Jackett's manual search is so, so good

–Phase–@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 402 points –

To be clear, this is just a joke, and I don't look down on direct downloading. It absolutely has its place, and sometimes I do it myself if it's just faster to download a file directly. Torrenting is just so much more convenient, though, especially when using Jackett's manual search.

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And Prowlarr is even better if you're also using Radarr/Sonarr/Lidar.

I've considered switching to this program, but from what I've heard, its manual search isn't as good as Jackett's, and I only use Jackett for manual searching. Apparently Prowlarr is more suited for use with the .arr suite, which is why its manual search isn't as good, and it doesn't have as many available indexers. I heard all this a while ago, though. Is this all still the case?

They're mostly functionally equivalent, but prowlarr supports usenet indexers in addition as well as having a better interface.

Jackett shows if torrent is freeleech. Prowlarr doesnt. Shame because prowlarr is more reliable

Prowlarr properly shows if a torrent is freeleech for me. Maybe the feature was added after you tried it?

It integrates with other *ar apps so well too.

Ah. Well, I don't use Usenet and Jackett's interface suits me fine. Guess I'll stick to Jackett then. Thanks for the info!

I honestly use them both since my arrs are all set up for jacket for the few torrents i need whrn usenet doesnt have something and it works fine so no point redoing everything. I use prowlarr for all my manual searches though.

They aren't using any of those programs though. That's the point of the meme and they have explained this in the comments. Last I used those programs waste far more time than they ever saved, and OP agrees with me on this.

Today I learned that some torrent clients provide a built-in torrent search engine.

See, I was hoping this meme would inform at least one person that Qbittorrent comes with an in-built search engine. That's how I found out about it in the first place, through a meme lol

what how? I've been using qbittorrent for a while and I never noticed that

Limewire was like that. It was heavily abused and unsafe to find shit with but it was like living in the future.

Maybe because I didn't know what I was doing back then but that was the only way I used Limewire

Yeah it was both a torrent manager and search engine. What we didn't know was what came from where.

Today I learned that people actually use this. I always thought it didn't work right.

Jackett is pretty good, but you should really check out the *arr suite of apps. And when you do, you'll find Prowlarr is quite a bit better than Jackett for finding just the stuff you want.

As I mentioned in a different comment here, I'm already familiar with the arr suite. It's how I found Jackett in the first place, and I've already determined that setting up the .arr programs isn't worth it for me. Stremio suits me just fine, the .arr programs appear to be better suited toward those with the time and money to setup a whole dedicated server for their media needs. I only consume media on my personal computer, so I have no need for that.

I have tried Prowlarr though, just yesterday in fact. I didn't really find its manual search feature to be any better than Jackett's, and in fact it had some issues. In any case, since I don't use the .arr programs, I've no reason to switch. Thanks for the suggestion though.

I understand your reasoning for not setting up the other *arr apps, due to not having a dedicated server to run them, however you'd still benefit from running them on your PC. They handle the downloading, extraction, categorising and naming of the media you want and they can do that automatically.

Even on your computer, that'll save you time and effort, you can just tell it what shows you want - even shows that aren't out yet and it'll grab them for you whenever they appear. It's great for when you enjoy a show and the next season starts, it just grabs it for you and the show appears one day.

A lot of people start this way and it's only then they think about getting a dedicated device for it - such a device can be a decent little Synology or QNAP NAS, something small, quiet and power efficient but I'd definitely say you don't need to start there. It's worth the effort to try though, believe me.

They handle the downloading, extraction, categorising and naming of the media you want and they can do that automatically.

I'm good with handling this manually, or rather, I don't even have to handle any of this since Stremio takes care of it, and I have neither the hard drive space nor the bandwidth to devote toward allowing a bunch of programs to just start downloading large files perpetually in the background, filling up my hard drive and taking up all my bandwidth lol. The .arr suite is best combined with a seedbox and a dedicated computer. All I have is a 1.5 TB hard drive and no gigabit internet speeds.

And honestly, I don't see what appreciable amount of "time and effort" this is going to save for me. With Stremio, it's as easy as going into the catalog (or using the search bar), clicking a movie, and picking one of the releases from the menu. If I wanna watch a show or movie that isn't out yet or whose upcoming season is yet to be released, I can just add it to my library and turn on notifications.

It doesn't get any easier than that, doesn't require a massive hassle with a set-up process involving several different programs and trial and error, and I don't have to devote hard drive space for every show or movie I want to watch, since Stremio keeps files on a temporary cache that gets deleted at regular intervals, so it doesn't end up filling my hard drive. This system is perfect for me, I have no reason to change it.

Well said. I have no idea why people seem to think the the whole sonarr, radarr, prowlarr setup saves time. The whole renaming, metadata and thumbnail gathering, etc isn't saving time for most people as most pirates don't do any of that manually because they don't do it at all. This software is useful for people who want collections of pirated content - especially if they serve it to other people. A family or someone who does piracy for a business, or collectors of media are who these suites work best for.

I have often had to manually intervene when using this supposedly "automatic" software. That and the time, trial, and error it takes to set all of it up make it not worth it for me. It gets especially annoying when it renames episodes to the wrong name, making them confusing to identify and taking time to fix manually. That wouldn't happen if you just didn't rename anything and saves valuable watching time.

Finally, someone speaking sense on a piracy community. So many people around these communities constantly push the .arr suite without ever mentioning that it just isn't worth the time or resources to set up for a single individual watching on their personal computer lol. It honestly gets really grating after a while. It's like you said, these programs are best utilized by media collectors and people serving media to groups of users, like a family. For most average users, Stremio with the Torrentio plug-in is all they need.

What is Jackett's manual search? Never heard of it.

Jackett is a program that allows you to configure multiple indexers (torrent sites, like 1337x, EZTV, RuTor, Nyaa.si, etc.) in a single interface, that way you can search through all of them at the same time. Jackett, and another program just like it called Prowlarr, is usually used in conjunction with the .arr suite of programs (Radarr, Sonarr, etc.), but it includes a manual search function that allows you to query all the indexers you have set up in the interface at the same time. That's exclusively what I use it for.

So, for example, I have 22 indexers set up in my installation of Jackett. I can use the manual search function to search through all of them at once, then I can sort the results by seeder count, publish date, and file size, and I can filter through the results to find exactly what I'm looking for. Once I've found the file I want, I can copy the magnet link directly from the search results and paste it into Qbittorrent. It's an extremely easy way to find files quickly, and it's much more efficient than manually going to a bunch of different torrent sites to search for a file that might not even be available there. With Jackett, I've literally never once had a case where I wasn't able to find what I was looking for. That's how good it is.

You can take this a step further and use Qbittorrents built in search function to query your jackett indexers. No reason to leave the Qbit webui

I actually have done that, but Qbit's built-in search doesn't have the same search filtering options. For instance, I can't sort torrents by upload date on the Qbit web-ui (this is the most important missing feature, imo), or set it to only search certain indexers and not others, and it has no category related options. It has the essentials, but the Jackett interface is just cleaner and more feature rich in my opinion. That's why I stopped using the Qbit search engine in favor of Jackett.

Don't you need to find 22 indexers to make that happen? Are these all public trackers because I don't think there are even that many left. Or are you using private trackers? I tried using Jacket but it's no good without having indexers, I thought it comes preinstalled with indexers

Jackett comes preloaded with 574 indexers, and none of the ones I use are private. All of mine are public indexers, you just have to know the names of some popular torrent sites. I discovered half the indexers I use from people on r/Piracy (before the migration) talking about how much they like how they work. That's how I found Idope, Knaben, and Torlock. Others, like 1337x, Nyaa.si, LimeTorrents, and EZTV are all indexers I was familiar with as I had used them personally and recognized them when I clicked into the "add indexers" drop-down on the interface. Barring all that, you could just ask someone else to send you a screenshot of all the indexers they use on their Jackett setup. Here's a list of the ones I use. Adding indexers to Jackett is basically the easiest part, and you only have to do it once.

I must have tried a different application before(not Jackett) because this one is totally different and I do see the preinstalled indexers and they work great! Now, is there an Android client for Jackett? My ideal scenario would be to search all my Jackett indexers from a nice Android app and tap a magnet link. I already have a torrrent app (Transdroid) installed on my Android so it would take it from there.

I'm not sure if they have an android version of Jackett. It would be a dream come true if that were the case, but I'm sure it would be listed in the Jackett github page if a mobile version was available. Sadly, there's no mention if anything like that on the github page.

Really glad to hear you were able to get Jackett working, though! It really is an amazing program.

Hmm, I couldn't figure out how to add them, so I gave up. I'll have to try it again

It does come preinstalled with them, that's the whole point of Jackett. You just need to enable them in the dashboard.

What? Now I'm confused, when I installed it and tried searching there was nothing. I could go configure them but I didn't know what to do there. EDIT, never mind, I was confusing Jackett with something else, Jackett works great.

Is there anything like this that I could use on Android?

I don't torrent on mobile, so I have no idea if a mobile equivalent to this exists, sorry.

Oh I see, I do all my torrenting on my tablet because that's where I watch the movies anyway

Your meme is missing one more picture where everything explodes with full servarr setup

I don't use .arr programs, so not really, lol. At least not in my case, anyway. Stremio fills the niche for all my media needs quite nicely, and Qbit and Jackett cover everything else.

Edit: Really, downvoting someone for using Stremio instead of the .arr suite? Lol. Stay classy, c/Piracy.

The next step is using Jellyseerr to tell Sonarr and Radarr to query Jackett to automatically download stuff you requested at the quality you've defined and have it automatically sent to your Transmission server.

Yeah until jackett shits the bed and all of a sudden all indexers fail, and the "official fix" is to completely reinstall.

Edit: Don't downvote me, express your displeasure here and here. Tell 'em I sent ya.

Gotta say, in over 2 years of using this program, I've never had that happen even once.

Been using it for about a month-ish and it did it to me today, looked up the issue and github said reinstall. Now I can't use it until I do, but thankfully I just got on usenet so I can be lazy for a week or so.

My solution to this has just been to run it in Docker. Update the container and redeploy and it's working again. Only had it happen once or twice though, so not sure if what you're describing is what I experienced or something different.

Yeah I might do this, I've yet to use docker (new-ish to linux) so I'll have to look into it. I also need to find out which *arr will search usenet indexers and auto-dl shows I say to get, and I think I need to run that thing in a docker container, so I have to figure it out anyway! Lol thanks for the idea!

Built in search in qBittorrent? Why am I learning about this only now? This is awesome just gave it a shot

You may get mixed results with it. I certainly didn't get much out of it.

You might wanna try jackett or sonarr and radarr, which are more fully featured solutions.

I would like to set up an .arr stack that dumps files into my OMV NAS, where Jellyfin can pick them up, but I want the torrent traffic to go through my Proton VPN. Is this a common configuration, or should I be doing something differently?

If you are in the docker ecosystem, this is fantastic https://github.com/haugene/docker-transmission-openvpn

You can configure sonarr and radarr around this so that when the torrents are completed, they are renamed and placed in the nas as well as send a webhook to jellyfin to let it know it has been added (instead of it having to to do a manual search)

Not uncommon. I run wireguard in a docker container for Mullvad and then set my qBittorent container to use the network of the wireguard container. If you do something like this you'll need to set routing rules on the VPN so the web interface of your torrent client is accessible over your LAN for the *arr stack. The wireguard docs have a decent guide on how to do this, shouldn't be a problem on OpenVPN either.

Right now I have everything going through Tailscale, it’s just my desktop that goes through Proton when I’m torrenting manually like it’s 2011. Idk, old habits die hard, ig

Yep, that's what I'm doing (except different NAS). I've got the Proton connection at my firewall, but you can use a gluetun container and route your other containers through that as well.

Yeah this is honestly how I find/download most stuff. Almost all trackers on I'm on have jackett support, and then I can choose the exact release I want.

Im feeling very weird not knowing pingas about what you are talking

¿Besas a tu mamà con esa boca?

jajajaja, I'm actually Brazilian that play Dota, I started to use "pingas" cause I'm always flammed by Hispanics with this word, but for us that is a synonym for cachaça, our liquor, so I probably started using this wrong, anyway I still don't know

I NEVER managed to make Jackett's plugin work in my qBbittorent. No matter how many tutorials I follow x)

You probably have, but did you follow the official configuration tutorial?

I had no trouble setting it up before. Seemed very easy to me. Where are you getting stuck in the process?

Alternatively, you could just search directly in Jackett's interface with the "manual search" option. That's what I do. I find it preferable to setting it up with the Qbit search engine since Jackett's search has more features.

I'm far from home on vacation, so I can't answer precisely, but yeah, I followed the official tutorial. Can't remember the error though, but I'm close to making it work. It just gets stuck for whatever reason. Maybe that's because I use qBbittorent in a docker container, don't know.

So yes, I use the manual search when I need something very specific, which I'd rather do from qbit. Otherwise, I use all the *arr suite for my audiovisual needs. Pretty nice and painless.

Thanks for answering and for giving the link :)

I DDL because I live in america and people here tell me there are no good free VPNs (I do not have disposable income)

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but i dont wanna pay for a vpn...

Jackett doesn't require a VPN to use? Unless you mean torrents in general, in which case yeah, you do kinda need a VPN for those if you live in a country that prosecutes torrenting. Fortunately, you can just direct download stuff in that case.

dont most countries not allow it though? something about there being pressure from the country/copy right holder that the product is associated with? so like even if uganda dont care if their citizens all rip the new taylor swift, if they dont enforce then usa or copyright holder is going to be mad and uganda dont want that.

i could be wrong im not sure but i think i read that somewhere. so like essentially its illegal everywhere depending on what content is torrented, which a lot is from usa. and probably south korea lol and i know they have strict copyright laws

Nah, even in Canada you just get a warning everytime a rights holder complains. I have Teksavyy, which is a decent ISP, they take the "scary" letter/email the rights holder sends and enclose it in a cover letter that says "we're legally required to send this to you, however they don't know who you are so don't respond to them or expose yourself in any way. The only way for them to find out who you are is if a judge compels us to tell them, which is rare"

There is no amount of these warnings that leads to a higher consequence.

I expect that if Canada is this chill, I'd be surprised if Uganda was more strict.

It's mostly just the US that's insane about copyright I think. You guys have Hollywood and the music industry and they got no chill.

It's also Germany where torrenting without VPN is not possible. There's one single law firm that has contracts with most big IP holders. They look up IP's on public trackers and sent an "Unterlassungserklärung" to the name and adress of the person paying the ISP. ISP's having to give out names to IP's without a court order is the problem here.

Ouch, sorry to hear that. Anyone know if that's the same with other EU member states?

Not nearly. The Czech Republic is largely a free haven. We don't have good public trackers, though.

Well, no, actually vast majority of countries do not care at all. There are only a few countries like Germany for instance, where you have to use vpn for torrenting

How do you install search plugins in qBittorrent? When I follow their instructions, paste the plugin URL to add it, nothing happens. I'm using a headless qBittorrent web gui

Honestly I had the same experience with qbittorrent's plugins. Many are outdated and broken i think.

It's much easier to use sonarr and radarr, with prowlarr for managing torrent mirrors.

Yeah, I'd rather not go down that rabbit hole, it's too much for what I need. I just want to be able to search for torrents easier and add them with one click, I don't need the whole automation stack.

You guys are not using radarr/sonarr?

Funny you should mention it, I actually discovered Jackett through Radarr/Sonarr. I saw a lot of people a few years ago on r/Piracy raving about how much they love their Radarr/Sonarr setup, so I decided to follow a video tutorial on how to set up Radarr/Sonarr. One of the steps was to install and configure Jackett. Long story short, I realized a Radarr/Sonarr setup just wasn't worth it for me (didn't have the time/money to set up a dedicated computer for it), so I uninstalled all the .arr programs and gave up on that, but I forgot to uninstall Jackett. Later, I rediscovered it on my system, and while poking around on the interface, I found the manual search function and used it. Suffice to say, it's all been uphill from there lol

nope. Every time I try them, they fuck up my movies / series categorization. They have bad support for multilingual content (or maybe the releasers should use better naming). To be honest I never understood why radarr and sonarr is useful. How many movies are you watching that downloading becomes a time wasting effort? For TV series, why don't you download packs that contain the entire season?

For each movies I spend less than a minute for the torrent search, for tv series less than 5 minutes just because I am picky on quality. Given how many problems people have with the -arr stack, I think my time is better spent like this. Maybe stuff would be different with usenet

Because not every movie and episode that I want to watch is already released. Radarr/sonarr lets me subscribe and downlod the correct movie/episode when available in the quality profile that I want.

Also automatically sorting everything in a useful structure when I share my plex libraries with friends and family.

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I'm kind of shocked that there isn't a PonFarr for this ecosystem.

Am I the only one that uses Medusa to auto download shows?

I have never heard of Medusa and it seems pretty outdated compared to Sonarr.

Are torrent search engines built into clients an older feature nowadays? I remember uTorrent having it years ago but as a qbittorrent user I tried the search plugins and they were pretty much all broken and outdated, especially as many only worked for a single tracker.

I went with sonarr and radarr for the full beans

I just started sailing again and all the torrents i want for my fav bands are stuck at 0. So i've started getting songs one by one from that website that takes them from deezer i found on here.