this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
19 points (95.2% liked)

Left Piracy

2101 readers
8 users here now

A piracy / sharing community for leftists.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/7438737

I am assuming Stalin would approve of this since he literally robbed trains. Also he's so handsome. So thats why hes my thumbnail.

Recently I have kind of realized that the way I use the internet isnt as common as I thought. I don’t watch ads ever, and I pirate a lot. I thought id share some methods and hopefully help others get a better online experience.

~~So I know theres a few piracy communities around that might work for some of this stuff, but its not all piracy and I want more people to see it so here we are~~

I wanted to make this because I think a lot of people don’t realize just how easy it is to save money, and time online. Even if you know some of these methods hopefully a few will be new to you.

Time to learn how to look like this IRL

We will go through some stages. Basic, Advanced, and Torrenting methods.

Basic

First things first is the web browser we are going to use. This guide will be based on FLOORP. A Fire Fox fork. Its what I use for general web use. For more privacy centric folks switch it out for LibreWolf and all this should still work fine with some tweaking. Or any Firefox variant.

Browser Extensions: Get these from the firefox extension store.

Ublock Origin: General adblock and doesn’t need much configuring. If it doesn’t block something you want gone you can right click it and block it manually.

Alternative Player for Twitch.tv: This will add a new web player for twitch streams which will block ads in the streams. It will drop the resolution while it blocks them to 480p and say “Hiding Ads” in the corner. I am pretty sure the streamer still gets paid since it has no way to know you arent watching them.

ClearURLs: Removes tracking elements from URLs

I still don’t care about cookies: Will get rid of annoying cookie pop ups on most sites by just accepting them automatically.

Sponsorblock for YouTube – Skip Sponsorships: Names self explanatory. Community powered so some new videos wont be flagged yet. You can configure what is skipped and isnt.

A few others I find useful, Dont Track Me Google, Twitch Channel Points Autoclicker, Unwanted Twitch, Youtube-shorts block, Pinyin Web(For learning chinese), Dark Reader.

Now at this point your browser should be basically ad free and debloated. I recommend messing with FLOORPs settings if you used that its got some nice customization options.

Now lets make use of it to get some free content.

Anime: https://kaa.mx/ or https://hianime.to/tv

TV/Movies: https://movies5.online/

Overall list of pirating sites and other useful things: https://fmhy.net/ This has all kinds of stuff. Definitely worth checking out. It even has textbooks for school.

I cannot stress enough that I would not go to piracy sites without the above adblocking setup or something similar. Theyre usually full of crazy ads some of which could have malware. With ads blocked ive never had issues though.

Advanced

Music: Many people use spotify. If you do I recommend not buying premium, and instead using SpotXBash. Or the windows alternative. This one works for Linux and Mac. You run the script, and your spotify is ad free. It does require terminal usage, and theres always the risk your spotify account gets banned if they detect it. It’ll need re running every now and then as updates can mess it up. I’ve never been banned but if your worried about it make a new account for it. https://github.com/SpotX-Official/SpotX-Bash

Now you may be thinking, like I did, “I wish I didn’t have to stream my music. Just let me download it.”

Thats where spotdl comes in. https://github.com/spotDL/spotify-downloader

Theres a tutorial on getting it setup on the github. Once its ready its pretty simple you make a playlist on your newly ad free spotify, run the command spotdl with the link to it, and itll grab all the songs off youtube if theyre available. Quick and easy music piracy. Not perfect as sometimes you get music video versions but its pretty good.

I’ve downloaded hundreds of songs this way, and its nice to have when you don’t have internet, and the powers out or something.

Also if you don’t want to use youtube at all due to privacy reasons now we have a more advanced option for you. FreeTube. Its an app that works on all OS’s as far as I have seen even mobile, and works as a youtube frontend. You can even use invidious as the way to get videos for even more privacy. https://freetubeapp.io/

Torrenting

Ok if you’ve been following along this far its time to take a breather. Depending on where you are, and who your ISP is this part can be pretty risky. You might get letters in the mail, might get fined, could even get sued in some places.

That being said I can show you how to do it safely.

First we are going to buy something. Mullvad VPN. Its the only VPN id recommend getting. It is 5.50$ or so a month, and if you cancel your streaming accounts it’ll pay for itself now that you’ll be pirating stuff with it.

Once youve bought and setup Mullvad we can continue. Go here: https://mullvad.net/en/check

Its going to check that the VPN is working correctly. You should see 3 green boxes that say Using Mullvad, No DNS leaks, No WebRTC leaks. If you have that go into Mullvads settings. Under VPN settings Kill Switch, and Lockdown Mode should be turned ON. This will prevent your computer from connecting to the internet with anything but the VPN.

Now we are gong to get qBitTorrent. This is our torrenting client. Your gonna install it, click settings, advanced, and look for “Network Interface.” There will be a drop down menu. Click it and select the mullvad option. Mine is “wg0-mullvad” then click apply.

Your now ready to torrent and cannot be tracked by the other leechers or seeders. So you wont get those DMCA letters.

Now where do we find things to torrent? That wiki I linked earlier has some stuff. For games https://fitgirl-repacks.site/ is a great option. She recently repacked The Last of Us Part II remastered.

You’ll copy the magnet link, put that into Qbittorrent, and let it do its thing. Once its done you’ll pause the torrent. Assuming you don’t want to keep seeding it for other people downloading. Then open up the files and it’ll be an easy installer.

So to recap. You should no longer be seeing ads online, no longer be paying for stupid streaming services, and be getting lots of music, and games for free. Plus you get the added bonus of making liberals and capitalists mad by not giving them your money. If your well off take the money you saved and do mutual aid, if your poor like me and couldn’t afford this stuff anyway, enjoy!

P.S. If you are worried about not supporting certain independent creators and stuff while doing this keep in mind direct donations are still an option for pretty much everything. Most youtubers have a patreon or something for example.

Corporation simps when they find out you arent giving Disney all your money:

top 5 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] OrnluWolfjarl@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Great post comrade.

Stremio is also a good option for replacing your streaming subscriptions.

For Firefox and its forks, the add-on Remove Overlay is a must. Sometimes it breaks sites but usually it works in removing ad and cookie popups.

Also Badger is another must if you auto-accept cookies. It will send randomized data back to sites so as to stop them from actually tracking you.

For movie piracy I use YIFY website. For series, I usually look in x1337 or use stremio.

Also note to anyone who still has moral conundrums: If a creator works for a capitalist, the lion's share of profits goes to the capitalist. Most creators will just be paid a wage or fee while creating content and then they'll stop being paid. If they are lucky they might have a royalty deal, but it depends on the medium they are creating and their position in the process. You are not "stealing" anything as capitalists say when they try to guilt-trip you. You are not depriving others of what you download, and you are not cutting into what the creator gets paid usually. In cases where the creator actually is losing money, you can instead donate to them or support them through merchandise or other projects that are more beneficial for them.

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 20 hours ago

So while i think this is a good way to phrase it for most people, just saying its not stealing because materially its not effecting anyones life in a negative way, i actually look at it differently. Technically since capitalists make the laws and what is and is not stealing is decided by them we are stealing. But thats a good thing. Theft is not inherently morally wrong. When socialist movements take over a nation they steal the means of production back from capitalists for example. The issue here is the conflation of the theft of personal property, e.g. breaking into someones house and stealing their laptop, with the theft of private property. Private property is a invalid, and morally backwards method of assigning ownership over community goods to a single individual. To steal that private property is a good thing as you are undermining that system of oppression. However minimally. This also applies to the productions of that private property so long as they are in the hands of capitalists. Not even just piracy. Stealing from large businesses the things you need, be it food, clothing, etc. Is morally correct. These things are produced by the proletariat, taken by capitalists, and then auctioned off back to us at a profit. To take them back by means other than the rules laid out by capitalists is only natural. The act of revolution is the act of forcefully taking, power, means of production, and control, from the oppressive ruling class. We are stealing back what was stolen from us.

In short; To steal private property, or the output of said private property, is a revolutionary action under the capitalist system. To steal personal property is not, and harms your fellow proletariat in most cases.

[–] lorty@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So is the preferred modern music download method just ripping from youtube? Maybe it's just me but the quality can be hit or miss.

[–] Xiisadaddy@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 20 hours ago

Its gonna vary person to person whats preferred. This is just the method i use because i find it very convenient and easy to do. Never had any quality issues, but I'm also not an audiophile. If you are into getting the most high quality audio there is always the analog loophole. You can plug a casset recorder into the headphone jack of your device and play audio from said device, even if it has DRM controls, and record it to the casset, then just record it back again off the casset. This should preserve the quality pretty well as long as the casset player is good.

[–] markinov@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 day ago

I prefer lucida.to. it can download music from qobuz, tidal (rn it is having some issues, devs are working to fix it)