[Wobbel]

Always wanted to know what those newsgroups are ?
Heard about it, maybe even looked at it, but confused because it isn't like a p2p program ?

Here are some links to sites which explain how to make use of newsgroups, what you need, etc.

Newsreaders.com

Slycks guide to newsgroups

Ultimate guide to newsreaders

Mybinaries.com

Here are some tools you will need;

GrabIt

QuickPar

7zip

WinRAR

And if you've got any questions, just ask.

[rastaX]

This is Page 2 of the newstory Want the Sith DVD? Go to Usenet

I think it relevant to this thread because it illustrates some major changes to NewsGroups which make them not only a great place to find fantastic files, but very user friendly. The NZB files make newsgroups almost as easy to use as BitTorrent. Once you have your reader set up, ( quite easy to do) by downloading and clicking on the .nzb file, it will automatically open your client (if associated with .nzb) and start the download.

Quote

Source: Wired News


By David McCandless

NZB files are supported by most popular newsreaders, including NZBGet for Mac and Linux, and NewsBin Pro for PC. There are now also several dedicated alt.binaries.nzb newsgroups.

More dramatically, NZB allows web searches of files posted to Usenet, making Usenet almost as easy to use as eMule or Kazaa.


This new file format and the rise of commercial high-bandwidth Usenet services -- such as NewsGroups and Usenet.com -- are fueling the revival of Usenet. Pirates now are discovering, to their surprise, that the old newsgroup system, patched with modern technology, outperforms most other P2P networks.

"The download speed butchers any other system you use to download data," said Gilgamesh, a U.K.-based downloader currently moving part of his operation to newsgroups. "A lot of new servers can shift data as fast as you're prepared to accept it."

Part of the performance boost comes from the way Usenet acts like a bulletin board system.

"With standard peer-to-peer, you're a slave to the peer who's making the file available," said Gilgamesh. "Sometimes you have to wait for them to be online. On a newsgroup, once the file is there, it's there all the time -- at least until it scrolls off the server."

And best of all, for pirates like Gilgamesh, Usenet kills the inherent socialism of P2P. While BitTorrent and eMule demand that you share data to download it, Usenet imposes no such restriction.

"You don't have to share anything," said Gilgamesh. "Everyone downloads. Everyone is a leecher."

And this is the big advantage for those seeking to evade the copyright police.

"Historically, the RIAA have targeted those who share, not those who download," said Toby Lewis of MusicAlly, a digital music consultancy that advises the record industry on technology issues. "So, yes, technically it could be 'safer' for people to download from Usenet."

Whether the RIAA and MPAA actually have their sights trained on Usenet is unclear. The RIAA declined to comment when asked about its policy toward Usenet piracy.

But Lewis believes newsgroups are still very much under the radar.

"Though the copyright industries boast significantly improved geekery and monitoring technology, Usenet remains relatively unmonitored," he said.

Even if the industry groups did turn their attention to it, he said, it's hard to envisage how they could stop it.

"Websites hosting BitTorrent files are easy single points for the RIAA to attack and shut down," Lewis said. "Usenet is such a massive sprawling entity, with thousands of points of entry. How would you stop something like that?"

There are now sites that specialize in .nzb files the same way sites carry .torrents. You can browse the available files from various groups in a well organized form. All you have to do is download the .nzb and violà! Just treat it like any .torrent. There are also sites which act as search engines for newsgroups, just enter the file you are looking for, find the one you want and it will make a .nzb file for you.


As long as you are comfortable using WinRAR, there is very little difference between the downloads you will get using a newsgroup and BT. The main difference is the files will need to be assembled from smaller files, usually ,rar's. If you think BT is fast, you ain't seen nuthin. You should be able to download from NewsGroups at your maximum speed. I usually hover around 500 KB/s! Bottom line, although NewsGroups are a little more work, they are still pretty easy and with some of the new tools and innovations, they are very user friendly.



 ngdl.gif (1.94K)
Number of downloads: 0

That's roughly 1.25 gigs I downloaded in 43 minutes. It's gonna take a little over 2 hours to finish up the rest, 4.25 gigs. Typical, this is the speed I routinely get with NewsGroups.

[NitnayLion]

An additional note about NZB files.

Quote

Currently, the most popular binary newsreaders NewsBinPro (no affiliation to NewzBin), BNR, NewsLeecher and GrabIt are able to process (import and utilize) NZB files (In addition to many other news reader.) If you do not wish to spend the money at first and wish to try out NZB files, there are free alternatives. Binaries.nl, NZBZone.com and BinSearch.info are very good indexing/nzb sites, however is not nearly as complete as NewzBin.com. In addition, there are actual newsgroups that contain NZB files. They include alt.binaries.ftn.nzb, alt.binaies.nzb, alt.binaries.nzb-files and alt.binaries.nzb-files.multimedia.

[bmc]

do all newsgroups cost money?

[NitnayLion]

bmc, on May 23 2005, 11:54 PM, said:

do all newsgroups cost money?
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

NO, finding them is the tricky part.

[Roadblock]

The groups are free, what can cost money is a news server. Your ISP may already provide a free one with your account, mine does. Some folks, even those with free servers provided by their ISP sometimes prefer the paid servers, for various reasons. Once you have an account (free or paid) the client (Grab-It, NewsLeecher, NewsBin Pro, etc)then allows you to access the news groups through your server. Contact your isp, ask them if they have a news server.

[Wobbel]

NitnayLion, on May 24 2005, 07:07 AM, said:

NO, finding them is the tricky part.
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here are some links with the most popular newsgroups...

Top-100 Newsgroups by number of articles read

Top-100 Newsgroups by number of articles posted

Top-100 Newsgroups statistics by number of bytes posted

Newsgroups having significant message changes

All taken from this site

By scrolling through these lists you can see wich groups are most active, and usually the most active newsgroups have the most interesting content.

[NitnayLion]

Being the cheapskate that I am. (the Admin here can atest to that. LoL)

Here is one of the FREE (no money) ways I have found to do it.

I am using GrabIt 1.5.2. beta

The news server I am using is news.readfreenews.net

I use the search engine at binsearch.info

After I find item I am looking for,I select it then I click the "Create NZB" button located at the top of the search results.

Then GrabIt does the rest.

[Roadblock]

Yep, it does. That is the way I do it too, but I use the server that comes with my isp.

What kind of speeds you getting with that one Nit? I tried that one, but the downloads seemed slow, like 7 kb or something like that. Maybe I just didn't let it go long enough.

Anyway, good to hear it is working for ya.


PS - Grabit updated the other night, 1.5.3 beta. Just a few small changes from 1.5.2 beta. The search feature in Grabit is limited to a comination of 4 search with grabs now. I 've been using the search site instead of the built in grabit search for several days anyway.

[NitnayLion]

The server my ISP has limets me to a 5 gig download every 30 days. So I am thinking to myself, if they are looking at how much I download from them are they also looking at what I am downloading ?

Any how with the news.readfreenews.net server I was averaging a D/L rate of 4000 kbs.




I may have run into a new problem though. My last download seemed to go just fine but when I went to check it in the download folder and all the files had nothing in them.

[NitnayLion]

I found my problem. The news.readfreenews.net server is a text only server. It has the alt.binaries groups listed but only has the text mesages on file.

So I had to find a different server. I found a free one that supports binaries.

Its called biggulp.readfreenews.net

[Roadblock]

Ah, that's the one I thought you were talking about. That's the one I tried, but got slow speeds. How are the speeds for you?

[NitnayLion]

Roadblock, on May 25 2005, 11:57 PM, said:

Ah, that's the one I thought you were talking about. That's the one I tried, but got slow speeds. How are the speeds for you?
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I haven't had a chance to try it yet. (I'm at work LoL)

But now that I know just what I'm looking for I hope to be adding some more servers to the list.

[NitnayLion]

I found this rather long listing. Disenter.com

The sever news.jazztel.es looks like a good one reported speeds of 222 kb/s

[napho]

I don't see nzbleecher mentioned in the search so here goes.
Good for searching a few engines, including any free binnews accounts you can get. You can make your own nzb's from here, which comes in handy alot.

http://pizza.sohosted.com/nzb_leecher/


Moved this post to this thread, thought it fit here better. *rasta*

Attached File(s)

•  nzle.jpg (98.88K)
  Number of downloads: 113

[vampirechronicles]

Wobbel, on May 18 2005, 09:05 AM, said:

Always wanted to know what those newsgroups are ?
Heard about it, maybe even looked at it, but confused because it isn't like a p2p program ?

Here are some links to sites which explain how to make use of newsgroups, what you need, etc.

Newsreaders.com

Slycks guide to newsgroups

Ultimate guide to newsreaders

Mybinaries.com

Here are some tools you will need;

GrabIt

QuickPar

7zip

WinRAR

And if you've got any questions, just ask.


<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

hmm you have a faster connection then me
i only get 3mgs down
hmm
rock on
/me smiles