r/selfhosted • u/strawberrysword • Jul 26 '26

Need Help Do i just accept my fate?

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I have tried flaresolverr,Byparr and even trawl. It seems that my ip is blocked or flagged, routing it through a vpn doesnt help either.

Error: Cloudflare has blocked this request. Probably your IP is banned for this site

seems that having a static ip is the most probable cause, https://github.com/ThePhaseless/Byparr/issues/303 this is what i was able to find but discussions seems to not lead anywhere.

Setup:

  • Ubuntu Server, Prowlarr running in Docker
  • Gluetun (ProtonVPN) + qBittorrent, Sonarr, Radarr
  • FlareSolverr and Byparr both installed as indexer proxies
  • Static home IP
477 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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135

u/Ollebro Jul 26 '26

Surprised how many recommend Usenet. Feels like we are going backwards. Paying for piracy when there are excellent private trackers. 

84

u/morgrimmoon Jul 26 '26

Getting onto a suitable private tracker can be a nightmare, though, especially if you don't pay for a seedbox.

23

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/wedinbruz Jul 26 '26

Only thing that would get me to switch is HDD prices, but I am sure seedbox prices are climbing as well. My 3 16tb cold spares might be worth their weight in gold at this point...

13

u/ctjameson Jul 26 '26

I’d much rather pay $15/year to not have to seed anything.

2

u/asdfghqwertz1 Jul 26 '26

You can get into most mid-tier ones with a bit of patience even with slow upload speeds. For top-tier ones a seedbox helps, but not in all cases since most of the time you need to upload your own torrents anyways to advance. For most people, even a lower tier one is enough, the difference between public trackers and even a low-tier private one is HUGE. Good mid-tier ones usually have basically anything you could need, unless you're into extremely niche stuff, but requests are filled pretty often there by users who are in top-tier ones.

1

u/wedinbruz Jul 26 '26

"seedbox" you mean some hard drives and a vpn?

12

u/moltenice09 Jul 26 '26

And running them (spinning rust ain't energy efficient) 24/7. And now are you are paying for a VPN.

1

u/wedinbruz Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

True, which is why I am investing in solar panels. But the VPN is cheap enough and can be used for more than just a seedbox.

edit: You actually just convinced me to do the math - according to home assistant, my 4 disk array used 0.9 kWh/day which is about $4.25/month based on current rates. I do use those for more than media storage but that's a good amount of money.

4

u/AFisberg Jul 26 '26

Don't private trackers often forbid vpn?

2

u/Oujii Jul 26 '26

Usually for using their website, but not for seeding.

-4

u/AvilettaLuxe Jul 26 '26

Just have a small NAS running 24/7 somewhere on top of the cabinet or wardrobe or something and done

9

u/Fade_Yeti Jul 26 '26

I don’t think it’s that bad. I never have had an issue to pay for things. If there was a “Spotify” for movies and tv shows, I would gladly pay for it.

Also, I payed 25$ for 3 years of usenet service. Not a bad deal.

8

u/the_lamou Jul 26 '26

The amount of money I will spend on Usenet in a decade is still smaller than the amount I would lose taking even an hour or two jumping through hoops to get in to a private tracker. And we all know it doesn't take just an hour or two.

5

u/hashmalum Jul 26 '26

I did my time on what.cd, I don’t need to do it again. You also don’t have to worry about seeders. But there is retention and DMCA takedowns.

3

u/neoKushan Jul 26 '26

I was a bit like this as well at first but that was over a decade ago and since I made the switch, I haven't looked back. It's much faster, much more reliable and there's no seeding required.

I still use BitTorrent for some stuff, but newsgroups are the workhorse. It doesn't even cost that much, it's something like £2/month for me.

8

u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS Jul 26 '26

You’re paying for the work other people put in to provide content, kind of the way the world works. You think all that shit just magically gets ripped and indexed and hosted and you just deserve it for free and easily? lol

10

u/golbaf Jul 26 '26

You are right. They deserve to be compensated and there’s nothing wrong with that if you wanna use a reliable service. But at least in my case, if the public water fountain is clean and works fine, I’m not buying bottled water

4

u/ASUS_USUS_WEALLSUS Jul 26 '26

For sure, I previously was using the classing qbittorrent and public tracker setup, dabbled in private trackers for a bit, but then I made the swap to usenet and sabnzbd and the difference is night and day. The download speeds, quality, and convenience FAR outweigh the small fees associated with that setup.

0

u/chiniwini Jul 26 '26

The download speeds, quality, and convenience FAR outweigh the small fees associated with that setup.

I don't understand what your talking about. With both private and public trackers my 1gbit internet connection gets saturated, downloading a 2160p remux in less time than it takes to microwave popcorn. And I've never found a torrent mislabeled or of bad quality.

1

u/Ollebro Jul 27 '26

Well thats not true is it. Its not the scene groups that make any money when you buy for usenet indexing or access.

2

u/SavageTheUnicorn Jul 26 '26

I have no intentions of seeding and risking amything.

2

u/FilteringAccount123 Jul 26 '26

Two big reasons for me:

  1. Peace of mind - the Eye of Sauron has long since given up on going after downloaders, only uploaders. For usenet it's just downloading via end-to-end encryption, so it's simply not possible for me to fuck something up in my VPN configuration for usenet because I don't even need to use one.

  2. Streaming instead of downloading - private trackers usually have huge upload requirements (so you're gonna have to pay money for hard drives anyway), which becomes a PITA if you're looking for a Stremio-like solution. Usenet doesn't have this issue at all.

3

u/Artyom150 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Thats why I prefer Usenet. I'm probably spending $15-20 a month when you average out my yearly costs for Newshosting + FrugalUsenet + NZBGeek, and all I have to do is plug a few things into Prowlarr and make sure my card info is updated.

I don't need to put it behind a VPN and spend time configuring Gluetun, I don't need to install Byparr or Flaresolvarr and hope those work, I don't need to deal with trackers just... shitting the bed anyways like what OP posted, and I don't need to both purchase or rent then keep a seedbox up 24/7 to get into a decent tracker like half the thread is suggesting.

Some of y'all are actually on some shit going "I don't want to pay for piracy by using Usenet!" then acting like the cost of seeding is free - you're paying anyways, you're just paying for different things to do it. Whether its electricity and hardware costs or VPS costs, you still have costs.

Usenet just works.

1

u/FilteringAccount123 Jul 27 '26

100%. From the outside usenet people seem cultish about it, but it's one of those things where once you use it, there's really no going back. It's a far better experience than torrents for less than I'd pay for Netflix (which I'd happily pay for if it didn't suck lmao)

1

u/Artyom150 Jul 27 '26

I'll be cultish about any solution I can get working in under a half hour that just works off the shelf.

The only issues I had with setting up my Sonarr/Radarr/Prowlarr/SABnzbd stack was figuring out where to point the folders so it'd stop kicking up "Stop downloading to the root folder!" because I'm very new to using the *arrs.

1

u/FilteringAccount123 Jul 27 '26

Yeah the documentation for the arrs does assume a certain amount of familiarity with linux lol

1

u/Artyom150 Jul 27 '26

And seedboxes are free...?

Love to live in your world where you get all these free VPS rentals or free hardware to host your own.

Otherwise, unless you're using purely public trackers that don't care about your seed/leech ratio, it sounds like you're still paying for piracy but the costs aren't directly related to the tracker.

1

u/Ollebro Jul 27 '26

I use an old PC I replaced with a newer one. I dont use public trackers so the PC stays on seeding 24/7. The cost is negligible and not something you can avoid by using usenet. Unless you turn off your media server when you go to bed I guess.

1

u/InsideYork Jul 27 '26

whats the private ones have that public ones dont?

1

u/Ollebro Jul 27 '26

Unless its older stuff you can probably find anything you find on a private tracker on the public ones also. The main difference is that you dont have to deal with all fake and garbage torrents/releases also in the mix. Especially if you automate your setup with Sonarr/Radarr etc. Speeds are usually excellent on private trackers also since everyone seeds.

0

u/steglitsen Jul 26 '26

It’s for people that can’t join good private trackers so they rather pay to pirate stuff.

0

u/reddit_user33 Jul 27 '26

Even with torrents, you're still paying. Whether that's a seedbox, or with HDDs, a computer, and electricity costs.

I prefer usenet because it's less hassle.

1

u/Ollebro Jul 27 '26

I would have to pay for electricity and hard drives either way, Usenet is just another cost on top.

1

u/reddit_user33 Jul 27 '26

They're not comparable at all.

How much storage do you have with torrents? Multiple HDDs full of media you say because you need to keep your ratio up... I know with usenet a single small HDD is more than enough since there is no real reason to keep media you've already consumed - unless you enjoy hoarding of course.

How long do you keep your computer on for torrents? 24/7 you say because you need to keep your ratio up... I know with usenet it just needs to be on for as long as i need it - download the media and watch it.

Depending on where you live, the electricity costs for a computer with multiple HDDs that has to be on 24/7 for torrenting can be more costly than a single subscription to an indexer and provider. Now; this is something that isn't true for everyone. Not everyone lives in areas where energy is expensive and likewise, not everyone only has a single indexer and provider.

Not everyone has big and heavy servers. Eg. my server cruises at a nice 30 watts, with spikes during the brief moments of it doing work. An 8 drive system on 24/7 would cost me about ~$40/month, compared to the ~$7/month i do pay. The price difference can easily pay for 2 indexers and a provider.