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This has been an interesting year in the mobile tech space. AMD launched its first truly competitive desktop processors in years, and recently the company introduced its first Ryzen Mobile chips, although there aren’t many laptops powered by them…
This has been an interesting year in the mobile tech space. AMD launched its first truly competitive desktop processors in years, and recently the company introduced its first Ryzen Mobile chips, although there aren’t many laptops powered by them just yet. Next year things could get even more interesting as we start to see Windows […]
Most popular Liliputing stories of 2017 is a post from: Liliputing
People looking for all kinds of files tend to visit file-sharing sites for their fix but there is another way. FilePursuit is a web and Android-based service that trawls the Internet looking for open directories and it does an incredible job. Today, TorrentFreak catches up with its creator to find out where it all started.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Ask someone to name a search engine and it’s likely that 95 out of 100 will say ‘Google’. There are plenty of others, of course, but its sheer dominance means that even giants like Bing have to wait around for a mention.
However, if people are looking for something special, such as video and music files, for example, there’s an interesting search engine that’s largely flying under the radar. FilePursuit, accessible via the web or directly from its dedicated Android apps, is somewhat of a revelation.
What FilePursuit does is trawl the Internet looking for web servers that are not only packed with content but are readily accessible to the outside world. This means that a search on the site invariably turns up treasure troves of material, all of it for immediate and direct HTTP download.
TorrentFreak caught up with the operator of the site who himself is a very interesting character.
“I’m a 21-year-old undergrad student from New Delhi, India, currently studying engineering. I started this file search engine project all by myself to learn web development and this is my first project,” he informs TF.
“I picked this project because I was surprised to find that there are lots of ‘open directory’ websites and no one is maintaining any type of record or database on them. There are thousands of ‘open directory’ websites containing a lot of amazing stuff not discovered yet, so I made them discoverable.”
FilePursuit began its life around September 2016 and since then has been receiving website submission requests (sites to be indexed by FilePursuit) from people all over the world. As such the platform is somewhat of a community effort but in respect of running the operation, it’s all done by one man.
“FilePursuit saves time in two ways: by eliminating the need to find file manually, and by performing searches at high speeds efficiently. Without this, you would have to look at sites one by one and pore over the contents of each carefully – a tedious prospect,” he explains.
“FilePursuit automatically compares your criteria to billions of webpages and gives you results in a fraction of a second. You can perform hundreds of searches in the course of a few minutes, altering the criteria as you narrow down results.”
So if Google dominates the search space, why doesn’t it do a better job of finding files than the relatively low-key FilePursuit? Its operator says it’s all about functionality.
“FilePursuit is a file search engine, it generates file links as results while other search engines give out webpages as results. However, it’s possible to search for file links directly from Google too but it’s limited to documents only. On FilePursuit you can search for almost any filetype just by selecting ‘custom’ and typing filetype in search results.”
Of course, it would be impossible for FilePursuit to find any files if webmasters and server operators didn’t leave them open to the public. Considering it’s simplicity itself to find all the latest movies and TV shows widely accessible, is this a question of stupidity, kindness, carelessness, or something else?
“In my opinion, most people are unaware that they have created an open directory and on the other hand some people want to share interesting files from their servers, which is very generous of them,” FilePursuit’s creator says.
When carrying out searches it really is amazing what FilePursuit can turn up. Files lead to directory results and some can contain many thousands of files, from every music artist one can think of through to otherwise private text files that people really should take more care over. Other things are really quite odd.
“When I look for ‘open directory’ websites, sometimes I find really amazing stuff and sometimes even bizarre stuff too. This one time, I found a collection of funeral recordings,” FilePursuit’s owner says.
While even funeral recordings can have a copyright owner somewhere, it’s the more regular mainstream content that’s most easily found with the service. The site doesn’t carry any copyrighted content at all but that doesn’t mean it’s unresponsive to takedown demands.
“I have more than three million file links indexed in my database so it can be a bit hard for me to check for copyrighted content. Although whenever I receive a mail from copyright holders or someone representing copyright holders, I always uphold their request of deleting the file link from my database and also explain to them that the file link they requested me to delete, that particular file may still exist.”
In recent months, FilePursuit has enjoyed a significant upsurge in traffic but it’s still a relatively small player in the search engine space with around 7,000 to 10,000 hits per day. However, this clever site is able to deal with five times that traffic and upgrading servers to cope with surges can be carried out in two to three minutes, “at most.”
So the big question remains – What will you find under the tree today?
FilePursuit website here, Android apps (free, pro)
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Lots lost to space, but Mars’ rocks might have done something Earth’s didn’t.
Enlarge (credit: Jon Wade and James Moore)
Part of our fascination with cold-and-dry Mars is its warm-and-wet past. What was Mars like when it had liquid water? Did any life swim in it? And where did the water go?
The most obvious explanation for that last question is that Mars’ water slowly diffused into outer space. Because Mars is considerably smaller than the Earth, its interior cooled much more quickly. When the Red Planet’s magnetic field petered out around 4 billion years ago, the loss of this atmosphere-protecting shield would have allowed water vapor to escape.
But that’s not necessarily the whole story. Estimates of Mars’ initial store of water are generally larger than estimates of how much would have escaped to space in this way. What didn’t go up may have gone down—beneath the Martian surface.
Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments
These are the stories that had our readers talking—a lot. One is also among the most-read
Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)
Yesterday, we gave you the top 20 features and news stories on Ars Technica in 2017. Today, it's time to talk about... the posts people talked about. Sometimes, we at the Orbiting HQ are genuinely surprised by the number of comments a post gets. There's occasionally an overlap between high traffic and high comment-count posts, but, more often than not, the lists diverge. That was the case in 2017, as only one of our 20 most popular stories was also one of the most commented.
As you might have guessed, some of the most-commented posts are on topics that readers have strong feelings about. Those include President Trump, white nationalists, diversity, and privacy. All comment totals are as of December 14, 2017. Let's dig in.
An example of a frightening image, in this case a child with measles, may convince some that vaccines have frightening side effects. (credit: Greene, Charles Lyman)
Sadly, vaccinating your children remains a controversial topic in 2017. There is no scientific basis for refusing to vaccinate children, and, thankfully, the vast majority of people in developed countries understand that. But there's a vocal minority that refuses to accept the science behind vaccinations. Instead, anti-vaxxers put their children and immune-compromised people at risk. Beth Mole's article on how efforts to use a dose of science to dispel anti-vaxxer myths have backfired brought out a number of people defending the science and a smaller number of people expressing skepticism about the science. "[F]or me, the jury is still out," wrote Ars user rjdriver in the thread.
Read 39 remaining paragraphs | Comments
There once was a time when people needed at least five subscription services to watch their favorite movies and TV shows. Hollywood bosses like Walter Scroogle believed that exclusivity was the key to wealth and success, but they were wrong.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
This is the story of Walter Scroogle, CEO of one of the major movie studios in Hollywood.
—
It begins on Christmas Eve, with Scroogle arriving home late at night. This wasn’t anything unusual, not even on a day like this. The rest of the family didn’t expect anything else and were already asleep in anticipation of the forthcoming festivities.
As Scroogle sits down he suddenly notices a pile of Amazon store boxes in the corner of the room. “Thank God, he mumbles, Christmas is saved.” But it was a close call.
It had been such a hectic week at work. So busy that Scroogle had totally forgot to get this year’s Christmas presents, one of the few things he arranges around the house. Luckily, modern day technology was there to save the day.
Amazon had everything in stock. The new bike for his son. The tablet for his daughter. The earrings for his wife, as well as many more gifts. It took Scroogle roughly fifteen minutes to get all his Christmas shopping done. And with same-day delivery, it arrived a few hours later. “Thank God,” he said again.
While a major disaster had been avoided, there were still a few presents to wrap. Apparently, there are no machines that can carefully wrap bikes. So there he was, at 2am Christmas morning, grumpily making the final preparations for the big day.
Halfway through Scroogle decided to lie on the couch for a bit. Just a short while, he promised himself, not knowing what was to come.
After a minute or two an exhausted Scroogle dozed off into his first dream.
Inspired by what had occurred earlier that day, he dreamt about forgetting the Chrismas presents. While he appeared to be his current self, the world was different. There were no Internet stores or even large malls. He had to drive to at least ten different stores to get what he wanted, and given that it was Sunday, most were closed.
Needless to say, it was a disaster.
The second dream was related to something at work. A few hours earlier he’d hosted a board meeting, discussing the new streaming platform the company had launched that morning. Scoogle was one of the pioneers. He was also the one who hastily decided to pull all their content from third-party platforms, Netflix included. “Everything will be pulled tonight. We want to be exclusive again,” he’s said.
The dream presented Scroogle with the darker side of his decision. It showed several families who, on Chrismas Eve, noticed that their favorite movies were no longer available. Christmas classics were removed without warning, forcing these families to take out another subscription. If the new service was even available in their region.
“Not the best way to spend time on Christmas,” Scroogle thought.
Scroogle was still fast asleep when the third and final dream kicked in. It was the future, apparently, as commercials for the streaming service and next year’s Christmas blockbuster were being shown on a TV. There was a Christmas tree and a family clearly amusing itself. Unfortunately for Scroogle, things didn’t turn out to be so bright.
After the commercial, the latest blockbuster played, but it was not on the company’s streaming platform. Instead, it was playing through what appeared to be some kind of piracy streaming device. “They are stealing our stuff,” he thought. “And on Christmas Day too! These people are cheapskates.”
Then, a deep-sounding voiceover became apparent.
“No, Scroogle, the family actually pays for seven streaming services already. However, their budgets are not endless. The increasing fragmentation in the current legal streaming landscape is pushing people toward these devices. If only they could get it all from under one roof.”
Then Scroogle woke up. At first, he hadn’t really processed what had happened. It was nearly 4am and he still had a few gifts to wrap, those that were so conveniently ordered a few hours earlier and delivered to his house, from one supplier. But, when it sank in, he knew that there was one thing he had to do before the family woke up.
Scroogle wrote an email to the board admitting that he was wrong. “We have to keep all our content on other services and think this through after the holidays. It’s inclusive from now on, not exclusive. People should be able to see our great films without hassle,” he typed.
Sent.
A year later the new Christmas blockbuster was indeed released. It came out together with a brand new streaming platform, one where users could watch a massive library of all the best classics from the major studios, independents, and other services under one roof. Even the latest movies could be easily played on demand for a small one-time fee.
Streaming records were broken that day, and people were smiling.
—
Merry Christmas everyone!
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Fortsetzungen, Remakes, Superhelden und ganz viel davon aus dem Hause Disney – so liest sich die Liste der erfolgreichsten Filme 2017. Auch in unserer Rückschau der Nerdfilme haben Umsetzungen bereits etablierter Stoffe eindeutig die Überhand. Eine Rez…
Fortsetzungen, Remakes, Superhelden und ganz viel davon aus dem Hause Disney - so liest sich die Liste der erfolgreichsten Filme 2017. Auch in unserer Rückschau der Nerdfilme haben Umsetzungen bereits etablierter Stoffe eindeutig die Überhand. Eine Rezension von Daniel Pook (Filmkritik, Digitalkino) 2018 wird Entwickler Wargaming die Version von 1.0 von World of Tanks veröffentlichen. Die enthält auch die Core genannte neue Grafik-Engine. Wer möchte, kann sie bereits testen. (World of Tanks)
2018 wird Entwickler Wargaming die Version von 1.0 von World of Tanks veröffentlichen. Die enthält auch die Core genannte neue Grafik-Engine. Wer möchte, kann sie bereits testen. (World of Tanks) The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again. ‘Justice League’ tops the chart this week, followed by ‘It’. ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ completes the top three.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
This week we have four newcomers in our chart.
Justice League is the most downloaded movie.
The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.
RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
| Movie Rank | Rank last week | Movie name | IMDb Rating / Trailer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Most downloaded movies via torrents | |||
| 1 | (…) | Justice League | 7.1 / trailer |
| 2 | (…) | It | 7.6 / trailer |
| 3 | (1) | Kingsman: The Golden Circle | 7.2 / trailer |
| 4 | (…) | Bright | 6.7 / trailer |
| 5 | (2) | Dunkirk | 8.3 / trailer |
| 6 | (3) | The Mountain Between Us | 6.3 / trailer |
| 7 | (…) | Blade Runner 2049 (Russian audio WebRip) | 8.9 / trailer |
| 8 | (8) | Coco (HDTS) | 8.9 / trailer |
| 9 | (5) | Flatliners | 5.0 / trailer |
| 10 | (4) | The Foreigner | 7.2 / trailer |
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Geisterbusse in Berlin, Irrfahrten in Brandenburg und Schiffbruch im Norden: Wir waren auch in diesem Jahr wieder viel unterwegs und haben spannende Hintergrundartikel veröffentlicht. Für die ruhige Zeit zwischen den Jahren haben wir einige zusammenges…
Geisterbusse in Berlin, Irrfahrten in Brandenburg und Schiffbruch im Norden: Wir waren auch in diesem Jahr wieder viel unterwegs und haben spannende Hintergrundartikel veröffentlicht. Für die ruhige Zeit zwischen den Jahren haben wir einige zusammengestellt, die Sie nicht verpassen sollten. Von Juliane Gunardono (Golem.de, Internet) US Internet provider Armstrong warns that persistent pirates can have their Internet access throttled. As a result, they may no longer have full control over their thermostats. Those who continue pirating after an obligatory copyright education may have their full service terminated.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
Since the early 2000’s copyright holders have been sending ISPs takedown notices, to alert account holders that someone’s been using their connection to share copyrighted material.
The goal of these warnings is to deter people from sharing pirated material in the future.
Internet providers are not legally obliged to forward the notices, but many do. What ISPs are required to do is implement a policy to deal with frequent offenders.
Keeping pirates on board without taking any action can make the ISP liable, as Cox found out the hard way. While this case is currently on appeal, some ISPs have already put stringent measures in place.
Take Armstrong Zoom Internet, for example, which has roughly a million subscribers in the Northeastern part of the U.S. Like many other ISPs it reserves the right to terminate repeat infringers, a policy which it doesn’t hide.
Our attention was caught by a recent letter the company sent to one of its users. The ISP points out that it received multiple copyright infringement notices, urging the customer to stop, or else.
“…please be advised that, if Armstrong receives additional notifications of infringement connected With your Zoom Internet Service, Armstrong will remove you from your current service level and place you at the lowest service level.
“This will allow you to access email, but limit your speeds and affect your ability to upload or download material to the internet or use other file-sharing capabilities.”
While reduced Internet speeds are bad enough, there’s another scary prospect. The reduced service level may also prevent subscribers from controlling their thermostat remotely. Not ideal during the winter.
“Please be advised that this may affect other services which you may have connected to your internet service, such as the ability to control your thermostat remotely or video monitoring services.”
Accused pirates who want their full service restored, and regain control over their thermostats, have to answer some copyright questions and read an educational piece about copyright infringement.
When they sign an agreement acknowledging that they have done so, full Internet access is restored. However, if more complaints come in later, the consequences will be more severe.
“…if Armstrong received additional notifications after you sign the Acknowledgement, your Zoom Internet Service will be terminated,” the provider writes.
Getting back in after that is only possible after signing an affidavit, so under penalty of perjury, and by paying a fee.
Only then they will regain full control over their thermostat again.
Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN discounts, offers and coupons
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