recommended newsgroup provider?

[Northernbloke]

They are all subject to take downs but as I understand it some of the big boys have chosen to implement automatic take downs as soon as suspect items are reported and others implement a slower manual process which still complies with the legal threats made in the takedown request

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[burner1]

I've been using altbinaries for a few years now. Does me ok on cost/ speed/ connections etc. as I don't use it that often but get 20G limit per month for less than £3. Do the sites just drop the nzb's when getting the DRM notice or the files themselves?

[AP0ll0UK]

I've been using altbinaries for a few years now. Does me ok on cost/ speed/ connections etc. as I don't use it that often but get 20G limit per month for less than £3. Do the sites just drop the nzb's when getting the DRM notice or the files themselves?

The Indexers are what host the .nzb's that contain the info about the files you're going to add to your Usenet client queue and download.

The binaries themselves which are the files you download, they are what are removed when a company or an agent issues a takedown.

As the others have said, once they're gone from a host then they're gone. But that doesn't mean to say that they don't exist on any other hosts. Some hosts automate this process when a request is received, others do it manually and therefore take a bit longer. Plus some of the hosts ask for very specific information regarding the files, and also things like signatures from the agent and the company they are representing which can slow down the takedown process.

A lot of hosts in places like the Netherlands don't really give a shit about DMCA takedown requests but they have to adhere to similar requests from another organisation. Again delaying the process. And in delaying the process, it generally gives the leechers more time to download something before its gone.

The trouble with a lot of the decent hosts recently is that they're been bought out by a company called Highwinds. At that point, the hosts / resellers point at a central bunch of Highwinds backbone servers so regardless of which host you are with, once it's gone from Hghwinds then its gone from the hosts as well.

The other thing to watch out for is that Highwinds often replicate their binaries from EU servers to US servers and the associated logs - if they keep them, but they obviously do store your account and payment information. As soon as this information touches anything in the US, it can be opened up and monitored under the Patriot Act, and so on and so forth.

I was with Tweaknews but they have been aquired by Highwinds. I've been on Usenet for about 15 years. I hate Torrents, and their predecessor Gnutella for various reasons. Limewire, eDonkey and Kazaa I would lump into the same catergory. The FXP days were always ropey, as was queueing on irc. Usenet has always been my place of choice and it's changed a fair bit over the years. Releases probably need to go back underground where they belong and Torrents need to be disasssembled. Then we should all go back to running private BBS's

[beerman]

I'm getting fed up with failed downlaods on Astraweb. Who is everyone using now?

[Northernbloke]

No problems at all with tweak news for well over a year now very happy with them

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[ss30]

Still using Usenetbucket

[evilsatan]

I can't remember why I left Tweaknews, think it was because who their parent company was. I am on Cheapnews, can't say they are that good or bad really. Seeing as takedowns are so common nowadays you might want to look at Frugalnews which is cheap but only 600 days retention, there may be a discount code on Reddit, I think it is owned by blocknews.

[Delboy_1976]

Hi Chaps,

Who are you guys using to search\download your NZB files from?

I've been using a mixture of Usenet Crawler and Binsearch but Usenet Crawler has been up and down and I'm noticing lots of fakes with Binsearch and NZBIndex. I need one that provides an API for Sonarr etc.

With regards to the original topic I'm still using Newsdemon which has been OK for the last couple of years.

[ss30]

Binsearch & Gingadaddy, but I also use sickbeard for getting regular programs as soon as they are up to try and beat the take downs.

I still find myself using sites like tehparadox(if it's not very old) to find stuff I cant find on usenet

[Northernbloke]

Gave up on sick beard/sick rage and switched to sonarr and much prefer it to either of the others. Nzbplanet for my nzbfiles

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[piggzy]

With all the takedowns I found myself returning to torrents and tbh they have been fine for what I need. piratebay always has a working proxy and does the job for me.

If takedowns sort themselves out I am sure I would return to Newzgroups

[DejaVu]

Sonarr along with Jackett is invaluable.
Completely agree about Newsgroups, but I believe something somewhere has been done that is not public knowledge.

Why upload soooo many encrypted releases to Newsgroups with no way of knowing what or where they've come from?

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[AP0ll0UK]

I think historically encrypted releases with a name like '1a2b3c4d5e6f7g8h9i' or some other random name was simply a way for a private site and it's members to keep new and scene releases purely private and prevent everyone else from leeching their hard work. It's also not as obvious for prying eyes to spot 'The Thing 1981 DTS x264' if it's called '1a2b3c4d5e6f7g8h9i' and is encrypted with a complex password. I know of a few forums that do this. Some carry their forum name in the post or .nfo file name, it directs traffic to their forum which brings about more members. Particularly if they release a lot of new stuff and either charge for forum membership or advertise their favorite news provider.

This is worth a read https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/providers as it highlights who has auto takedowns, who belongs to Highwinds and who keeps logs. I've used Easynews and Tweaknews but wouldn't touch them with a barge pole nowadays. According to that list Astra does auto takedowns which is why you might get poor results from it.

Depending on far into this you want to get, and how much you want to pay, the trend seems to be to use one all round decent provider and then back that up with a block account with another provider in case your primary has missing parts, then the block account will hopefully fill in the blanks.

[Gunnzie]

Sonarr + nzbgeek + usenetbucket

[stevo25]

eweka for me , ok with take downs better than astraweb

[evilsatan]

Oznzb was one of the best but that went down recently, nzb.su is ok but looking to supplement that with another indexer myself.

Why wouldnt you touch those two Apollo? I can't remember why I switched from tweaknews.

Torrents have are always concerned me, what's practice are people using? Just a VPN or is peer guardian etc still used?

[cassy34]

Oznzb is back (Monday I think) although the api was still working throughout their downtime. I use Eweka with an Astraweb Block account and sickrage (sickbeard clone) on Kodi.

[satzzz]

Oznzb is back (Monday I think) although the api was still working throughout their downtime. I use Eweka with an Astraweb Block account and sickrage (sickbeard clone) on Kodi.

It's still down here

[AP0ll0UK]

Oznzb was one of the best but that went down recently, nzb.su is ok but looking to supplement that with another indexer myself.

Why wouldnt you touch those two Apollo? I can't remember why I switched from tweaknews.

Torrents have are always concerned me, what's practice are people using? Just a VPN or is peer guardian etc still used?

Is was the stuff I read about Highwinds a bit back and those two resellers either belong to Highwinds or resell their service so your activity is probably logged, especially of they're based in the US - Not that your ISP won't be logging this soon regardless of whether you use SSL or not.

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[cassy34]

It's still down here

So it is... It was back, honest.