VPN + public torrents. Private trackers have benefits but also annoyances, like impossible to maintain ratios and minimum seeding times.

Direct download (DDL) + a download manager or debride service.

Usenet is actually still a thing and is supposedly ridiculously fast and hassle free, once you have it set up.

IRC still exists but you need connections or something to trade.

There are IPTV services that also provide on demand streaming, i.e. pay for Plex.

Torrents

Cool! Is Popcorn time still recommended? Or what's a good client?

Not a client but check out the *arr[1] family if you're into self-hosting. What client you choose depends on your usage, I like Deluge. There's some initial work to setup and a little bit of maintenance but it's worth it, throw a Jellyfin instance into the mix and have all your media in one convenient place. Linuxserver[2] has containers for all of them.

[1]: https://wiki.servarr.com/

[2]: https://fleet.linuxserver.io/

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

On Mac, Transmission. On Windows, QBittorrent.

Then I just search on various torrent sites. Thepiratebay.org and rutracker.org (use google). But movies and TV shows are easy to find. There are many sites which specialise in it.

Thanks! Any opinions on Popcorn? Seems convenient that the searching and playing is in the same app?

Usenet, takes some time to setup and you'll need accounts for an indexer and usenet access itself (with a lookback history).

Private torrent trackers are great as well, if you can keep up a good ratio. Might be good to use a VPN there.