Usenet

So, i want to give a try to usenet world.

I have the *Arr setup with torrents now, and works great, but why not experiment a bit further?

So many questions...

First of all: will i find italian contents? Or its all US/English stuff?

I got an account on NZBFind, bit thats only an indexer right? I need also to find an access provider to usenet? If so, which access provider do you recomend? I want somewhere i can test for a few weeks or a month or so before committing, so no credit card upfront.

36 comments

Usenet provider. I suggest if you make the jump, then Newshosting is a great option. Why: 5557 days of retention, up to 100 connections, and unlimited download (on highest plan $15/month).
Also Newshosting offers a FREE TRIAL. From there T&C - "Free Trial ends in 14 days or 30GB used, whichever comes first." You might have to do a CC upfront, but just cancel it the next day, and run the free 2 weeks.
Will you find Italian content. YES, there is tons of it. How do I know? Because I host a Usenet indexer/scraper, and I see everything that is scraped on my server. English, German and Italian are among the top 5 languages.
NZBFind. That is a scraper/indexer. You still need a Usenet provider. The indexers just provide you with the NZB, you need the usenet provider (configured in NZBGet or whatever your download *arrr is) to get all the "parts" (binary posts) and assemble them together.
- Just signed up for newshosting Paid like $89 for a year.
  Edit: because of this comment.
  Thanks!
  
  Welcome! Thanks for also pointing out that yearly is cheaper that monthly subscription.
- there are plenty of newshosting resellers that use the same exact servers that are much cheaper than $15 a month or even $10 a month. use one of the backbone maps to see all of the various ones.
i dont think any service is going to give you free weeks or a month with no strings attached. if they did everybody would use them and not pay. you can just buy 1 unlimited month of frugal usenet for 5 bucks (not a subscription) and call it good.
- There are plenty that will give you a free something. It might be a week/1GB whichever is first (A good way to look around). There are a lot that give you a free day with no limit (other than number of connections).
Keep an eye on black friday deals, they are usually the best around. You may get lifetime deals on the cheap from indexers, cheap blocks/subs from server providers. It's a steep, but rewarding learning curve. Can't help you with Italian content though.
- Nzbgeek, nzbplanet, dognzb and Drunken Slug are the best indexers in my experience. Really only need 1 or 2 of these.
  Providers are both trickier and simpler. most are just resellers and theres really only 2 backbones for the providers. There's a diagram somewhere of all of the different providers and which backbone they come off of. I got NZB ninja a decade ago cuz it was the cheapest at the time but really any of them will do.
I don’t think you’ll find many providers that offer free trials, although I stand to be corrected. But some will accept crypto so if you don’t want to give your credit card details you could try that.
I use Astraweb because I can buy 1000GB at a time that doesn't expire so I avoid the monthly fees. Works well for me as I don't do a high volume and it removes any feeling of pressure to use it more than I need.
- Astraweb is the absolute worst to be recommending. DMCA's are instant. Connections are 50 (this isn't bad, but there are many others that offer 60 or more).
  
  Astraweb is the same exact servers as Newshosting that you glowingly recommended up thread. cant be that bad i guess. ;)
  
  Dumb question: how can you get DMCA'd?
  I thought it's all encrypted and servers are no log?
  
  Well for someone like myself that is low volume Astraweb is great because they offer the option of buying GBs instead of monthly fees.
Italian content? Some, but not much. Way less that torrents.
I speak from experience.
I use eweka.nl & nzbplanet, works fine
I'm tempted as well, but I don't like to leave a payment trail from me to them. And if you say "bitcoin", it's not anonymous. Monero is a damn pain in the ass to get for what I've seen. Can I just send them cash in an envelope?
- Grab a disposable/reloadable credit card.
  Or use privacy.com
- blocknews, frugal usenet and usenetnow take cash in the mail, an option at checkout. maybe others will but they dont make it obvious so you would have to contact them directly. but honestly i wouldnt worry aboutr using your card. paying for usenet access is just as legal as paying for isp access.
  
  meh, they are all US based, I'll try to find one EU based that allows cash payments. And I do worry. Remember, only the paranoids survive! :D But thanks for the info, I think I've found something suitable.
- Bitcoin is anonymous insofar as you make sure the wallet itself can't be traced back to you. In other words it's all about how you operate it
  
  I appreciate that, but it would be another part of my infra that I have to manage. I have enough stuff to worry about already, if I can just send some money in an envelope would save me a lot of time!
How and why is Usenet still a thing? Damn.
- Faster, encrypted, no need to seed. Yep, sure is terrible.

36 comments