Forum Overview :: American McGee's Honda Civic
 
NZB FILES and YOU by Orange Devil Bat 07/12/2011, 4:52pm PDT
The days of free usenet access for downloading binaries of any significant size are over. If you're planning on downloading from usenet regularly, do yourself a favor and get a pay account somewhere. Giganews is good, Usenetserver is good, Supernews is good. These places contain massive drive storage capabilities. Put it this way. Your average ISP, if they even free usenet access at all, usually has such terrible retention rates that things that get uploaded are gone within a matter of days. My ISP got so bad that when downloading a movie, the first few RAR files would start disappearing before the last ones were done uploading. If you are getting into usenet for the conversations, cheap or free usenet accounts may still cut it. If you're getting into them for downloading binaries of any length (games, movies, music, etc.) forget about it. The pay places have excellent retention. I think Giganews now boasts a two year retention rate, which is pretty impressive.

Also, the pay usenet services have unbelievable speeds. I have a 50 megabit download speed limit and Giganews pegs my connection. Most pay usenet services allow multiple connections. I can download an mp3 album in, oh, 15-20 seconds usually. Also, most of the pay providers support encrypted SSL connections, because hey, if you want to download pictures of chicks with dicks, that's between you and the chicks and nobody else.

You can download binary files one of two ways. The first is, you can use a program (I use NewsBin), add a newsgroup (alt.binaries.chix-with-dix) and start downloading. The program will download all the headers (filenames) and you'll be able to sort and browse and flag files to be downloaded. The other option is to use a search engine, like the one you posted a link to. Those search engines (there are dozens and dozens of free ones) scour usenet and catalog files. You can flag the files you want and download the list as an NZB file, which is really just an XML list (you can open one in Notepad and look at it and see the file names). Any binary newsgroup program will support NZB files. Just open the file and your program will go find all the files and download them all.

I've always said Napster was like a store that carried everything, and usenet is more like a garage sale. You're kind of at the mercy of what other people have uploaded, but with a 2 year retention, there's a pretty good selection. Most modern programs and movies end up there almost immediately. You can get UFC fights about an hour after the pay-per-views end.

The best part of usenet is, no one can see what you are downloading. People upload files (hopefully anonymously) and you download them. If you're paying for a service you can download whatever and however much you want (I pay $15/month for unlimited, and justify that as well less than the price of a single Xbox 360 game).
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NZB: like being back in the shadowy world of gopher downloads for all I know by NDD 07/12/2011, 4:01pm PDT NEW
    btw all the torrents for this (and red chapel) are fakes, do not even bother. NT by NDD 07/12/2011, 4:02pm PDT NEW
    NZB FILES and YOU by Orange Devil Bat 07/12/2011, 4:52pm PDT NEW
        Thanks that was helpful by NDD 07/12/2011, 5:59pm PDT NEW
            btw the giganews trial was just eough to cover what i needed by NDD 07/13/2011, 1:55am PDT NEW
                Re: btw the giganews trial was just eough to cover what i needed by ZDC 07/13/2011, 10:00am PDT NEW
                Leg Press is for the Pat Robertsons of the world. Why not do squats? NT by WITTGENSTEIN 07/13/2011, 3:38pm PDT NEW
                    I'm scared of getting into pissing contests with the free weights guys. by NDD 07/13/2011, 3:41pm PDT NEW
                        I've seen maybe 5 other people in six months do squats/use a smith machine by WITTGENSTEIN 07/13/2011, 6:52pm PDT NEW
                            IT WAS A LOT HARDER THAN I REMEMBER IT BEING by NDD 07/13/2011, 9:30pm PDT NEW
                                Re: IT WAS A LOT HARDER THAN I REMEMBER IT BEING by Lizard_King 07/17/2011, 8:16pm PDT NEW
                                    btw I hated stairs for the next three days by NDD 07/17/2011, 11:00pm PDT NEW
                                        I'm not sure if you'll get much out of Rippetoe by WITTGENSTEIN 07/19/2011, 3:46pm PDT NEW
                                            Re: I'm not sure if you'll get much out of Rippetoe by NDD 07/20/2011, 1:53am PDT NEW
                                                Let me know if you think it makes a dramatic improvement by WITTGENSTEIN 07/20/2011, 4:29pm PDT NEW
                                                    Re: Let me know if you think it makes a dramatic improvement by NDD 07/20/2011, 10:33pm PDT NEW
                                                        This post changed my life and I miss talking about lifting with Zseni by WITTGENSTEIN 08/07/2014, 7:09pm PDT NEW
                                                            I kind of want to sit on your shoulders and go on a rampage through the city. NT by Jerry Whorebach 08/08/2014, 2:11am PDT NEW
                                        asagfhg space russian moms. <3 <3 <3 NT by up with pod people 07/22/2011, 1:28pm PDT NEW
                                    I watched that video three times. Every time, I learned something. NT by Jerry Whorebach 08/26/2011, 8:11pm PDT NEW
                What group was this in? by Last 07/14/2011, 5:10pm PDT NEW
                    Russian torrent site. Hang on and I'll upload it for you. Plus subs. by NDD 07/14/2011, 5:40pm PDT NEW
                        Peculiarities of the national hunt by NDD 07/14/2011, 7:40pm PDT NEW
                            Re: Peculiarities of the national hunt by Last 07/15/2011, 3:23am PDT NEW
                    Howto by Last 07/15/2011, 3:37am PDT NEW
                        Re: Howto by Last 07/31/2011, 7:13am PDT NEW
            You're welcome. And... by Orange Devil Bat 07/13/2011, 7:54pm PDT NEW
        I love Giganews. NT by Gutsby 07/12/2011, 6:19pm PDT NEW
            And I have had good experiences with Newshosting. by col.schickn 07/12/2011, 8:20pm PDT NEW
        Re: NZB FILES and YOU by Motherhead 07/17/2011, 12:21pm PDT NEW
    You might like Siberian Education by Nikolai Lilin. by Gutsby 07/12/2011, 5:54pm PDT NEW
        I'd like to read it but I'm having a hard time tracking down a pdf by NDD 07/12/2011, 9:53pm PDT NEW
    Are you a Jonathan Rosenbaum fan by Vested Id 07/12/2011, 7:43pm PDT NEW
        No. I saw the movie in the local arty theater totally blind by NDD 07/12/2011, 9:54pm PDT NEW
    Why is Best of the Best 2 so good? It shouldn't be possible! by Entropy Stew 07/12/2011, 8:53pm PDT NEW
        Because it's full of stupid joy and steely-eyed earnestness. by NDD 07/12/2011, 10:05pm PDT NEW
    my perestroika.mp4 by NDD 07/13/2011, 4:34pm PDT NEW
        I'm pretty sure my computer just got AIDS from that download site by Fullofkittens 07/13/2011, 6:48pm PDT NEW
            ...and you're still pining after it, aren't you by NDD 07/13/2011, 9:28pm PDT NEW
            I believe that's called the "Double Pinback". NT by Flack 07/14/2011, 8:01am PDT NEW
 
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