Well at least it gives us some idea of their politics.

Ah sorry man, I didn’t check it out too thoroughly.

TheEmpire has open signups right now.

You can optionally create and maintain your own list on our hosted wiki. Any dbzer0 user can access the wiki to create/edit pages.

Wait until you hear about the semi-autonomous killer drone swarms, designed to prevent signal jamming (by not needing an operator).

Ok, I suppose it’s best to err on the side of caution.

I don’t think there’s currently a way to automatically sync watch history across devices, but I’d love to be wrong about that tbh, because it would be handy.

Hi OP, how come this is tagged NSFW?

For me it’s not just about ads, it’s also about surveillance. With FreeTube you can have subscriptions without needing a linked YouTube account, and all the subscription/watch history data is stored locally. So, it’s a good opt-out of Google/YouTube surveillance. And you can import/export subscriptions if you need to transfer to another device. I happen to use FreeTube for this because it is frequently updated and I like the setup, but other options exist - I’m not really promoting this option over other options, just raising some awareness about it.

Thanks for the reminder: Donate link

That’s a good suggestion, I just haven’t had the motivation to get that setup yet since Usenet currently meets my needs. But I’m sure it would work, yes.

Getting into the weeds a bit here lol. I do use a VPN on my personal PC, but on the media server where I have my *arr stack, I’ve found that using a VPN, even with split tunneling configured, allows certain TV websites to detect I’m using a VPN and block streaming content. If I wasn’t using a DNS proxy, or if I ran the stack on a separate server, it probably wouldn’t be an issue, but I’m not so it is :p. I’ll add that if I am using only Usenet then I prefer not to run a VPN since it’s reasonably safe IMO to raw dog that content, since a VPN always has some overhead involved in terms of bandwidth and latency.

Yeah, you can integrate torrents into the stack, afaik. But due to some technical considerations I don’t like to run a VPN on my media server, and in my country you definitely need one for torrents.

I think it’s a bit unfair too, buddy. Usenet with the *arr stack and Jellyfin is such a great experience with all that automation, once you’ve got it all setup. Mine’s setup to preference H265 and 5.1 channel audio, and specific resolution/quality. I mean, yeah you can access much the same content completely for free using torrents instead, but it feels like going back to the steam age now to do it all manually.

IMO it’s a good idea to use a VPN when accessing any pirated content, as a general rule. While there are exceptions (e.g. usenet, specific countries with piracy-friendly laws/enforcement) and it’s arguably unlikely end-users of pirated streams would be prosecuted, why take the risk? It’s cheap insurance and there are few downsides. In some countries ISPs will act on reported piracy at your IP address and you could have your internet cut off or suspended, and/or be fined. So, better safe than sorry.

PSA: make sure you use a VPN and a good adblocker like ublock origin before visiting any of the listed links. We have not verified whether these are legitimate fmovie mirrors or scammy clone sites.

Lol true.

Looks like he’s putting together his own version of the Legion of Doom.

Cripes, you really got thrown to the wolves here.

[In 2024] More than 80% of global online piracy can be attributed to illegal streaming services.

- https://dataprot.net/statistics/piracy-statistics/

I think this is the main reason. Pirate streaming services are now directly competing with Netflix, Disney+, and other streaming platforms (aka the media industrial complex, or MIC), and they offer more content for a more affordable price (or for free). Pirate streaming is also very accessible to a mainstream audience, who are already used to the concept. So, the MIC regards them as the biggest threat preventing them from jacking up prices even more, because people will naturally move to a more afforable option, if one exists.

So the main focus of the MIC is on killing off pirate streaming right now. Usenet and torrents have proven to be more robust piracy options but they also have a higher barrier to entry for mainstream audiences, so are always going to be more niche than streaming. But no doubt they are still tring to kill off usenet and torrent piracy - it’s just a lower threat to corporate profits, so wont get as much attention.