Software Endorsements -

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

No, I'm not doing it for illegal shit so there should be no worries there.

iIf you're shit is boring enough then Facebook and Google will ignore it.

edit: I'm sorry this is the time when I get Tiger Balm into my eyes.

 

[Terrorist]

 

[Remove Goat]

While people have brought up video grabbers for YouTube are a dime a dozen, no one's brought up a general video grabber so I'd like to recommend Video Downloadhelper.
https://www.downloadhelper.net/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-downloadhelper/lmjnegcaeklhafolokijcfjliaokphfk

It's kind of shit at YouTube, but it's great for getting shit behind an HTML5 player or hidden from downloading by other means.

Videos and music download quickly as long as the site itself doesn't throttle connections, IIRC it downloads files simultaneously in multiple chunks to speed up downloads. (Says it supports "media" in flv/ram/mpg/mpeg/avi/rm/wmv/mov/asf/mp3/rar/movie/divx/rbs/mp4/mpeg4 formats but I'm pretty sure it can pull sfw and ogg/ogv as well.) Also displays the size of available media so you know what you're looking for. All in the convenience of an extension

Can't remember if it was for both Chrome and Firefox, but ever since Mozilla took away some feature when they pushed Quantum, it requires a companion app to get files that are too big for the browser to handle, but the app runs completely in the background and doesn't have any noticeable performance impact when it's doing it's thing.

Only real downsides I've noticed are it can't get content that's live streamed (like Soundcloud or an active Twitch stream, archived streams are fine), it has a length limit at 3 hours or so (it saves the middle of the video for some reason), and the fact it's slow as shit at pulling videos off YouTube, then plexes the video with a QR code to say "hey, buy our software." Apparently you can use a converter feature if you pay for it, but just use Any Video Converter like a normal fucking human being.

The price is fucking ridiculous ($28.50 or 18.50 euro, though granted it is a one time payment), but they exclusively process payments through Stripe, so even someone like Dear Leader could pay for it.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Video downloadhelper works on both Firefox and Chrome, Firefox is required to download Youtube videos but maybe that has changed. Google have/had a restriction on the play store that made it so it was a breach of their ToS if an extension allowed users to rip Youtube videos.

 

[jagube]

It's been a mix between torrents and internet archive before they started pulling everything down. I think IA might still have some stuff available but I'd have to check. I know the Nintendo, Sega, and Sony stuff isn't there anymore (publicly at least).

Hey a little late, but here is a good method for long term storage.

You’re going to want to buy “blue ray m-disc” you can get DVDs too, but density is my concern. I like to go overboard and structure the disc in this fashion

Say I have 100gig disc
Those disc are only going to hold 50GB of data

I’ll create a bunch of split rar files and put those in folder 1
Then I’ll just duplicate that and put them in folder 2

So, on this single disc I have two copies of each rar file so if there is an issue with that sector I should be able to get the other one from my same on disc duplicate.

Burn 2-3 copies of that disc (do a check at the end to make sure everything is written well).

Depending on how many you’re going to have jewel cases inside a fireproof box (stores high to avoid worse case water damage) for your onsite copy. 2nd copies with a friend and 3rd in a safety deposit box.

Doing something like that ensures long term storage on a very high quality medium. It is a good idea to also keep SD cards with the same data in the same containers as your backups backup.

Moving on from that -
Cloud storage
It is cheap (check around you can get some insane deals by using certain google services not as intended for 5+TB of storage)

Sure there is the worry that they will crack down via file matching, but recall the rar splitting? It will make your file set unique and not suffer from those issues. If you want to be extra paranoid (why not) encrypt the sets so there is no chance of them ever matching.

I personally only do this for very important data, but everyone has a different definition of very important. You should be able to do some searches and find others talking about what I’m basically talking about. I hope this helps you and if you have any questions feel free to send me a message.

 

[The 8 of Spades]

Hey a little late, but here is a good method for long term storage.

You’re going to want to buy “blue ray m-disc” you can get DVDs too, but density is my concern. I like to go overboard and structure the disc in this fashion

Say I have 100gig disc
Those disc are only going to hold 50GB of data

I’ll create a bunch of split rar files and put those in folder 1
Then I’ll just duplicate that and put them in folder 2

So, on this single disc I have two copies of each rar file so if there is an issue with that sector I should be able to get the other one from my same on disc duplicate.

Burn 2-3 copies of that disc (do a check at the end to make sure everything is written well).

Depending on how many you’re going to have jewel cases inside a fireproof box (stores high to avoid worse case water damage) for your onsite copy. 2nd copies with a friend and 3rd in a safety deposit box.

Doing something like that ensures long term storage on a very high quality medium. It is a good idea to also keep SD cards with the same data in the same containers as your backups backup.

Moving on from that -
Cloud storage
It is cheap (check around you can get some insane deals by using certain google services not as intended for 5+TB of storage)

Sure there is the worry that they will crack down via file matching, but recall the rar splitting? It will make your file set unique and not suffer from those issues. If you want to be extra paranoid (why not) encrypt the sets so there is no chance of them ever matching.

I personally only do this for very important data, but everyone has a different definition of very important. You should be able to do some searches and find others talking about what I’m basically talking about. I hope this helps you and if you have any questions feel free to send me a message.

Holy shit man, thanks. That's really helpful and will be by secondary backup system after I finish with the highly non degradable discs I ordered the other day. Set's still not complete, but i'm not going to lock any of the discs yet.

 

[The 8 of Spades]

So I signed up for two years of PIA VPN today and I've been having a blast with it so far. Plus it runs on my tablet so that's a bonus.

 

[Rei is shit]

Musicbrainz Picard

A poorly named piece of software that can fix the tags on music files, along with pulling in album art and even arranging the folders, ie "artist name - album - year". This is really good if you have a collection with fucked up tags. It even did a pretty good job of picking up on vinyl rips and fan made album/restorations. It doesnt pick up some obscure stuff and its not very good with classical.

Downside is you cant do an entire collection at once. I split things into 2000 song chunks but didnt try anything higher after my entire collection hard locked it. Most of the album art it pulls isnt the highest resolution, most around 500x500 compared to 1000+ for itunes and some of it is shitty scans. Oh and they may be sending your info to the RIAA or some shit, use a vpn or proxy/tor if you are paranoid (and you should be).

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

If the NSA is seriously after you, you're so fucked in so many ways that you'd be better off buying lube than being concerned with whether you're using 2048 or 4096 bit RSA keys.

If the NSA is after you for your cybercrimes you need to keep a vial of suicide pills on top of your computer. If anybody - ANYBODY - knocks on your front door, take the pills before opening it. That way they won't be able to do the brain suck on you.

25% off Suicide pills all February at Schuchardt Industries!

If requested by law enforcement, instructed by a National Security letter or other court order or because we think you deserve the brain suck you we may substitute placebo pills for some buyers

 

[SomeRandomJosh]

Not a software question, but this seems like the best thread to ask in. I'm currently in the process of collecting the full romsets of the systems I don't already have for emulation since it's becoming more difficult to find a lot of these things anymore easily. I'd like to make a few physical backups of the collection when I'm finished, but I'm unsure what the best option for extremely rarely accessed long-term storage of data these days is that won't make me entirely broke.

Hard Drives, they are the cheapest solution compared to Blurays (wich does not hold too much data for the cost) and LTO Tapes wich cost a fortune, just access them once in a while to make sure they are still alive, also RAID is not backup

 

[SomeRandomJosh]

Aren't ROMs usually really small? Wouldn't a couple DVDs do fine? Or even thumb drives?

It depends, the PS2 fullset is about 6TB

 

[NSJAP]

What is good alternative to google keep that doesn't datamine you?

 

[rng_ascii]

OP is privacy-autistic

followed by 19 pages of privacy circlejerk

only one person who has made a shout-out to NoScript

truly niggerlicious

if you don't use Tor, get NoScript; it does everything, including fixing your marriage and curing your cancer

 

[BarberFerdinand]

A questions for those in the know: is google fiber considered as evil as the rest of google, and if so how bad? Just checking in case the opportunity ever comes up, so I know whether it's worth selling my soul or not.

 

[AnOminous]

A questions for those in the know: is google fiber considered as evil as the rest of google, and if so how bad? Just checking in case the opportunity ever comes up, so I know whether it's worth selling my soul or not.

It's probably even more evil. It moves them even closer to being a vertical monopoly of the most malignant kind.

That said I'd probably get it.

Fucking Google.

 

[SuicidalStar]

A questions for those in the know: is google fiber considered as evil as the rest of google, and if so how bad? Just checking in case the opportunity ever comes up, so I know whether it's worth selling my soul or not.

I actually never looked into it, after a very basic search I can see an article of a "binding arbitration", which is in the first line of their newest ToS from 2017, which has become standard in most websites' ToS, a Net Neutrality claim regarding them "banning" users from using any type of server but I could not find the referenced section in the ToS or archives. I'll look more into them in a few more hours but after a small search it makes me weary to trust them, but given that it's Alphabet as an ISP, it makes me trust them even less.

 

[jagube]

I actually never looked into it, after a very basic search I can see an article of a "binding arbitration", which is in the first line of their newest ToS from 2017, which has become standard in most websites' ToS, a Net Neutrality claim regarding them "banning" users from using any type of server but I could not find the referenced section in the ToS or archives. I'll look more into them in a few more hours but after a small search it makes me weary to trust them, but given that it's Alphabet as an ISP, it makes me trust them even less.

All ISPs are evil. They all are either strong armed, easily gave up, or don’t fucking care and allow alphabet agencies to sniff all your traffic. Having said that google fiber is hella cheap and fuck it might as well if you can. Fuck google, but a good deal is a good deal. Also, if you’re using a VPN service (some even offer vpn+tor and p2p servers for torrents) who fucking cares?

 

[Nobody4353]

If you have the money for a VPS or can host it yourself you can use Nextcloud to host your own cloud storage:
https://nextcloud.com/install/#instructions-server
Instillation Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Bh_8gfx10

 

[Chexxchunk]

Not a software question, but this seems like the best thread to ask in. I'm currently in the process of collecting the full romsets of the systems I don't already have for emulation since it's becoming more difficult to find a lot of these things anymore easily. I'd like to make a few physical backups of the collection when I'm finished, but I'm unsure what the best option for extremely rarely accessed long-term storage of data these days is that won't make me entirely broke.

Check out Verbatim M-Discs. They're special 100GB Blu-Ray discs claimed to last "1000 years."

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

All ISPs are evil. They all are either strong armed, easily gave up, or don’t fucking care and allow alphabet agencies to sniff all your traffic.

My ISP is good and have repeatedly fought in court to not give out user information and to protect privacy. When police or anyone else wants information out of them they get a standard form with two alternatives to state why they want it. Paraphrasing, one says "Is this some petty bullshit about file sharing, stupid posts on the internet or other crap?" and the other one is "Is this about serious crime like child pornography, terrorism, murder or anything that carries with it a prison sentence of two years or more?"
If the first box is checked it goes into the trash.

They're cheap as well(100mbit, ~$32 a month, no caps) and they're rolling out 10gbit for crazy people and that only costs ~$50 a month.
(checked out their website to confirm that and saw that 250/250 cost $4 more per month than a hundred, so I upgraded and got a new router)