Thanks! And yep, I should probably start doing that too, VPN always on.
Also, another a great way to find other free media online without torrenting:
Revolution is a fantastic piece of irc software, and you can alias a lot of what was done above (e.g. autojoin a specific channel when you connect to a specific server)
Also, because the transfer uses a nonstandard port, I've found that the transfers are NOT filtered or rate-limited on public WiFi networks. Hell I've achieved speeds of 50Mb on the train.
I actually used to download a lot of anime through an IRC channel! Then it got shut down, lol.
Which channel should I join, btw? Your post just says "the channel."
Thanks for the recommendations!