this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Provider: Eweka Indexer: Geek

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Same here. Would recommend both!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What exactly is the appeal of Usenet when almost everything is available through torrents for free? I also never really understood trusting giving out your payment information.

Do people use Usenet as forums besides the ability to share files?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The main feature is that you’ll never have problem with too few or no seeders again, and everything will be fast always, and no one will ask or expect you to seed. Some have retention period on the content for like a decade.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But if the uploader stops hosting the file everyone loses the ability to download?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No, if the server you use stops hosting the file, then you can't download it. Other people might still be able to, if their server still has the file. Most servers seem to do at least 3000 days retention, and others I've seen do 5000 days, so anything recent is probably gonna be there.

Its the same with torrents though, with the exception that hardly any torrent still has seeders after 5000 days. Usenet is more reliable in that regard, because you dont have to worry that older files won't have enough seeders for you to grab the whole thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It's also why most people suggest multiple server providers on different backbones that solves that issue most of the time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Idk about 5000 days since ive never downloded such an old file but ive never come across a torrent that no longer had seeders unless it was a very obscure torrent with only a seeder or two to begin with. Seems like most torrents are on a couple seedboxes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used to come across it all the time when downloading anime years ago. But now I don't worry about that because I can download entire seasons of any anime in a minute or two without doing any searching myself. I just give Sonarr a name and start watching.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You ever not find something on usenet but found it on some tracker though?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Depends on the tracker.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

usenet is almost always faster, there's never an issue with torrent lacking seeds and it's theoretically safer as you do not upload any content when downloading which if you do download a lot using torrents will put you in a certain legal grey area about distributing files.

but aside from all of that the integration with the arr stack and the automation makes it just so much more god damned convenient.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I prefer it since I can max out my connection so it is much faster. I can download a 10GB movie in a matter of minutes. Also much easier to integrate with sonarr and radarr imo. And you don't have the hassle of having to need a good download/upload ratio.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I didn’t realize Usenet was so fast compared to a torrent with many seeders. What makes Usenet so much faster?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It's a direct download, with no speed throttling, and no searching for peers. Depending on how busy the server is and if you configure your download client right, you can max out your internet connection. It's basically like downloading a finished torrent from a seedbox.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm probably about average when it comes to tech stuff. I always feel dumb when I start looking into getting started with usenet, then get intimidated and quit researching. My torrent + vpn has failed me a couple of times in the past three years. So I really just need to make the leap. Just finding this community and reading through some of the posts has given me an initiative boost.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This comment is me, last year. Its really not that hard don't let it intimidate you! All you really need is 3 things:

  1. Download Client. Usenet has file size limits, so files are broken into zip archives. A download client such as SABnzbd will automatically unpack for you.
  2. Usenet provider. Such as Eweka (Based in Europe) or Newshosting. This will cost about 5-10 bucks a month.
  3. Usenet indexer. Indexer is used for searching usenet. Think pirate bay. I personally use https://nzbgeek.info. NZB geek costs 1 dollar a month or 80 for a lifetime membership.

Yeah usenet costs money, but god damn its such a premium experience. Every single download is going to cap out your connection, never wait for seeds again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This is great. Thank you very much! I found a couple of "how to" elsewhere but they are so long and go into details I don't need right now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you use a vpn with usenet? Is it even necessary as you aren't hosting like with torrents?

Have you found it easier to find less popular titles/things that there just doesn't seem to be seeded torrents for?

I recently added Ombi to my setup, allowing my users to request media; now I'm getting more and more requests for media I just haven't been able to find.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you use a vpn with usenet? Is it even necessary as you aren’t hosting like with torrents?

I don't use a vpn because it would really slow down the speed and everything is downloading via https anyway so its encrypted. Your ISP will see you hitting usenet servers, but thats all. Milage may vary with how tolerate your ISP is towards this.

Have you found it easier to find less popular titles/things that there just doesn’t seem to be seeded torrents for?

Absolutely. The insane thing about usenet is retention. If it was uploaded 10 years ago to usenet, its still there. Available at max speed. No more dead torrents. I was in the same boat with users requesting stuff I couldn't find, with usenet its way way better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks for the info. Just finished setting it all up; trigged a mass search for everything that was missing and now I've got a good 200+gb to download :D

I'm pretty damn impressed with the speed. Pushing 50 almost 60mb/s where as torrents usually top out around 10-15 if I'm lucky, usually closer to 1 or 2.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is it just me or is usenet a bit expensive? One would need to pay for both an indexer and a provider. Regular public trackers have majority of the content for, well, free. Is obscure stuff on Usenet easier to find?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

i wouldnt waste my time with torrents now. it is one of those things hard to explain but once you make the jump for yourself you will just know and wish you did it long ago. if you are all in for under a $100 per year, i dont consider that expensive at all.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Agree! I turned on the arr/nzbget/nzbhydra/Emby docker stack several years ago and it just works. I add content from my phone and it's downloaded and organized in Emby within 10 minutes. I started with several providers and indexers at first and whittled it down to Eweka (Omicron)/Newsdemon (Usenetexpress) for providers and Geek/Drunkenslug/althub for indexers.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

that's $100 too much for me

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not having to worry about seeders/leeches, ratios, using a VPN, or waiting to download is worth the $6 for everything I pay per month. I can get a 10gb movie in a matter of a few minutes. Once you experience Usenet for yourself, it's really hard to go back to mucking about with torrents. Feels like the dark ages.

As for obscure stuff, yeah, you can still download anything on the server at full speed, no matter how old it is. Most servers have 3-5000 days retention. Never had any trouble finding a TV show, and the oldest I've personally downloaded is a 10 year old show, which of course I downloaded as fast as my connection could handle. No searching for a torrent that's not dead, as long as it's still there, it downloads. No wait, no hassle, just click a button in Sonarr/Radarr and and 30 seconds later I'm watching it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sounds like usenet isn't something for me then.. I think 90% of our movie/tv library is more than 10 years old

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Maybe. But the 5000 day retention most servers have is since upload. It doesn't relate to how old the series or movie in question is. If you search for a title, you're almost certainly going to find a few dozen or so versions of that title in various definitions and age. For example, just for kicks, I searched for episodes of the Andy Griffith show, and the oldest files I found were 3700 days old. The series is a bit older than that, of course.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You can get plenty of older shows on Usenet it's not like you won't find something like Star Trek from the 60's. Hell I recently started downloading V from 1984 so...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's just you. I get easynews for $45 a year on their valentine's plan, includes unlimited nntp, unlimited web (which is really useful given the search) and a free VPN to boot. Bargain of the century

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I think my provider is newsgroup direct and my indexer is nzbgeek

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

frugal usenet here as well but i have collected block accounts over the years that really never get used so they just sit there.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I use Eweka/usenetprime and use Nzbplanet/NzbGeek these days.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you mean provider (the guys you pay so you can access usenet at all) or indexer (the guys who organize the files so you can find anything)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Frugal Usenet, I did the one that gets you the block storage then ended up adding more block storage after that ran up

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

@radau @SomeBoyo I second this. Best bang for your buck on omicron backbone with a usenet.farm backup backbone. Take crypto payments too:

https://billing.frugalusenet.com/agreement/crypto

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Newsgroup.ninja, because I support fellow ninjas and pirates.

Have a backup block on Usenet Farm which I've basically never needed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I first tried Usenet, I wanted something cheap so I could see if it was right for me. I haven't bothered to change since, so I use Frugal Usenet and Geek to index. Both work quite well for everything I've tried except ebooks.

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