when/ if it asks, and enjoy. You may need to adjust your audio language and subtitle settings. If you want to choose a specific torrent, you can do so by right-clicking (on PC) or holding down the OK button (on TV) and selecting the option. It might say something about “rescraping providers”.

*Many debrid providers automotive or manually whitelist certain VPNs. Whatever VPN you sign up for should be compatible with the debrid service you chose. Some sites (like Real-Debrid), will list the VPNs they’re compatible with, while others (like AllDebrid, another debrid service) will simply have you submit your VPN’s IP address for manual approval.

I realize this might seem complicated, but I think the payoff is worth it. I pay under $15 (less than $5 for Real-Debrid and $9.99 for ProtonVPN per month) for access to a TON of TV shows and movies, including shows on several different streaming services. And it costs less than most streaming services do these days.

Some add-ons also support Real-Debrid’s cloud functionality. Basically, Real-Debrid has the ability to download torrents on its own, and it stores them so you can download them to a storage device later if you want to. For example, you can use this if you have a long car or train ride ahead, and you need to bring some entertainment. Some Kodi add-ons can take advantage of this. They’ll send the magnet link (torrent) to your Real-Debrid account, and it’ll be available for you to download later. If it’s a cached torrent, it’ll be available immediately. If it’s uncached, Real-Debrid will begin working on downloading it. I’d recommend using a VPN whenever downloading directly from a debrid service so your ISP doesn’t complain to you. Anyway, I’ve put that to pretty good use myself. I watched an episode of the new Percy Jackson TV show recently on a train ride by downloading it beforehand via Kodi and Real-Debrid. I also got most of the episodes of an old anime I used to watch that way, too.

Depends where you get your alternatively-sourced shows from. Downloaded a torrent yesterday that was so dark that I could barely see anything even with my screen’s brightness turned all the way up. Downloaded another torrent of the same episode, and it was much easier to see everything.

You mean this video? https://youtu.be/ce-QHeZnVu4

Happy 100th, anniversary, Disney! /s

Huh. The only time I had that issue was when my adblocker app was blocking a specific domain that the YouTube app needed unblocked to save watch history. I unblocked the domain, and I don’t think I’ve had that problem since. I had to unblock s.youtube.com/api/stats/watchtime, though the internet says it’s changed to youtube.com/api/stats/watchtime in more recent years.

I’d also like to plug ReVanced. You do have to provide your own copy of the YouTube APK (easily downloadable from APKMirror), but it allows you to install multiple patches into the app, including Return YouTube Dislike, SponsorBlock, and other stuff. It allows background play and blocks ads, too. (You can see the list of available patches here.)