- the site is awesome, but could be better
- I was also a fan of githubs awesome lists (eg. https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted)
- I think separated lists are cool, because they focus on one subject, like self-hosted above... but if all awesome lists were in one big list...
- awesome lists are often data, with a lack of search functionality. fmhy site has a search functionality, but I often prefer searching links by a 'tag'
- what most of awesome lists lack is 'votes', or 'ranking'
My solution is to provide links, with tags, and 'ranking' https://github.com/rumca-js/Internet-Places-Database. Provides search by link, title, description, whatever. I think that is where it all should go.
Also my database captures links from fmhy.
I think an important distinction is that most of the awesome lists required an entry to have some sort of a sentence-long pitch about why something's awesome instead of a giant list of items with no way to distinguish between them without clicking. That's far more important than tags in my opinion.
That said, I am biased as I maintained quite a few of them years ago and am happy to see today's youngling maintain this tradition of low-effort contributions to make a source that's better than a search engine when looking for stuff in a specific niche.
Note for the hacker crowd: they don't mean free as in speech. They mean free as in beer that fell off a truck.
"Beer that fell off a truck" has a somewhat negative connotation, but FMHY-listed sites are generally not only free, but also high quality, especially the starred ones. Nowadays when I'm looking for a service to do something I just search FMHY instead of a search engine. Much better results.
“Fell off the back of a truck” is a euphemism for stolen goods; it’s not so much about quality (indeed warez releases are often stripped of ads/launchers/annoyances, rendering them very high quality).
Copying Is Not Theft
When I was coming up, hackers embraced both those definitions. "Information wants to be free" and "fuck corporations" were our guiding principles.
Edit: to the dead comment in reply to this one, of course it's more nuanced than "all information should be public at all times". It's almost like a 5-word axiom necessarily omits nuance in exchange for brevity.
Hackers also used to exhibit critical thinking skills, sheesh.
VC "hackers" still think that information is free and fuck corporations, just as long as it's not "their" information or "their" corporation
That’s long gone, especially around here. YC is YC.
It’s sad the best we could do in terms of community forum is a VC’s website.
>It’s sad the best we could do in terms of community forum is a VC’s website.
It is sad. There are definitely some talented people here but the pervasive corporate bootlicking is pretty hard to take, at times.
Certain usenet newsgroups had a similar vibe, once upon a time, but usenet couldn't solve the spam problem.
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Meta, openai, google have a bridge to sell you
They mean free as in a poem that can be recited by anyone who has listened to it previously.
Speech isn't a medium in this context.
Piracy is preservation.
Always has been.
Rightsholders must not be allowed to control how works are preserved, else they can very easily steal from the eventual public domain in ways that mere piracy can never be considered stealing.
I think it's insane that the concept of a legal deposit [0] is so rarely extended to films or other media. Even more insane is that US courts have found it to be unconstitutional. A primary school's student newspaper needs to send two copies to the national library, while a movie can be played in every cinema in the nation and...nothing?? Let alone video games and other, more complicated media...
Everyone likes to shit on patents, but patents are designed well. You invent a thing and in exchange for publishing it openly, you get time-limited exclusive rights to it. Why the hell is copyright not like that?
> Everyone likes to shit on patents, but patents are designed well.
I think the critique of patents has more to do with the patent officers often being ignorant of blatant, widespread prior art, or having a bizarre idea of how the relevant legal principles should apply in a particular problem domain.
It's sufficient but not necessary. It would be better if there was an entity like the library of congress who would keep it safe, but private until copyright expired after which it would become public. Right now piracy leads to way more of free entertainment than preservation.
In practice, it's necessary. While escrow should absolutely be a requirement to receive the benefits of copyright protection you'd also need to make sure that the escrowed artifact is actually complete and in a usable form and covers every version of the work. That means a lot more than dumping it onto the library of congress so even with that requirement we would benefit from independent archival.
well maybe but they don't do a very good job at it
popular stuff that you could watch anywhere, you can pirate of course
but anything more obscure is impossible to find, or was there at one point but is now long gone
Whose "they"? Private sites do a phenomenal job at preserving a large amount of rare content.
Piracy = Piracy. Stop doing mental gymnastics to justify stealing. If you rip a movie and put it up on the internet, it's not preservation, it's piracy.
Even if you disagree with copyright infringement, it's not the same as stealing.
> Rightsholders must not be allowed to control how works are preserved, else they can very easily steal from the eventual public domain
I was clapping my hands at the skilfulness of this satire -- the idea that a person could actually believe this near-perfect inversion of reality, where piracy is not merely acceptable but in fact noble -- and then I started to think that... you actually probably do believe this.
If you were in fact trolling all along, my hat is off, you got me.
This is a very interesting sub https://www.reddit.com/r/opendirectories
This reminds of FTP directories I used to download things from. There were FTP search engines (they are probably listed on this website already).
I've used this site for years, I originally found it off their subreddit. When they finally moved to a dedicated site it really improved the whole user experience from whatever reddit CSS was doing.
The admins keep it consistently updated and remove problem sources on a regular basis.
> The admins keep it consistently updated and remove problem sources on a regular basis.
It's very much a community effort! There's a semi-open discord (the invites are only open on fridays) with a website suggestion and voting system
We need to make all of this so much more popular again
This is a fantastic resource. Not just for illegal purposes either. There is plenty of free stuff that is legal here.
It's easy to remember the URL too.
Very cool. I have a similar side project for scraping youtube playlists and aggregating open source texts. Mainly materials for computer science, system design, and DSA (data structures and algorithms).
On GH as joshribakoff/leetdeeper
stremio + debrid had been nice for most things. after a bunch of random stremio plugin outages i built my own little app that just talks to apibay and the debrid back end and links it up to vlc a few months ago and have just used that.
Having some knowledge about 'how the sausage is made', the smoothness of a stremio + debrid setup feels pretty close to magic.
Which debrid service do you use?
alldebrid. their 4.0/4.1 api has all the stuff to decode magnets and browse their files. filter mkv,mp4,etc. i made a little database of imdb tt values to assist autosuggest for searching and a nsfw filter for the few friends and family using the app.
have thought about extending it to realdebrid/torbox/etc but it's just been kinda set and forget. every once in a while will add a feature... most recently i think was seeing if there was a matching srt file and feeding that along with the video file to vlc so you get subtitle support if it's not baked into the video file
disclaimer: had opus summarize the key api endpoints and flows so anyone could whip their own up:
## External APIs & Endpoints
### Apibay (Search)
- \*URL\*: `https://apibay.org/q.php?q={query}&cat=0`
- \*Auth\*: None
- \*Returns\*: JSON array of `{ info_hash, name, seeders, leechers, size, imdb, category }`
### AllDebrid v4
- \*Base\*: `https://api.alldebrid.com/v4`
- \*Auth\*: API key as `apikey` query parameter, `agent` param required
- \*Endpoints\*:
- `GET /magnet/upload?magnets[]={magnet}&agent=YOURAPP&apikey={key}` — Upload magnet
- `GET /magnet/status?id={id}&agent=YOURAPP&apikey={key}` — Poll magnet status
- `GET /link/unlock?link={link}&agent=YOURAPP&apikey={key}` — Unlock hoster link to direct URL
### AllDebrid v4.1
- \*Base\*: `https://api.alldebrid.com/v4.1`
- \*Auth\*: `Authorization: Bearer {apikey}` header
- \*Endpoints\*:
- `POST /magnet/status` — Body: `id={magnetId}` or `status=active|ready`
- `POST /magnet/files` — Body: `id[]={id1}&id[]={id2}...` — Get file list with download links
### VLC Media Player (Local Binary)
- macOS: `/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC`
- Windows: `C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe`
- Linux: `vlc` (from PATH)
- Args: `--fullscreen --no-video-title-show {url}` (optional: `--input-slave={subtitleUrl}`)
### Magnet Unlock Flow
1. User clicks a result → `handleSelectResult(result)`
2. \*Fast path\*: `getMagnetIdByHash(hash)` checks cache → if found, `getStatusV41({id})` + `getMagnetFiles([id])`
3. \*Upload path\*: If not cached, `allDebrid.uploadMagnet(magnet)` → cache ID via `setMagnetId(hash, id)`
4. If magnet not ready (still caching on AllDebrid), status modal shows progress
5. `flattenMagnetFilesResponse()` converts nested file tree to flat `[{ filename, link }]`
6. Fallback: Legacy `getStatus(id)` → `getFiles(link)` for each download link
7. `unlockLinksToFiles(links)` — batch unlock, filter to video files only
### Playback Flow
1. User clicks Play on a file → `handlePlay(url, filename, subtitleUrl?)`
2. `window.api.play(url, subtitleUrl)` → main process resolves AllDebrid link → spawns VLC
3. `library.recordPlay(hash, title, filename, streamUrl)` → updates or creates history entry, increments per-file `playCount`Real debrid has been pretty good for me
Too much free stuff already and anything new will eventually become free. I'd rather wait or direct money to the projects I support.
I point to this resource to my friends and family when they want to get stuff for free.
A great resource as an alternative to hostile and expensive subscription based "services" that shouldn't be businesses.
Awesome site. Easy to remember as well.
The modern bible of online piracy.
This looks like a reasonably good page (there possibly are better ones) for general AI chatbots, rate limits and sign-in requirements:
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We abandoned piracy too soon. We fell for the trap that enshittified everything. It is time to pirate again.
In the music space, piracy won.
After Napster, there was no going back from giving people immediate unlimited access to everything.
Streamers like Spotify learned that there’s a price point that is low enough for people to “round down” and forget it’s on their monthly credit card statement, but high enough that major label execs are happy. The trick is ignoring what the artists want.
Bandcamp does ok without ignoring what the artists want. I think the biggest issue with buying directly from the musician isn't the price but the friction of purchasing online
And the friction of storing stuff. I want to listen to music, not manage a collection.
Takes all kinds, I guess. If I don't have it permanently (or at least non-transiently) recorded on physical media that resides within my living space, I can't feel like I "own" it.
The artists wanted to sign with labels.
Jokes on us, after all has settled. Have you tried to buy a ticket to live music lately? It was $750 for a good seat in more than 1 occasion this past year, and that is first market tickets from the venue, not a traditionally 'scalped' ticket.
These two equations are tied together. Before, the lucky artists were front-loaded their buckets of cash from the labels. But now the royalty cheques are measured in pennies and the live music enjoyers seem to be the equalization payments.
$5 at the local Blues Jam Session. Some of the music is good.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/berowramonthlyjam/
$30 or "free" at Miss Celie's. If free, patrons are asked to buy a couple of drinks from the bar.
An import playing a stadium is eye-watering, but why bother?
Artists aren’t charging more for concerts because they are making less money on album sales. Concert tickets are priced based on supply and demand. If they could have been charging $750 back then, they would have, no matter how much they were making on album sales.
I do think you might be right, though, that there is a causal relationship between diminished album revenue and more expensive tickets, it just isn’t because the artists need the money. Since most people can now listen to all the music they want for a flat fee, music lovers can now spend more of their hobby money on concert tickets, which increases price very directly since supply is limited.
> Jokes on us, after all has settled. Have you tried to buy a ticket to live music lately? It was $750 for a good seat in more than 1 occasion this past year, and that is first market tickets from the venue, not a traditionally 'scalped' ticket.
> These two equations are tied together.
Not in the way you're trying to imply. No matter how rich performers already were in the past, they had no way to make tickets to their performances cheap, even if they wanted to. Cheap seats in the past reflect lack of demand. Expensive seats now reflect increased popularity.
jesus go to a basement it's like $15 at most and you can meet actual artists
Most of the people that complain about ticket prices are going to ticketmaster venues to see elaborate productions built by the biggest artists in the world.
When I tell people that I used to go to at least one show every week on my grad student stipend they are very confused. It’s because I was seeing music by local bands or up-and-coming acts that would charge $10 in the back of a dive bar. Those types of shows aren’t $10 any more, but they are still cheap. And those are the artists that are in the most need of your financial support with tickets and merch. Once an artist is big enough to book an arena… they ain’t struggling
Lots of local metal shows are in the $15 range, so not too far off
Growing up the Pub Rock scene was pretty eclectic and cost less than buying a round for your friends.
The Old Greek Theatre staged some high Art at times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxoODPQ4CTM
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I just bought a bluray drive and I've started ripping movies. The quality is fantastic on an HD bluray upscaled on a 4k tv, and even a DVD looks far better than I thought it would, and far better than it did 20 years ago when DVDs were current.
Vinegar syndrome has a couple UHD releases that are on 100GB BluRay. Storage available has been.. ahem, sparse. But you can get a real nice nearly-automated workflow for ripping with makemkv.
Beware that not just any Blu-ray drive will work with UHD Blu-ray discs. There's both hardware limitations (100GB aka BDXL) and firmware restrictions (incl. copy protection) for with the drive needs support. Some drives with the hardware to support BDXL but without official UHD support can be patched to support UHD but check the MakeMKV forums before you buy such a drive.
I haven't come across any Vinegar syndrome releases yet (that I'm aware of) but lots of Shout! Factory or Arrow Video ones. From the Films that I'm interested in more have UHD releases now than not.
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You can find their work for free here: https://fmhy.net
Just keep it hush-hush.
Thanks, but I should have been clearer: I meant the work they use to pay for their groceries.
That's the good stuff.
You mean the work that pays for the yachts of some billionaires?
Could you be more specific about which payment is upsetting you?
Assuming OP is not a billionaire themselves, I can only think of cash flowing from a billionaire employer to OP for work done by OP. But I don't see how that could "pay for" the billionaire's yachts?
I like how this went from “piracy is categorically theft” to “trickle down economics is real and good” in so few posts, it is an impressively rapid display of statements that look like silly opinions but are actually objectively false assertions
> “piracy is categorically theft”
I think you think that that's something I said or implied, but I haven't said or implied that.
> “trickle down economics is real and good”
Ditto.
If you want to talk about those things, I suggest starting a new thread at the top level.
> If you want to talk about those things, I suggest starting a new thread at the top level.
It seems like if you didn’t want to talk about the things that you implied in your posts you would elaborate on what you really meant, instead of asking folks to repost the points that you were trying to make.
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