This was one of my biggest motivations for moving to usenet. I don’t like exposing myself by seeding. I have a giant folder full of copyright notices forwarded by my ISP because of it, and I don’t want to pay for a vpn as it’s far more expensive than usenet and just moves the problem/target to the vpn provider.
But an ssl connection to a usenet server goes unnoticed… Plus WAY faster download speeds, far more consistency in available files, and less spam/garbage content (at least in my experience, anecdotal).
Torrents took anywhere from an hour to multiple days before either completing or giving up and trying a different torrent. And then there’s the seeding process ontop.
NZBs (usenet) take at the very most, 5min to finish or fail, at which point a new one can be tried automatically by sonarr/radarr if it had failed. Requests for media are now pretty much always ready to watch within 25min of requesting, and most of that is waiting for the library scan to trigger (I’m using SAMBA so filesystem updates can’t trigger scans automatically, they’re on a timer instead)
How do I get started with Usenet? I’m on a private tracker right now which has excellent speeds (maxes out my 500 Mbit connection usually, so I can’t tell what speeds I might achieve if fully utilized), but it would of course be nice not having to seed.
A Usenet provider such as EasyNews or Astraweb. Usenet services host the content. Be aware that some services like GigaNews just rehost from the same pool of servers as a lot of others, also a tad scummy. There’s a lot to look into here for features like connection limits, retention, and download speed. You can also purchase “block accounts” which let you buy blocks of data to use on demand with no expiration. Astraweb is great for this as a secondary source since they have their own servers and can host different content than other hosts. Look for promo codes online when signing up for one as you can usually get solid rates via referrals for like $7-$15 a month. Block accounts can run like $25 for 100GB of download.
A Usenet downloading client like SabNZBD for downloading NZB files (pronounced: newzbins)
An Indexer, such as Drunken Slug, NZBGeek, NZB Finder, or OMGWTFNZBs. Indexers help you find the content you’re looking for in the giant pool of hosted content on Usenet services. Usually good to have more than 1 indexer, even if using a free account on another. Usually run about $15 a year.
Usenet can be tied into Arrs programs like Sonarr and Radarr for automated downloading which makes things a lot easier especially when you set up your library correctly. See Trash Guides for help with this.
Personally I recommend running this all through Docker, but it’s not necessary.
Also even with Usenet, I’d still recommend a VPN. Can never be too safe.
You need a download client (eg. SABnzbd) and an account with an indexer (which will cost money). To automate the process of downloading you can put things like Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr on top, but those are optional.
I don’t understand why usenet is a thing. It really liked it in the early days and it was basically like lemmy. Groups for different topics and also federated. Now it’s used to distribute warez but since it wasn’t made for it so stuff has to be base64 encoded and split into pieces…
I think most people don’t realize that Usenet is older than the World Wide Web. It’s still a thing because it wasn’t corporatized like the Web was.
AT&T used to include Usenet access as part of your Internet connection since both Usenet and the Web are on the Internet but they quit doing that some years ago (back in the halcyon days of DSL).
so stuff has to be base64 encoded and split into pieces…
You say that like it’s an issue. With modern Usenet binary downloaders (SABnzbd) and indexers, you don’t have to browse groups. In fact you most likely can’t. The indexer provides you with the map where the files are located (the nzb files) and SABnzbd finds them, starts downloading them, checks if all files are downloadable and keeps going or stops if there aren’t even enough files available to attempt a repair.
All of that is abstracted from the user. You tell Radarr/Sonarr what movie/series you want and it will handle everything, from querying the indexers to passing the nzb along to SABnzbd and to automatically restart the process if somehow the download fails.
It’s a shame no one uses Usenet for its original purpose though. It was reddit before the internet itself.
From a user perspective it’s not a problem. I’m just sad what an abomination my beloved pre-reddit has become. Also it’s super weird like using bicycles for international shipping instead of container ships without telling the user and hiding the whole process in the background.
Can I share over usenet without having to port forward? My ISP doesn’t allow port forwarding. I’ve been able to download from usenet, but don’t really want to if I can’t also share.
Usenet
This was one of my biggest motivations for moving to usenet. I don’t like exposing myself by seeding. I have a giant folder full of copyright notices forwarded by my ISP because of it, and I don’t want to pay for a vpn as it’s far more expensive than usenet and just moves the problem/target to the vpn provider.
But an ssl connection to a usenet server goes unnoticed… Plus WAY faster download speeds, far more consistency in available files, and less spam/garbage content (at least in my experience, anecdotal).
Torrents took anywhere from an hour to multiple days before either completing or giving up and trying a different torrent. And then there’s the seeding process ontop.
NZBs (usenet) take at the very most, 5min to finish or fail, at which point a new one can be tried automatically by sonarr/radarr if it had failed. Requests for media are now pretty much always ready to watch within 25min of requesting, and most of that is waiting for the library scan to trigger (I’m using SAMBA so filesystem updates can’t trigger scans automatically, they’re on a timer instead)
How do I get started with Usenet? I’m on a private tracker right now which has excellent speeds (maxes out my 500 Mbit connection usually, so I can’t tell what speeds I might achieve if fully utilized), but it would of course be nice not having to seed.
Things you need:
A Usenet provider such as EasyNews or Astraweb. Usenet services host the content. Be aware that some services like GigaNews just rehost from the same pool of servers as a lot of others, also a tad scummy. There’s a lot to look into here for features like connection limits, retention, and download speed. You can also purchase “block accounts” which let you buy blocks of data to use on demand with no expiration. Astraweb is great for this as a secondary source since they have their own servers and can host different content than other hosts. Look for promo codes online when signing up for one as you can usually get solid rates via referrals for like $7-$15 a month. Block accounts can run like $25 for 100GB of download.
A Usenet downloading client like SabNZBD for downloading NZB files (pronounced: newzbins)
An Indexer, such as Drunken Slug, NZBGeek, NZB Finder, or OMGWTFNZBs. Indexers help you find the content you’re looking for in the giant pool of hosted content on Usenet services. Usually good to have more than 1 indexer, even if using a free account on another. Usually run about $15 a year.
Usenet can be tied into Arrs programs like Sonarr and Radarr for automated downloading which makes things a lot easier especially when you set up your library correctly. See Trash Guides for help with this.
Personally I recommend running this all through Docker, but it’s not necessary.
Also even with Usenet, I’d still recommend a VPN. Can never be too safe.
I don’t have time atm, I’m literally leaving for work rn; but I’ll write up some details later tonight if nobody else has.
Following
See my comment above
You need a download client (eg. SABnzbd) and an account with an indexer (which will cost money). To automate the process of downloading you can put things like Sonarr/Radarr/Lidarr on top, but those are optional.
Thanks, I appreciate it!
I don’t understand why usenet is a thing. It really liked it in the early days and it was basically like lemmy. Groups for different topics and also federated. Now it’s used to distribute warez but since it wasn’t made for it so stuff has to be base64 encoded and split into pieces…
I think most people don’t realize that Usenet is older than the World Wide Web. It’s still a thing because it wasn’t corporatized like the Web was.
AT&T used to include Usenet access as part of your Internet connection since both Usenet and the Web are on the Internet but they quit doing that some years ago (back in the halcyon days of DSL).
You say that like it’s an issue. With modern Usenet binary downloaders (SABnzbd) and indexers, you don’t have to browse groups. In fact you most likely can’t. The indexer provides you with the map where the files are located (the nzb files) and SABnzbd finds them, starts downloading them, checks if all files are downloadable and keeps going or stops if there aren’t even enough files available to attempt a repair.
All of that is abstracted from the user. You tell Radarr/Sonarr what movie/series you want and it will handle everything, from querying the indexers to passing the nzb along to SABnzbd and to automatically restart the process if somehow the download fails.
It’s a shame no one uses Usenet for its original purpose though. It was reddit before the internet itself.
From a user perspective it’s not a problem. I’m just sad what an abomination my beloved pre-reddit has become. Also it’s super weird like using bicycles for international shipping instead of container ships without telling the user and hiding the whole process in the background.
It’s more under the radar since it’s harder to do
Can I share over usenet without having to port forward? My ISP doesn’t allow port forwarding. I’ve been able to download from usenet, but don’t really want to if I can’t also share.NVM was confusing it with soulseek