Find Private Trackers with Open Signups: A Review of ‘Tracker Checker’ Sites
April 26, 10 by sharky 10,140 viewsResources for discovering private trackers that are open for registration are virtually endless: blogs, ‘torrent invite’ boards, even tracker forums themselves. Apart from those - other online services known as tracker checker sites - can also provide invaluable current information on tracker ’signup’ status in real-time. Here we investigate older sites such as BTRACS, and also take a look at a couple of newer ones you might not have heard about.
http://opentracker.us
OpenTracker.us is a brand-new online tracker service that is showing some great potential. Unlike other traditional "tracker checker" sites that incorporate scripts & databases which automatically check the status of trackers with open registration, everything at OpenTracker.us is done manually. Using a combination of sources that may include info from blogs & forums, OpenTracker also includes their own unique results through complex Google searching (specific ‘operators’ with inurl:signup.php).
The Bad: No ‘autocheck’ feature in real time; no RSS.
The Good: Lots of good things to report about - lists can be sorted by criteria (country, date added, tracker category, description). Aside from the "Special List" and "Main List" on the homepage, be sure to check out their additional tracker resources as found at the bottom of the site. In contrast to most checkers, they provide a decent site description, tracker screenshots, as well as a superior current state column pertaining to the invite & status for each.
http://btracs.com
Online for years now & still going strong, BTRACS is the oldest and most reliable ‘tracker checker’ site on the ‘net. To quote, "BTRACS is an automatic information site which periodicaly checks closed community Bittorrent trackers for being open for signup." By default, the list (checker) is updated roughly every 10 minutes - and an Alexa ranking is shown for all entries, giving readers a clear indication of which trackers are most popular (the lower the number, the better).
The Bad: Nothing ill to report about the actual BTRACS service; however, their forums are morally bankrupt and thus something you’ll probably want to avoid. Invites & accounts are regularly traded (and even sold!) in their most popular forum section entitled the "Trade Center". Their forums were introduced last year and have quickly outshined the actual BTRACS service (in terms of popularity).
The Good: Aside from listing upwards of 500 trackers in the db, BTRACS most useful feature can be found in a separate section at the top of the page for rare tracker openings. Unsurprisingly, the ‘main list’ consists mostly of trackers that have continuous open signups (usual suspects include TorrentDay, Empornium, etc). All trackers can be sorted by genre/category, country & ranking - and individual tracker categories can be browsed using the links found at the bottom of the index page.
http://opentrackers.net
OpenTrackers.net is an older project that started out as *.FR back in 2008. Open registration uptime vs. downtime is displayed as a percentage - something that users might find useful for determining their chances of signing up under a potential ‘open-reg’.
The Bad: The OpenTrackers project appears to be abandoned - the blog has been removed & there’s absolutely no user-interactivity (ie. readers cannot submit new trackers). It would appear that the list of trackers hasn’t been properly updated in months (case-in-point: Gamato, Animatoonic & Comic-Releech are still indexed, but why?). Furthermore, the db can’t be viewed as an entire list (readers are forced to browse by tracker name/URL) and no other options exist for filtering trackers by their genres or type. While OpenTrackers has both RSS and Twitter feeds, these are now badly outdated.
The Good: Each tracker can be manually refreshed in real-time, in addition to the site’s own auto-refresh which occurs at 4-5 minute intervals.
http://filesharingz.com/directory/bittorrent/open-trackers
In relation to extended info and overall functionality, FileSharingZ’s "Open Tracker" database is unquestionably the most thorough ‘tracker checker’ on the Internet. Open/closed ratio is displayed for each, and there’s even a handy “Rare Trackers” section at the top of the list.
The Bad: Our biggest complaint - the list of trackers is not kept up-to-date, and it’s missing some really key trackers (where is TorrentDay, Freshon.tv & PussyTorrents? - oddly, these are hopelessly missing from their master list as well), and most newer trackers are simply not indexed. Additionally, readers will need to "click in" on a secondary page for each tracker in order to find either the main URL for the tracker or the signup page; which is a time-waster when compared to other services.
The Good: The table listing for open trackers is fully interactive - users can filter/sort the table by any number of characteristics (country, genre, # of torrents, language). Inside of each individual tracker page there’s a plethora of info to be found (graphs, tracker stats, registration info, site descriptions and screenshots) among other items.
http://scrapetorrent.com/TrackerChecker/
No-frills ScrapeTorrent simply presents a list of 280 different private trackers that are checked in real-time by way of a browser refresh (open signup trackers are listed at the top) with direct links to each trackers’ signup page.
The Bad: No categories, filtering or other bells & whistles as seen on other tracker checker sites.
The Good: For trackers that are closed, users can opt to receive email notifications once the status changes to "open registration".
http://www.trackerchecker.com
Apparently there’s a new improved version (v3.0) of TrackerChecker.com on the way, although we can’t provide any further info. TrackerChecker indexes more than 300 sites and also has a Twitter page for the latest updates.
The Bad: No categories, no filtering options. Everything is listed alphabetically, thus open trackers are mixed in amongst the closed/offline ones.
The Good: Has a neat "View History" feature - changes for the status of each tracker is recorded/logged; users can view prior history to see when the last time a particular tracker had open reg, or use the info to gauge or predict the frequency in which they open.
Other Sites & Tips
• www.torrentking.org - torrent tracker list & database.
• Torrents Open Registration Checker (TORC) - software
• Use Google to search for open trackers (example).
©2007-2010 • 
01 • asr Says: 26.04.10 at 2:29 pm
works well with some trackers.
02 • Otway Says: 26.04.10 at 2:45 pm
http://www.pianosheets.org/ is currently open & it not on any of them sites mentioned above.
03 • thisone Says: 26.04.10 at 5:11 pm
of all trackers listed on those sites, 99% are useless clutter, and the decent 1% get announced on various blogs anyway …
04 • jakusep Says: 26.04.10 at 6:16 pm
For those who are members of The Pirate Society I wrote a similar article (http://www.thepiratesociety.org/showthread.php?t=45643) 12 days ago. Sharky’s article is better than mine. I didn’t even get any rep for it
Here’s the post.
BTRACS [checker]
I check BTRACS twice a day because there is special section for rarely opened trackers which is all I really care about. I wish I knew about this when checking Demonoid for weeks.
WARNING: BTRACS has semi-private (public reading, private posting) forums that encourage trading and selling. Steer clear of BTRACS forums if you value your TPS and private tracker accounts. The forums are in a separate section of the website so using the checker presents no issues.
FileSharingZ [checker]
FileSharingZ has a longer list of rarely open trackers than BTRACS but they appear to be obscure and uninteresting to me so I usually stick with BTRACS. I might check FileSharingZ once every couple days.
OpenTrackers [checker]
A textbook case of what not to do for a tracker checker. It’s arranged such that you can’t see the entire list at once and must click on first-letter ranges like “A-B-C”. That’s too much hassle. On top of that there’s no categorization so if a porn site is not apparent from its name you’ll get an eyeful on click-through. Rounding things out with significant mistakes in determining open signups and a small selection of sites and we have a stinker. Use as a last resort.
OrbTorrent [database]
OrbTorrent is not nearly as comprehensive or flexible as TorrentKing so I rarely use it.
ScrapeTorrent [checker]
ScrapeTorrent is a checker that works better as a simple database. It provides no information on open signup frequency so as a checker it’s useless to me. However, the list of closed trackers shows the time since the last open signup date. I use this information to quickly evaluate trackers I’m researching.
TorrentKing [database]
Unlike any other site on this list TorrentKing is sortable. Unfortunately you cannot sort on multiple fields simultaneously (to get non-Adult English sites for example) but it’s quite comprehensive.
Tracker Checker [checker]
TrackerChecker has an interesting feature that no other tracker checker offers: it provides history of open signups for each tracker. Users can click on a tracker’s name and see the timestamps of when the tracker was open or closed (or down). I use TrackerChecker a lot for research but not for finding the most recent open signups since the open sites are mixed with the closed sites and there’s no way to sort them. That’s too much to scan through.
RECOMMENDATIONS
For quickly finding infrequently open trackers that are currently open there’s little reason to look beyond BTRACS. You can check out FileSharingZ occasionally also. When you want to find out how much urgency is behind registering for a currently open site give TrackerChecker a look. ScrapeTorrent can be used to quickly find out when a tracker last opened signups, an important factor (beyond a simple open:close ratio) in choosing sites. TorrentKing is useful for finding lists of trackers with certain characteristics such as particular languages or types of content but it can’t tell the user if sites in the lists are open. OpenTrackers and OrbTorrent can be ignored since the alternatives are better.
Perhaps a better way to find open signups for rarely-open, good trackers, is in the blogosphere, since people are better able to judge good opportunities. The best torrent bloggers announce only the best open signups. It was through blogs I found out about open signups for TorrentVault and ScenePalace, two great general/0-day trackers with excellent pre-times. I’ll write about my list of blogs in another post in a similar format if the audience thinks this post was useful. Let me know in the comments if that’s something you want to see.
05 • MsK Says: 26.04.10 at 7:36 pm
I know the owner of opentrackers.net, and yes, for the moment the project is kinda abandoned, sadly…But I’m trying to get contact with him to make a better version of that, we were talking with some friends about that tonight.
Thanks for the article btw
06 • Jeff Says: 26.04.10 at 8:09 pm
There’s another downside to BTRACS - it seems to go down from time to time, where going there only gets a blank page.
Also, it is true about not visiting their forums (especially the traders one) if you value your pirvate tracker accounts. A number of the more difficult to get into trackers are known to have spies that run scripts to identify IP addresses of those who are forum members, and people have gotten banned as a result.
07 • thisone Says: 26.04.10 at 10:14 pm
They run “scripts” to identify IP addresses? ^^ Do you want to be taken serious or just spread rumours? lol the only way they could access IP addresses of BTRACS forums is if they are staff there … and since I highly doubt any self respecting staffer would also staff BTRACS, I think you are just full of shit.
08 • sharky Says: 26.04.10 at 10:36 pm
@ 04 Jakusep
— In fact, it was your post here at TPS which inspired me to create this article; but with the addition of the new opentracker.us along with a few other changes. It was a very insightful read - I think the only reason you didn’t get “rep” on it is because most TPS’ers don’t use ‘tracker-checkers’ such as these (and don’t need to). Their Invite GA, REQ and recruitment sections are more than ample. But don’t be discouraged - keep writing!
@ 05 MSK
— As for what Jakusep said above in reference to Opentrackers.net, I agree with some of it, but not all. The ‘A-B-C’ needs to be rectified so that readers can quickly browse without all the extra mouse-clicks. People want it as simplistic as it can be; and with fast & accurate results. There are no ‘perfect’ trackercheckers; each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Hopefully the dev team can come up with something special - perhaps a combination of ‘auto check’ and human interaction…
@ 06 JEFF
— Agreed - I can positively confirm that this is 100% accurate information. Some trackers (I won’t name the ones I know) do use cookies that are able to check your browser history for activity on certain torrent forums. This is a tactic that should be abhorred by all, and it ranks right up there with spyware, malware or any other browser exploit. If you MUST use trader forums, the only safe web-condom for this is to use a different browser app for those sites (Firefox for trackers; Chrome for forums). Not that I condone this; but it would suck to see a mass-ban based on tracker members that chose to visit the homepage at BTRACS.com who never visited their forums (IPs are the same). Especially when most trackers obey by the mentality “shoot first, ask questions later”, when in fact it is you who needs to plead your own case later.
@ 07 THISONE
— Please, don’t be naive - for your own sake. Take your chances, if you must. There have been literally hundreds (thousands?) of tracker-bans based on this already; most of them being new bans where members have no idea of what they’ve done wrong.
09 • That Guy Says: 26.04.10 at 10:37 pm
BTRACS forums are terrible. The staff Jake Sully and the owner Slevin are rude and nasty. They trade accounts which kinda defeats the purpose of torrenting. AVOID them at all costs…
010 • Wing Yoo Says: 27.04.10 at 12:31 am
OH wow, that actually sounds like some cool stuff.
Lou
http://www.anon-vpn.se.tc
011 • Mai Says: 27.04.10 at 12:49 am
http://filesharingtalk.com/
012 • lxg Says: 27.04.10 at 1:23 am
this http://filenetworks.blogspot.com/
013 • Jakusep Says: 27.04.10 at 1:48 am
Thanks Sharky, that was encouraging. Good point on TPS’rs not needing tracker checkers. With all the giveaways and community reps available on TPS there is little reason to look for open signups. AHOY!
014 • VOLVO Says: 27.04.10 at 6:07 am
Thanks for the article Sharky, good information.
015 • heshan Says: 27.04.10 at 11:35 am
This is a new tracker….
http://www.torrentsnatch.org/signup.php?ref=heshan
016 • m3 Says: 27.04.10 at 12:07 pm
Great Article I’ve been looking for some tracker checker sites to add to my collection.
Slight problem the main heading link for Tracker Checker Links to ScrapeTorrent’s Tracker checker.
017 • xFyrios Says: 27.04.10 at 7:08 pm
hd-bits.org is open according to scrapetorrents.com
I’m afraid many of these sites just aren’t reliable and say certain sites are open when they aren’t. But generally its easy to tell as with the above example so it’s not too much of a problem at least
018 • FingWoo Says: 28.04.10 at 6:08 pm
Open Tracker is Da Bomb dude. Love that tracker.
Lou
http://www.post-anonymously.us.tc
019 • Jose Says: 28.04.10 at 6:29 pm
Nice one! Thanks for the info, Is just I need!
020 • BinaryNewsHowTo Says: 28.04.10 at 9:44 pm
I quit using private trackers and switched to binary usenet with SSL. Faster, safer, and private. Learn how at http://binarynewshowto.com
021 • grrr Says: 29.04.10 at 12:47 am
I don’t know of any scripts you speak of and yeah just use a seperate browser. The staff are incredibly nice and so is JakeSully who doesn’t even trade. Yes, they allow selling but trading come on go give FST a bad rep since they have 93,000 more active members and allow trading but oh tracker staff belong there and don’t attack how come are they good pals or is ok because they are such a huge community and trackers don’t want to ban there member base. Alot of members at btracs do not trade or sell in fact alot of trading doesnt even go down alot of it is bullshit being posted for fake accounts and tracker staff etc to try and quickly boost there image… Don’t bad mouth something you dont know about especially if you are staff at a tracker and just trying to scare people away from using this website. Staff are more then welcome to join btracs and represent there sites like they do at FST maybe this would help instead of banning a member because they belong somewhere. You might call us imoral because we allow trading and selling but I know alot of websites that promote illegal activity, so now where do you come off calling us imorally bankrupt
022 • D Says: 29.04.10 at 2:43 pm
just wanted to inform that http://immortalseed.com/ (general tracker with a focus on tv and movies) is currently open for registration.
023 • Beagle Says: 30.04.10 at 10:51 am
@GRRR: LMFAO…. This is one of the Mods at btracs attempting to sell some accounts that he scammed from one of the members:
http://i39.tinypic.com/mltpp2.jpg
024 • Bullet-T Says: 30.04.10 at 11:49 am
Bullet-torrents.com is open for signup.
025 • BTRACS Member Says: 30.04.10 at 1:54 pm
BTRACS Has new rules, they don’t allow selling of invites and also created a “no movement list”.
I guess someone at BTRACS cares, beyond the rumors.
026 • andreas kyria Says: 30.04.10 at 4:57 pm
New private tracker now open for reg. http://www.demunoid.com Get in before she locks up
027 • That Guy Says: 30.04.10 at 8:06 pm
Haha @23!!!!! Grrrr=Btracs fanboy or BTRACS Mod. Lame either way
028 • test Says: 30.04.10 at 9:39 pm
irc://irc.passthepopcorn.org/passthepopcorn
029 • guest Says: 01.05.10 at 3:33 pm
Here is another one, http://btlist.info/
030 • sdasd Says: 03.05.10 at 6:39 am
here is another one http://www.rlslog.in/
031 • Open Tracker Says: 04.05.10 at 4:33 am
We at http://opentracker.us/ would like to thank Sharky for helping our Brand New site break into the public eye. We went from 100-200 hits a day to 500-700 because of his post. Sharky is one of the nicest webmasters around, any problems small or large he was willing to help out. : )
032 • BTRACS lover Says: 05.05.10 at 2:46 am
The author of this article is big hypocrite. A pirate has no right to talk ‘morals’ on this subject.
According too him, trade of invites is immoral but piracy is moral
BIG LOL !!!!
btw, BTRACS has now banned selling and have introduced a Non movement list which contains a list of trackers whose invite trading are banned.
staffs can verify their identity and can ask slevin (the admin) to include their tracker in the NML.
Burn BTRACS haters !
033 • ibra Says: 07.05.10 at 12:04 am
thx
another one
http://filenetworks.blogspot.com/
http://ibrabux.blogspot.com/
034 • Another Guy Says: 07.05.10 at 2:58 am
Hey Sharky,
Just to let you know opentrackers.net is not abandoned; However, it does need great improvement in the source code. We appreciate the article and the feedback. We have been updating a huge amount of the trackers recently. It has been an ongoing project involving constant checking and adding of trackers to make sure everything works the way it should. Look for us in the coming week, improvements will be made.
035 • lester Says: 09.05.10 at 4:59 am
sounds like this tracker http://www.demunoid.com is trying to grow and gain a name from demonoid how sad to try and cash in on another sites name
036 • serie Says: 09.05.10 at 3:28 pm
BTRACS your rock men LOL
037 • Cookledoo Says: 10.05.10 at 12:35 am
filesharingtalk.com has the most updated thread ever with open trackers.
I got into all my trackers through them, and they are some of the coolest staff you can find anywhere on the net.