Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! It’s more of a lengthy FAQ to be honest, as there are already great setup guides for the technical side of things.
Please excuse any errors and the lack of emojis, I still type my things by hand.
For comparison reasons, I can speak on Real-Debrid, Premiumize, Debrid-Link and Torbox having used those personally, so if you have any questions, shoot!
I haven’t used any other services yet (All-Debrid, Offcloud, putio, etc.) and don’t plan to currently.
NO affiliate links as per the rules of course, this is for those who maybe followed last years RD/AD drama and wanted an update on where the services stand nowadays and which ones are viable alternatives/good combinations.
The different tiers explained:
Torbox has a free tier, from which you can access an unrestricted 24 hour trial for the Pro tier for 1$. Other than that, the free tier is simply a small “demo”, and naturally is not enough to replace a paid Debrid-experience.
Then there’s Essential and Standard. The only different with those are the concurrent slots and the seeding time.
Slots are only used if you have Torbox download something for you that isn’t cached yet. This means streaming isn’t limited by them, e.g you could stream 4 legally available movies at the same time on the essential tier which offers 3 concurrent slots, no problem.
Seeding time is only important if you want to use Torbox with a private
torrent tracker, as those require you to seed back the files that you download for a certain amount of time.
The Pro tier has the most concurrent slots, longest seeding time and, most importantly, provides Usenet access. This means you can find way more files, and you are never at the mercy of torrents having to be active and alive.
Obviously this tier is the most expensive (10 bucks), so my tip would be to definitely try the trial first.
If you pay for Usenet access and/or a seedbox seperately already, it’s also worth calculating if you could replace those and save money by unifying those functions.
Keep in mind that some private trackers don’t like “shared” seedboxes of this kind, meaning you should always read up on their rules first.
The different tiers also show different available speeds. This confused me at first, but it does NOT mean the lower tiers are slower.
You will always download from Torbox at the maximum speed your connection allows. The speeds showcased are for downloads on Torbox’s side, not the user’s.
Does Torbox have IP restrictions like Real-Debrid, or a points system like Premiumize?:
No, Torbox does not have restrictions like that. You can use it from multiple IPs/locations at the same time without fear of getting banned. The limit (which is not clearly stated) is very high and not meant to deter sharing among friends, but to prevent people
from reselling accounts en masse and abusing the system. If you share it with your family & friends, you won’t have any issues.
Integration with things like Kodi, Stremio, Syncler, Weyd:
Torbox is integrated into all these services by simply pasting in your API key, the same way you’re used to from other Debrid services. There are also apps available to manage your library remotely, webDAV access and many other neat little features. On the more technical side, it even allows you to incorporate your own search engines (prowlarr, nzbhydra etc.).
On a personal note, those of you who use Kodi/Stremio may be familiar with the Easynews addon(s) for them, one of the only ways to stream Usenet video files directly. The TB Pro tier also allows this, and is the only debrid-service offering this directly.
I also use Premiumize, which allows you to download .nzb files through its Usenet access, but Torbox provides an actual search engine through its API, meaning you don’t have to search through indexers for the file you want yourself.
For those of you who follow Troy’s guides for Kodi, if you are familiar with all the different addons or are already using one, POV is the one with the best/most active Torbox integration support, with the developer being active on Discord, showcasing new features and bug fixes.
On the Stremio side of things, Torbox has it’s own addon available that can be configured on the site without having to uninstall/reinstall it, it’s neat.
Will I get good speeds from my location?
Fairly recently, new CDNs have been added to improve speeds globally. If you are in North America or the EU, you are pretty much set. I think the big one recently was one in India, which is obviously a huge deal for a large part of the world.
For other locations, I would -always- run a test first. There is a speedtest available on Torbox’s website that you can use before you take out a subscription in order to make
sure you’ll have a buffer-free experience. There is a downtime/status page that works in realtime, and maintenance announcements are made a fair bit in advance.
The speedtest works similarly to that on RD’s site, if for some reason the “auto” setting puts you somewhere slow, you can manually change it in your account settings.
What about cache size?
Of course, other debrid-services have more than a decade+ of an advantage in regards to that. Pro tier access gets rid of that issue entirely, since Usenet downloads are often done within seconds, which negates the need for them needing to be cached. New content is readily available. More obscure and older content is up to the user to add. This is made pretty easy by TB’s API granting access to its own search engine.
Real-Debrid is still king as far as cache-size is concerned, and Premiumize is a close second, since they still have stuff cached that has long since disappeared from its original source. However, the fact that addons for Kodi, Stremio etc. can no longer check for cached-status due to pressure from French law enforcement means that the burden is now on addon makers to find patchwork solutions.
With French services under scrutiny, is Torbox safe, or will it get shut down?
I want to keep everything here above board and legal, so I will simply say that the services most likely to survive for a long time are Premiumize and Torbox, with PM being located in Malaysia and TB in South Africa. I will leave it up to the reader’s discretion to inform themselves
of how American copyright claims are handled in those countries.
RD gives me bonus days with a points system when I pay, does TB have that too?
Kind of, yes. Torbox has a referral system. You have a code that others can add to their account when making a purchase or at any time afterwards.
If you have a code added to your account, you will get 7 free days every time you make a payment. This means it is highly incentivised to choose a monthly plan
instead of a yearly (84 free days if you pay monthly vs. 7 free days if you pay yearly). Additionally, you receive 15 free days everytime someone uses YOUR code.
This means one person using your code, and you using someone’s code, results in 22 free days per month. This stacks if multiple people use your code.
