Usenet Services

[Mike F]

The ISP I'm on offers only very limited access to usenet, and I've been starting to think of going with an independant usenet service.

Anyone try one of these, and if so how was your experience?

[Hack&Lube]

I found shaw to be quite adequate if you didn't mind retention being under like 2 days. Generally, what is your main goal of an independant service?

Do you want it for fills, whereby you get the majority via your ISP and then fill in missing files with the news provider, or will you be doing massive downloading?
Or do you want it for the retention factor?

I have used both Giganews and Usenet Rocket and both have pleased me. I eventually stuck with Usenet Rocket because I could go with the $8.95 US/month plan and have 500MB/day download and my unused downloads would actually carry over which was great because I didn't get a lot...but at optimum, I managed to download like 15GB worth a month by doing only 500MB/day which is a much better deal than the unlimited bandwidth plan for $15GB/month.

I also found there were huge lapses between downloading, like I'd go 2 weeks without doing anything so the unused 500MB would carry over each day so I eventually stored a bank of like 50GB of bandwidth I could use to download something I needed in a quick amount of time.

Both Giganews and Usenetrocket have great speeds (150KB/sec avg) but couldn't beat Shaw in terms of speed but both had 2 weeks of file retention.

Now, for another option, if you just need some fills every month, usenetserver.com has an amazing file retention of 60 days! And they have this trial access you can get for $3 and you can just get a new trial every month and it's unlimited bandwidth for those 3 days. So basically, for $3 a month, you get to download as much as you want or can within 3 days out of the past 60 days of files so I think this is overall, the best deal, albeit very inconvienient

Personally, I nolonger use these services much as while usenet is amazing for leeching, I've just found the variety on bittorrent networks to just surpass usenet so much more these days and usenet is in decline.

[Faid1]

Lots of people recommend Giganews and Easynews

Giganews is $12 US for 10 Gb or $25 for unlimited bandwidth and has about 45 days retention.

Easynews is $10 US for 10 Gb.

Here's a good site you may want to read:

http://www.newsgroupservers.net/

[nfotiu]

newshosting.com has been very good for me. Speeds around 5 mb/s from my U.S. Cable modem. I just re-discovered usenet the other day. Really blows away p2p. Who knew. It's a lot more user friendly than when I last checked it out 12 years ago!

$15month unlimited

[Cain]

Been looking to get into this too....so any other experiences that people would like to share are welcome.

Usenet seems to be sort of an undiscovered paradise of filesharing (as in below the average persons radar).

Was considering trying to pay for a month, but will check with the Shaw newsgroups when I am back home in edmonton. The telus ones I have here are sorta crappy imo.

[Faid1]

Originally posted by Cain@Jun 28 2005, 07:53 PM
Been looking to get into this too....so any other experiences that people would like to share are welcome.

Try out a site called http://www.newzbin.com

It's free to see what's posted, but for like $2 CND a month you have the ability to download one file (an .nzb file) which queues up all the files to download, making it easy like Bittorrent.

[Mike F]

Wow, thanks for the feedback guys (&/or gals?)

[Cain]

Originally posted by Faid1+Jun 29 2005, 03:10 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Faid1 @ Jun 29 2005, 03:10 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Cain@Jun 28 2005, 07:53 PM
Been looking to get into this too....so any other experiences that people would like to share are welcome.

Try out a site called http://www.newzbin.com

It's free to see what's posted, but for like $2 CND a month you have the ability to download one file (an .nzb file) which queues up all the files to download, making it easy like Bittorrent. [/b][/quote]
Yea, I've read up on doing that, and on the various servers and such as well. I found www.slyck.com to be a good resource for finding info.

Have you used this as a way to get things Faid? Would you recommend it? Worth paying for? (The usenet as well as newzbin)

[Faid1]

My apartment blocks bittorrent so pretty much all my Linux Isos come from newsgroups. Shaw is decent, it's retention (how long it keeps the files) however is about a day.

I just signed up for Newzbin about a week ago, it's a nifty little service and you can enter keywords (for example: Batman) and it will notify you by email if Batman has been posted on a newsgroup.

[flamingchina]

I'm currently on Buzzard News. It's 6.95(USD) a month for 1.5GB, with daily rollover.
It's been pretty good so far.
One thing to do is look for a news program that lets you specify multiple servers, and itll grab articles from the one before the other (if it has emm) and to use your isp's as the first, and your pay one as the second.
You can just buy a block that way.
a suggested site for info
http://www.newsgroupservers.net/

[Cain]

From BuzzardNews:

Legal Disclaimer
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our Web site.

Sounds sorta questionable.

Also looks like retention there is only 12+ days...

Still, the cheapest one I've seen yet...That or newshosting or powerusenet seem to be the frontrunners for a usenet provider.

The latter two have higher retention, but cost about twice as much...and no legal disclaimer I don't believe.

Edit: On further research, seems all usenet providers actually have a disclaimer similar to the one above...although buzzardnews still has the most vague one i've seen.

[Hakan]

I have been using newshosting for 5 months now. $15USD with 25 day (going up to 35) retention and unlimited downloading.

Needless to say that I am very pleased with their service as I have only experienced very intermitent periods of downtime and the completion rate is stellar for up to 3 weeks.

www.newshosting.com

edit: oh and I also use newzbin.com and newsleecher

edit2: also usenet is far and away the safest and most secure way to download. Bittorrent has many bots and trackers which log your activity while it is nearly impossible to do so on usenet.

[flamingchina]

Ehh the retention seems to be longer than 12 days, some of the groups I vist (alt.binaries.tv) have retentions of around 18-22 days or so...
But yeah, pretty much all of them have a disclaimer as such, basically aying if we get sued, the court can get your info.
But yeah, the higher cost ones can have nicer retention rates, etc.