How To Cheat With Your BitTorrent Ratio

how to cheat bittorrent ratioThere are many great advantages to using private torrent trackers. For instance, the reliability and speed of the downloads exceeds those of free trackers, mainly because of the ratio systems. These ratio systems oblige everyone to upload about at least as much as they download.

Ironically, the biggest disadvantages lie also with the ratio system. Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone should upload as much as they can, but sometimes your ratio obligations can put you in some pretty nasty situations.

I remember looking for a certain private tracker invite for a few months. When I finally got in, I tried to get my ratio up as high as possible – stacking up reserves. But however hard I tried, I wasn’t able to reach an approachably decent ratio. There were just too many seeds and too few leeches.

I had my computer running day and night, trying to upload as much as I could, but in the end I wasn’t even able to reseed my first download and I got nicked.

Cheat With Your Torrent Ratio

Some time ago, I found out that there were ways to manipulate your ratio. However, the consequences are not to be excluded.

(LEGAL) DISCLAIMER

Before we go on, I want to emphasize that everyone with a decent mindset should upload as much as possible. Don’t be the parasite on the backs of this unconditional medium, try to support it as much as possible.

Also – obviously – torrent trackers don’t like you doing this, and if they find out you’ll probably get banned. MakeUseOf will not be held liable in this matter – all blame for your actions lies with yourself.

Through the use of applications, we can spoof our upload count, and hereby alter our Torrent Ratio. There are several applications that can do this, all working in the same way. They fake the tracker update reporting protocol with fake data, to boost your ‘upload’.

Tracker Pro

Tracker Pro is one of these applications, and very easy to use.

trackerpro - how to cheat bittorrent

To spoof your upload count, just add a torrent to the program. One of the great features that distinguishes this application from others is that you don’t even have to download the torrent to start “uploading”.

Tips For Staying Undetected

Like I mentioned in the disclaimer, if trackers notice that you’re spoofing your upload, you’ll most likely get banned. To prevent this, you need to lay low.

Limit your usage

Don’t use this application excessively. People will notice it if you suddenly become a master uploader – try using it only if you must.

Limit your upload bandwidth

You can limit the false upload speeds in the options. The lower you keep this, the harder it’ll be to get noticed. Note that this number is in Kbits (8 Kbits = 1 KByte).

Also, change this number as often as possible. Trackers use scripts to detect cheaters. By keeping your speeds low, and ruining your pattern, you can mislead these scripts.

Changing your User Agent

This is for the paranoid people amongst us.

Also in the options, you can also define which program you’re using, by changing the User Agent code and Client ID, although I’d advise you to refrain from this if you don’t know what you’re doing – messing up these codes will be like lighting a beacon.

You can search for these codes on User-Agents or plain ol’ Google.

Do you personally have any other tricks for getting one up on BitTorrent or any other file sharing network?

Tagged: • • •

Simon Slangen

I'm a student from Belgium, absorbing math and science in preparation for my computer sciences studies. I've been writing for MUO for quite some time now, which - because I just love everything regarding technology. Check out my meme? http://meme.yahoo.com/slangen/

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  • Jakob

    lame article…Seed instead.

    • Sean

      I do have to agree that cheating is never something you should do on a private tracker. There are other ways to go about fixing your problems, and usually PM’ing a staff member and proving to them that you do care but are just having difficulty will keep you from getting banned and even get you a few tips. I’ve yet to join a site I couldn’t keep a good ratio on, and I’m on quite a few sites (such as what.cd, blackcats, x264, etc.)

  • Pakko

    What’s next, How To Siphon Gas From Your Neighbor’s Car? How To Pick The Locks At School? No good comes to the community from behavior such as this, so why promote it?

    • Simon Slangen

      Actually, I’m a fervent supporter of seeding, and try to do as much as I can myself (no artificial seeding used to obtain that ratio). However, there are some times that your best just won’t do (e.g. blackcats-games in my case).

      I only mean people to use this in such cases.

      Of course, there will be “people” who won’t stop at that, but frankly, I hope for every last one of them to get banned.

      • Sean

        Very nice, x264 is a great site. It’s definitely my favorite place to get movies, although the selection is sometimes a bit lacking.

        • Simon Slangen

          You’ve got a good eye ;-)

          I’ve been trying to get into Demonoid for a while, but x264 is one of the best trackers I’ve seen so far.
          I especially love their selection of ‘free torrents’, which helps solving and avoiding the above mentioned ratio problems.

        • LOL

          You’re on x264 but not Demonoid?!

          I have invites if you want one.

        • Simon Slangen

          Sorry, Demonoid is fairly easy to come by, I was talking about TorrentLeech :-D

        • anon

          “However, there are some times that your best just won’t do (e.g. blackcats-games in my case).”

          This is exactly why blackcats-games has seed points. I hope you get banned.

        • Simon Slangen

          Never used this with BlackCats-Games. I meant that I got banned because I wasn’t able to upload enough.

          I downloaded one game, had my PC running most of the time, but the upload rate was not even mentionable. I almost had enough seed points, but missed it by a hair.

          Does blackcats even exist anymore? The domain seems to be on hold for quite some time.

        • dj

          Simon, you need a TL invite still?

        • Simon Slangen

          I do actually, and a spare would be hugely appreciated. :-D

          I wouldn’t post it here though, if I were you (think that’s a ToS infraction) but my mail address is simon@makeuseof.com

        • tedy

          I’m a true fan of TorrentLeech but don’t have an invite.. so if someone could help me..avi2b10@walla.com

    • John

      I’ll have to assume you’re by no means engaging in illegal activities here, when you open up that bittorrent client. I mean, judging by your comment, I would expect so.
      Nevermind you can’t be bothered to spend a dime on other people’s work and efforts, don’t you dare fake those seeding ratios or you’re nothing but worthless scum!
      How funny.

  • http://kimsebeniokumuyor.com Ege

    But, there are situations that forces you to do this. For example, if a tracker has excessive number of seeders, every new torrent will become overseeded before your ratio is even 1.00. I can barely upload at 40KB/s and believe me, I have a long list of seeded torrents in my client.

  • tiems

    nice article..
    is there any other softwares to do the same

  • http://www.bootstrike.com/Articles/BitTorrentGuide/ Bootstrike

    being a author of the popular bittorrent guide, i can say this will further discourage seeders from seeding hence affecting the whole swarm. if you want to maintain a good ratio, go after those new torrents where ppl will be rushing to download.

    • http://kimsebeniokumuyor.com Ege

      You have to be very quick to do that. Maybe donating should be considered, if those sites provide some kind of premium membership that prevents low-ratio ban.

    • http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BX7Ar3Z-oTo Peter

      New torrents are the worse. I find the best way to get the ratio up is to download an older TV series with “free leech” and only a couple of seeds. Not many people will probably download it but when a person does, they pretty much download the whole thing from you. It didn’t add to the ratio to get it and its many GB’s in size. Also keeps the number of individual files in your torrent client down as well.

  • Varun

    As much as i support free information and all that,this is just shameful.No one should be trying to do this.There are sites going down,we should support the community,how so ever hard it seems to upload,its easy to keep ratio,saying its impossible is lame.
    This article is a double edged sword.information v the right thing.

  • Chris

    My current uTorrent statistics:

    Total Uploaded : 787 GB
    Total Downloaded : 83.0 GB
    Total Ratio : 9.480
    Total Running Time : 751:42:21 (751 hours)
    Torrents Added : 167

    I’m usually upping at ~520kbps all day long.

  • Bob

    Simon – if you haven’t seen it yet keep tabs on this site http://trackerchecker.org/index.php tells you when sites are open for membership. (Can’t remember where I found it maybe here on Makeuseof!)

  • Len

    All of you that think this is “wrong”, how ironic that you’re against this when in fact all you use torrents for are TV shows and movies and cracked software. Take a look at what you’re doing first and then pass around judgment.

  • http://techreviews.in Vivek

    I don’t agree with most of the folks. You see even if my intention is good to try seeding but uploads on my university campus are blocked, I really dont have a choice. I think knowledge is good and this article is trying to do exactly that!

    • Nick

      Yes you do have a choice: public trackers. Tough shit that you can’t ul from campus, go do it at home or don’t do it at all.

  • Keith

    My first thought was this is terrible, but then I reflected that a lot of the “Scene” sites are making a lot of money off “donations” from people who want to download “Scene” releases. And while I am a pirate myself, making money off someone else’s work is stealing…sharing is not. So whatever, rip off the thieves. But there are much easier ways to steal ratio than running some questionable third party software, study the bittorent protocol and find out for yourself. :)

  • Emily

    One of the most crappiest article I’ve ever read in my life.most of the tricks written in this article even don’t work… What happened to makeuseof standards?

  • Todd

    Trust me, this is highly useful and necessary in certain circumstances. For instance, broadband speed in my area is limited to 256kbps and I share that with 3 other people. So, by the time I finish downloading an episode of The Office, for example, I have maybe 2 hrs of uploading at a speed of 4kbps, then nothing no matter how long I upload, because everyone that wants it already has it, or because the multitude of other seeders on my private tracker already cater to those that are left downloading. So, this app is highly appreciated (even though I can’t get it going).

  • Nick

    Shame on you, if you can’t upload enough, go find another site. There are loads and loads and loads of private trackers out there, offering exactly the same releases. If you can’t maintain a decent ratio at one, you simply go elsewhere and you try your luck there. Your excuses are lame. I have never, ever come across a site where I couldn’t maintain a decent ratio, with even the slowest ul. People who can’t are either lazy or dumb or both. Make your ul problems known in the forums, on irc or to staff, and you practically always get a hand, or some good advice that fits that particular torrent site (Partial seeding, newer torrents, popular pr0n?)
    This kind of tripe is to the detriment of private trackers as a whole, I hope you get booted. As if this kind of thing wouldn’t be taken advantage off…

  • shapes

    You people are ridiculous. You have no problem stealing, and make all the crazy justifications you like, it’s still stealing. Yet you’re all indignant when someone dares mess with their ratio via dubious means. It’s truly an interesting place where you draw that line.

  • MIB2347

    Fuck all you cheaters, it’s not hard to maintain a ratio when you use your brain and be sensible, go fuck yourselfs with your cheating clients.

  • g0tti

    who gives a fucking shit if its cheating, you worry about the poor people from the site your cheating, spare a thought for the companys/people/artist/programers etc etc your ripping off there millions of dollars a year!

  • g0tti

    your all bias idiots, like “shapes” said, where do u assholes draw the line, your so brain washed that’s its all right to steal peoples software/music/movies, ooooohhh noooooooo god forbid you cheat on ur ratio……. you reckn im gonna have a cry over or feel guilty over my ratio, i don’t think so… stop and think what you really doing first off before your call people “ratio criminals” …loosers

  • boomer!

    TOTAL LOL @ PEOPLE WHO ARE SAYING THIS “omg you guys are horrible cheaters, think of morals! ethics! it’s just like stealing!”

    While these same people are pirating software, tv shows, movies, games, porn, etc.

    LOL!

    and especially LOL @ pakko’s comment making analogies to stealing gas and picking locks. i bet you he’s downloading some keygens at this very moment

  • Mike

    I just run VMWare and upload to a torrent client there at the same time, so my ratio is close to 1. It is impossible to catch me cheating

  • duesbag

    really most use of torrents is illegal :P

    so how could cheating on torrent site be illegal ?

    best pgm by far is ratiomaster – not that I use it LOL my upload speed is 20MB

  • chelseafc

    cheats never win