So how does the whole newsgroup thing work? I was screwing around on youtube when I saw video of this guy downloading Ubuntu (700MB) in 66 seconds. The description said he used UseNext, and further research revealed to me a whole world of fast downloads... the problem is, I have NO CLUE as to where to start. I downloaded a newsreader (Newsbin Pro) and I messed around for a while to no avail. So, my question is, do any of you have any experience with this newsgroup crap and could you help me get started? It says I can't connect to a server... what server are they referring to? Many thanks.
Who is your ISP? http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm Check out that website to get the newsgroups server address. Put it in NewsBinPro server options. You will also need to put your login and password that you use for your account.
lol, i have been wondering about this for quite some time as well... one of the mysteries of old school internet.
you also need a news server along with a newsreader. most of the good ones are pay sites, which is a downside. the upside is you get binaries at your max download speed, which can be much much faster than file sharing or torrents. do a google on news servers, or better yet go to http://www.slyck.com and learn about all types of file sharing.
I recommend using Newsleecher or Newsbin as your client. Do NOT use your ISP's news server to download stuff. Aside from the stuff being complete only about half the time at best, I am sure it is not anonymous. I have been using newshosting for about 3 years.. its $14.95 per month but it is well worth it for the amount of "binaries" you can download. If you want something, then there is probably a newsgroup for it. It can be a little tricky at first but once you get the hang of it, you will love it. You will also need to download QuickPar, so finish some of the incomplete stuff.
How do you like newshosting? I'm paying $24.95/month for Giganews. I would like to find a cheaper news provider, but i don't want a decrease in quality of service.
Another option is usenetmonster.com I pay something like 4-5 bucks/month for a few gigs worth of downloading. If I don't use the gigs, they "rollover" much like a phone plan and the minutes. It works for me as I'm not a hardcore downloader. Xnews is another news reader you can check out. Any solution to newsreaders that are memory hogs when just getting the header listing of a large newsgroup?
I used about 3 different ones in the course of about 5 months before I got newshosting. Once I got newshosting I never looked back, great retention, and since I have had it I remember it being down maybe twice for about half a day. The service is great, I download at my max and if there is ever an issue they resolve it pretty quickly. Highly recommended. What do you get with 24.95 a month? I pay the 14.95 with unlimited download quota and 8 connections at one time.
Giganews has 200 days binary retention and 10 connections at a time. I've been with them for about 5 years, and i've never seen them go offline.
I used giganews back a few years ago. they were very fast and had great retention. I HIGHLY recommend them if the level of service is still like it was a few years ago. check out stuff like this, usenet culture is something all to itself and unlike anything you have probably ever seen even on the most un-moderated bbs. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/primer/part1/ http://www.warezfaq.com/first.htm http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=593561 best advice I can give you is to rremember that you are depending on others to provide what you are looking for, knowing something about how things are done on usenet is important to getting people there to help you. read the links above and seek some others out to make sure you understand how to get files and what formats are in use and the software they use to deal with them.
I haven't read the above links just posted R2K as yet, but was wondering what type of files you can download from these newsgroups? Is it basically any movie, tv show out there? What about music? Is it as extensive as places like Oink? Are viruses common for these programs one can download? Who uploads the files to the newsgroups? And do they get any sort of ratio or benefit for doing so?
The good thing about newsgroups is that they are leecher friendly. There is virtually no requirement to contribute in the form of uploading. I've never used oink, but newsgroups are pretty extensive. The binaries are grouped in....well newsgroups. If you're looking for a movie (dvd) they have several groups that does that, several groups for mp3, even sorted by genre, if you're a mac user, the have mac only groups as well. I've never gotten a virus from newsgroups before, ever. You can get pretty much anything you want, as long as someone has uploaded it. The downsides I can think of are: 1)Time to learn it can be frustrating if you're not a little patient (If you're careful you can learn the concepts rather quickly) 2)You have to pay for reliable service (even though it's very worth it in the end) 3)You have to depend on people to upload stuff that you are looking for, not to mention retention is a biatch if you have the wrong newserver. Also posters sometimes (rarely) fail to upload all of the parts or enough par files, so you have to wait on them to send up more files in order for you to complete your file. This really doesn't really happen too much.
Can anyone briefly explain in layman what exactly is newsgroups and how do you download stuff from it? I know about Torrent and P2P and use Azureus and Bearshare.
Newsgroups is basically a message board where you post files. People will post any type of file like mp3, mpg, pics.. and movies but usually they are rar'd. You download them by right clicking the group of files you want and clicking download. Then if its rar'd you unrar it, otherwise it downloads it to the default directory. Can't really explain it in a simple way, because when you start off it won't seem simple. You have to see it to understand me a little more.
What you are used to is a "go out and get it" type of program. You search for something, and you download it. Well newsgroups are not like that. It's like a forum. If someone posts it, you can read it. If it's not there, you can request it. The speed of your P2P downloads depends on who is sharing it. Newsgroups, it's all dependent on the server your newsserver resides on, and is consistently faster than say torrents. P2P you download, and aren't too sure of what you are getting. Unless they've changed that. Newsgroups, people post messages if something is corrupt or no good. There are often readme files posted, and par files (used to complete any missing parts of whatever you downloaded) for you. Larger binary downloads are broken up into smaller parts for you.
As you can see by the last few posts, this is not a pursuit for those with little or no patience. It isnt just point and click downloading. You are dependent on the good will of others, both in making sure they properly label the good files and dont upload bad files(this does happen, so protect yourself) Read read read, then read some more. Besides the quality fo your news server, reading and comprehending what you are reading is the most important part of successful usenet usage. search terms that will help you understand this include "usenet alt groups" "usenet faqs" "newsgroup software" you could substitute "newsgroups" for usenet in those search strings.
