How to download everything you ever wanted

Many local net users still don’t get the idea that the internet is a big, free supermarket of goodies. Naturally, local business is hoping that this simple fact isn’t found out, and that people will continue handing over large amounts of money for things they can find and download for free, if they take the time to look.

ISPs, as well, like the fact that most users don’t download much. This is why some ISPs can get away with a stupid limitation of a mere three gigs of downloads per month, while United Kingdom and United States users are used to sensible limits of 500 gigs and more.

It’s all about Telkom’s monopoly and control of the bandwidth pipe in and out of South Africa, which our taxes paid for, originally, and which now provides Telkom and its shareholders with billions of rands of “profit” each year. Before diving into the goodies to download, you might want to learn why you pay so much for the internet, as well as a host of other relevant things, at Hellkom.

Now, let’s go find you some free movies to download. You’ll need a download manager, so that you can stop and start the download, and thus gradually get huge files over a series of nights without losing any data. (When I was on a dial-up modem, I easily downloaded up to 900 megs from Friday night to Monday morning — so just because you’re on a modem, it doesn’t mean you can’t grab delicious goodies.)

There are a number of shareware download managers to choose from — for instance, Reget Pro or Flash Get. For a wide choice of download managers, browse what’s available via Tucows Download Managers.

Now you are geared up and ready to download whatever you want, without worrying about being disconnected or losing whatever you started to grab. At last, you can download huge files without worrying about anything. For instance, free movies!

There’s a very big legal online database of full-length movies, ranging from the mundane to the bizarre, such as old propaganda films and special-interest titles, at Movie Archive.

For example, it’s a little long-winded, but still interesting: go look at and download 9/11: The Road to Tyranny. Or to browse the available documentaries on subjects as diverse as Alexandra township, Shell oil in Nigeria and anti-war protests, look through the films to grab and watch under Guerilla News Network.

(To see some of the protests at the Iraq invasion, and to show you the other side of the United States that you don’t see via the corporate media, have a look at the documentary We Interrupt This Empire.

Because local bandwidth is often really slow, you perhaps have discovered that trying to watch any streaming video just doesn’t work. Luckily, there’s a solution that lets you save the streaming content to your hard drive, to watch in comfort. It’s not strictly legal, but there’s no real alternative, given the insufficient bandwidth we are struggling with locally.

The tool is called Streambox VCR — and, naturally, the companies who didn’t want to allow users to grab their content wet themselves and reached for their lawyers at the online appearance of this great little tool. So, it’s fairly rare (if you search, you’ll probably stumble across Streambox Ripper, another great application to convert “real media” formats into the more sensible MP3 format).

It’s four megs in size, but it’s worth it, if you are tired of trying to view or listen to stuttering and stopping-and-starting audio/video streams via the net. Here’s a currently working link for Streambox VCR.

And here’s a forum where new users to the software are asking questions about it: After Dawn.

There’s another useful application to steal streaming audio and video, called StreamDown. Here’s the official StreamDown Page. And for a brief review of what it does, look here.

Naturally, it would be wrong and probably illegal to suggest that you try to search for the “application name” + crack (or + serial) in order to find a code to register the software, so I won’t suggest this.

Now that you have the ability to grab audio/video and save it, take a look through the archive of interesting and classic UFO-related radio shows at Classic UFO.

For an even bigger archive of assorted paranormal, conspiracy and UFO radio shows, stretching back years and which can provide you with hours of fascinating listening, go to this page, and at the bottom, you’ll have links to its huge archives of radio shows from 1994-1998: Paranet Radio Shows.

For a large range of audio documentaries on a variety of subjects, go to Sound Portraits. Then, for short horror films on an urban theme, see Urban Chillers.

The above should give you a headstart. Now let’s do a quick rundown of some of the basic and most popular methods of finding “content” on the internet. (“Content” means whatever you specifically like and want to download.) It doesn’t automatically mean anything illegal, just whatever you happen to enjoy, whether it’s music, films, TV shows or others.

The following assorted applications are the basic tools you need, in order to get away from endlessly looking through web pages to try to find what you like and into the areas of the internet where everything that you want is likely to be found.

Bit torrents are another way to get files and goodies. For this, you need an application to download the “torrents”, as well as a method of searching for the files you want. There is a range of different applications you can use, and everyone has their own favourite.

Firstly, be advised that there’s a serious online war between the Motion Picture Association of America and all the free-stuff-loving people of the entire Earth, so the following sites are at complete odds with the corporate view that everything must be paid for.

So, purely for educational purposes — and I should stress here that I’m not advocating piracy in any way at all, but simply demonstrating how widespread the problem is — have a look, for instance, at Torrent Reactor. For a Torrent site that tends to focus on British TV material, see Digital Distractions. Here is another British Torrent site. For a forum-based Torrent site (you’ll need to register), go to File Soup.

You name it, there’s a torrent site dedicated to it. For instance, Anime-Specific Torrents. Or, as I’m a fan of improvisational comedy, here’s a site for Whose Line Is It Anyway? Torrents.

Torrents also have their own search engines. One of the more comprehensive ones, which searches many torrent sites as well as IRC, is Iso Hunt. Another, to find that rare or interesting content you’ve been looking for (although you might need to register), is Torrent Search.

Now that you’ve seen just what torrents can provide (in both legal and illegal content), you will need a torrent client. Here are a few of the more popular torrent clients available: ABC (which stands for Another BitTorrent Client), Bit Tornado and Bit Comet.

You might want to listen to (or download) a radio talk on movie technology and piracy, here.

But the above is merely scratching the surface of the “real” internet, the much larger internet that exists away from the web-page-based one that you’re used to. I’m not going to waste time explaining the following tools, but merely list them, and it’s up to you to download each and fiddle away to discover what you’ve been missing out on. A good start is internet relay chat (also simply called IRC — pronounced “eye are see”) at MIRC.

Continuing in the file-sharing genre is DC++ (pronounced “dee see plus plus”). Click on the download link at the left to choose a site from which to download it, at DC++.

The above sites and information ought to provide you with a good starting point to turning your computer into a genuine entertainment source, and get you away from passively watching TV forever. It should also get you on the road towards finally starting to use up bandwidth and begin downloading everything you ever wanted, but couldn’t find.

After all, you’re the one spending money on an internet connection — for what? To look at a few web pages and check your e-mail? That’s like buying a Porsche to crush snails in your driveway. Use up that bandwidth, guzzle the goodies, go forth and download.

Until the next time, if your internet service provider doesn’t get me.

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