A torrent client may need settings in the client changed, firewall rules changed, and ports open on the router. Even with all that a VPN could still have a limited connection. Some VPNs allow you control over this but I doubt free ones do
Things are changing rapidly but asynchronous upload/download speeds are not always offered by ISPs and uploading was always slower than downloading... used to be never but I've seen more and more ISPs offer asynchronous speeds
There are a huge number of factors that we don't know that could account for your slower speeds
I had a brief stint in a shit hole during COVID lockdowns. This old dude started and it turned out his wife and the lady in charge were friends. He was one of the dumbest people I've ever met. He legit had someone else's glasses on and didn't know until the other guy was trying to find his. He said he thought it was weird that he couldn't see properly. He also seen a few guys with face screens rather than masks and he wanted one. We told him you can get them from health and safety, so off he goes. Comes back and says they're awful, you can't see shit out of them. He hadn't removed the protective covering...
I've worked with some apes in my time but I've no idea how this guy got so far in life without dying or something
You're correct. I have had Hikvision cameras for quite some time. I didn't trust them from the start so they can't go online. I can't watch remotely but I don't care about that. Not everyone will be in this position though
I'm on a few private trackers, never paid a penny towards any of them, and have high ratios in all of them
It did take me a little work and spent some time seeding stuff I didn't really want but I got there with a shitty home connection (my connection is pretty good now but I built those ratios with dog shit speeds)
You're downloading old and/or unpopular stuff. For you to upload content someone has to be actively downloading that content (that's how the bit torrent protocol works at the most basic level). If you choose some 5 year-old FL of a Game of Thrones pack with 7,000 seeders, that's on you
Games would be fine too if they are Scene/Topsite cracks. You should be able to verify the files integrity with the hash, referenced to a Pre site like scnsrc.net
It will depend a lot on hardware and/or software but I'd bet users would see some artefacting, ghosting, and general noise when they play your x265 file
As another comment pointed out, an encode of an encode is banned on a lot of trackers... Or at least an encode of an already pretty lossy encode (x264) won't be allowed
On a very very rare occasion I've had to use it for scene cracks as other apps didn't work. They use WinRAR to archive it so on those very rare occasions it's the only thing that unpacks it
I installed trusted cracks from scene groups. Not everyone who can crack will be a scene group. To get into the scene you need to be well trusted. Scene groups would NOT damage their integrity to install something malicious through a crack
As another user said, check the files you have match the direct uploads from the scene with a site like predb.me
You can search online for more info on scene groups/warez/topsites
I still catch myself doing this on occasion!!