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Can anyone "red-pill" me on Anna's Archive torrents? I have a couple spare TBs and I could seed their torrents (and delete them when I need more space), but I don't know how exactly I'm helping by seeding those torrents, at a technical level.

By seeding a file (having it in your hard drive and keeping your computer always online) you are keeping it available for people wishing to download it. If no one seeds, no one can download the files. In Anna's Archive they share files though their servers (or partner servers) and by torrent. If one user chooses the latter, then someone needs to seed it for them. It also helps in case some court order takes their servers down, then the file will only be retrievable by torrent. Keep in mind that, by seeding, you are making your IP address public, unless using a VPN (be sure to configure it properly to avoid any leaks). Consider also, if you are wanting to contribute to freedom of information, seeding the files also on I2P (through I2P-snark), so people can torrent the files anonymously.
And just to warn you, a possible attack, since you publicly said you wish to seed the files, is scanning for files with few peers to try to find your IP.

anonqckreplthrow1 wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2026 11:19 pm In Anna's Archive they share files though their servers (or partner servers) and by torrent. If one user chooses the latter, then someone needs to seed it for them. It also helps in case some court order takes their servers down, then the file will only be retrievable by torrent.

I well know how P2P file sharing and BitTorrent work in general, it's just that I wasn't sure how seeding torrents from Anna's Archive in particular could be helpful since people are meant to download individual books from their servers anyway, and the true purpose of the torrents is seemingly mirroring the entirety or specific chunks of Anna's Archive, which looks fairly niche considering how big it is even for most of us who could seed a few random TBs.
I guess aside from possibly helping people who want to mirror Anna's Archive or part of it, as you say, it could help preserve the files if the direct download servers shut down for whatever reason.

I had to play the uMatrix game and allow java and all sorts of other shit just to view the page. Not a great way to encourage users.