If You're Subscribed To Microsoft Word, You Probably Received An Email Recently Saying They're Upping

it's quick it's easy and it's free: piracy

my roommates are very, very good programmers. some of the most technically competent people in the world. and yet both of them flail around helplessly when it comes to piracy. one of them couldn't pirate rimworld and the other needed help getting howl's moving castle. how? perhaps not all people are gifted with innate knowledge of Crime?? i dont understand it, but ive decided to write this helpful guide for them and everyone else with no cyberpunk in their souls*

Helpful reference but too much information for your first time: r/Piracy megathread

Download vs Torrent vs Stream

There are three main ways to pirate things:

Downloading**: this is when you go to a website and click a button and then your browser firefox gives you a little notification telling you it's downloading a file. Then you have the file on your puter and you open it or run it or whatever.

Torrenting: this is when you go to a website and download a torrent file. Then you open that file with another program called a torrent client and it downloads the real file for you.

Streaming: this is when you go to a website and you press play on a video/song and it plays you the thing right there in your browser firefox. no file ever gets downloaded to your machine

Or in flow chart form:

Downloading: firefox -> website that has Movie (2022) -> download button -> wait for it to download -> Movie (2022).mp4 is in your Downloads folder -> you play Movie (2022) with a video player VLC

Torrenting: firefox -> torrent website The Pirate Bay -> search for Movie (2022) -> download the torrent file -> open the torrent file with qbittorrent -> it downloads Movie (2022).mp4 -> Movie (2022).mp4 is in your Downloads folder -> you play Movie (2022) with VLC

Streaming: firefox -> streaming website swatchseries -> you find Movie (2022) -> click play -> Movie (2022) plays in your firefox window

Security Shit

Will I get in legal trouble (in the US or Canada) (I am not a lawyer this isn't legal advice etc etc):

Downloading: No

Streaming: No

Torrenting: No, see fine print. If you use a VPN Mullvad, then no, definitely not. If you don't then: there is a small chance the copyright holder will notice and send a letter to your internet provider. You will get a scary letter from your internet provider (ISP). If that happens a lot there is a chance your ISP will turn off your service (I don't know anyone who has actually had this happen). There is basically zero chance that the copyright holder will sue you: they don't know who you are. They need to get that information from your ISP, and ISPs don't give that information out very freely. They would also have to actually successfully sue you, and that mostly stopped. Overall the risk is that your ISP gets mad at you, not that you get sued and/or go to jail.****

Will I get hacked???

Streaming: No. If you don't have ad block it'll probably open a bunch of annoying popups tho. Get uBlock

Downloading/Torrenting Data (Video/Music/Books): These will generally be safe. Keep your player/reader software updated. Make sure the file has the right extension (mp4, mp3, pdf/epub/mobi, etc).

Downloading/Torrenting Executables (Games/Applications): Not safe. People can and do insert malware into the executable. It will still run, but it will do things in the background you don't want. The way to avoid this is by downloading only from places that are well-known and vetted by the community. I recommend fitgirl repacks. If for some reason fitgirl goes down, check the r/Piracy megathread

Don't ever give anything administrative permissions unless you're really super duper extra sure.

And of course, standard internet security advice applies. See the r/Piracy list of untrusted sites if you're curious about a particular site.

Books

Use libgen. Note that every once in a while libgen gets kicked out of a particular country and that link will break. In that case you should use your favorite search engine to search for libgen and find the new extension

Scientific Papers

Use scihub. Same thing as libgen applies.

Movies/TV

I generally recommend streaming rather than downloading. There's less risk and it's rare that you can't find what you want. Currently I use 123 chill (use uBlock). You can also use Video DownloadHelper to download a video file from a streaming site.

Music

uhhh tbh I get music with a script I wrote myself. Good luck lads, try reddit???

Games

Get torrents from fitgirl

thread.

*I'm deliberately picking one program/site for each step to minimize complexity. please dont do anything unbearably silly like list 8 different torrent clients or get into the minutiae of Firefox vs Firefox Developer Edition***.

**inb4 someone says "well actually torrenting is downloading too". you fool. you absolute buffoon.

*** if you so much as mention chrome I'll download your car.

**** if you are torrenting a lot then maybe your ISP sells you out. if youre going to torrent idk every video game ever then get mullvad

We've lost a lot to the onslaught of enshittification but I can think of none more brazen than Discord getting rid of the send button

I’m seeing a bunch of posts that make me think most USAmericans don’t know about The No Surprises Act.

It was passed in 2021 (thank you Biden) and essentially states that if you don’t have insurance or your insurance doesn’t cover a service you need (or want) you are entitled to a Good Faith Estimate of the cost of care. (If your insurance does cover the service, you should be able to estimate the cost of care based on your deductible and co-pay.)

As a healthcare provider who does not accept any insurance, I am very careful to not violate The No Surprises Act. Why? Because for every penny more than $400 that the Good Faith Estimate was “off” (or if it wasn’t provided), you are entitled to a refund for that amount.

Y’all. Ask for a Good Faith Estimate. Get it in writing. Compare it to what you are paying. If you are not provided an estimate or if it’s wrong by more than $400, demand a refund.

there needs to be so much more legislation when it comes to advertising, especially mobile adverts which are 99% lies and often predatory.

If the Internet Archive goes down or stops allowing the uploading of books, the other GG archivists and I have everything backed up and are working on disseminating the archive amongst ourselves to make it more infallible. We'll reupload it if we must. I hope it doesn't come down to that, but I'm grateful we were all here to save everything while we're still were able to

As I've said before, will say again, and will say some more in the far future: The internet is ephemeral. If you love it, save it. Your copy may one day be the only copy.

Do not fall for the trap (moreso for salary workers), also known as fto (flexible time off)

to anyone in the areas impacted by the wildfire smoke, my #1 biggest piece of advice as someone whos been dealing with wildfire smoke in the NW united states for years, is build yourself a Corsi-Rosenthal Cube

they perform as well as expensive HEPA air cleaners, and are comparatively VERY inexpensive. all you need is a box fan, 4 air filters, a piece of cardboard, and some duct tape!!!!

i think it took us maybe a half hour to put ours together, if that, and we replace the filters every 3 months. it's really made a HUGE difference, both when the air quality is bad, but also with our allergies

something my mum always taught us was to look for the resources we're entitled to, and use them. public land? know your access rights and responsibilities, go there and exercise them. libraries? go there and talk to librarians and read community notice boards, find out what other people are doing around you, ask questions, use the printers. public records offices? go in there, learn what they hold and what you can access, look at old maps, get your full birth certificate copied, check out the census from your neighbourhood a hundred years ago. are you entitled to social support? find out, take it, use it. does the local art college have facilities open to the public? go in, look around, check out their exhibit on ancient looms or whatever, shop in their campus art supply store. it applies online too, there is so much shit in the world that belongs to the public commons that you can access and use if you just take a minute to wonder what might exist!!!