Usenet is unmoderated. Once you post it, it sticks forever. We could probably get one of the independent providers to give free access to a new newsgroup. Anyone have any thoughts?
I’ve used Usenet for my content needs for years because it’s so fast and risk free. I think we could also use it for our community discussions.
Hi, I keep hearing this everywhere, what exactly is usenet and how do I use it? (sorry if this is derailing the point of your question)
Usenet was originally intended for sharing information but then it moved into being sort of the first social media platform then it kind of transitioned back into being mostly used for file sharing.
I can totally saturate my 1 gig internet connection with Usenet. Can download at incredible speeds. No need to ever upload. No logs of what I download. Almost instant access.
You need an indexer and you need a provider. Then you use sabnzbd to queue up what you want to download. It’s not free but depending on how much you plan to download, it’s a bargain.
For indexers I suggest drunkenslug or nzbplanet. For a provider I suggest NewsDemon or Usenet.farm. They are both good independent providers who have helped Usenet stay alive and not succumb to corporate greed.
Have you always needed a separate indexer? I vaguely recall using Usenet a decade ago and being able to download directly from the thread I was browsing. Do some providers include an indexer with the Usenet subscription?
You’ll find bits and pieces, but many indexers (and their uploaders) heavily obfuscate and password their stuff. You’ll never find it with nzbking or binsearch or manually downloading headers in a newsreader like it was common 15-20 years ago. Pretty much like a private torrent tracker.
I guess you could manually scroll through boards and download files that you want but so much of the stuff uploaded is heavily obfuscated so the advantage of an indexer is you can search for a file name and find it quickly and easily
This was very insightful, thank you!
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They open registration a few times a year so just keep an eye out.
I know a lot of people are steering clear of Reddit (and the Usenet subreddit’s moderators appear to be stepping down) but it seems like openings were announced there quite consistently.
I’m not sure if there’s an easier method to stay in the loop like email notifications for example
You would need to set up something to monitor web page changes like maybe every 12-24 hours or so. You would be monitoring https://drunkenslug.com/register
I’m not an expert in that area but in the past have had some success with Chrome browser extensions like Distill Web Monitor https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/distill-web-monitor/inlikjemeeknofckkjolnjbpehgadgge
I might make it my new tab screen and ballpark it off of past trends
As far as I’m aware they’ve closed new registrations for now but you could try one of the other indexers for now until they open back up! I’m waiting for them to open up myself.
Usenet is a very old part of the internet. I think it predates the world wide web. It’s basically a message board. Which boards (like subs) exist on there is democratically decided. At least that was how it was done in Germany. For example, when there where too many Star Wars posts in the Science Fiction group de.rec.sf they decided to create one for Star Wars under de.rec.sf.starwars.
The actual content resides on newsservers around the globe. When you pass a message to one of them it is distributed around the globe to all the other servers. It’s similar to how Lemmy works, with the difference that with Lemmy content is only passed around when someone is actually subscribed to a particular community.
But many news servers don’t pass around messages that contain files. Because that would take up too much space. To get access to the servers that do pass around files you have to pay for the service. That is actually used for piracy nowadays.
Back in the days you could actually get access to usenet from your ISP. At least to the text only portion. Don’t know how you’d do it nowadays. It’s mostly fallen to obscurity.
This helped me understand usenet properly, thank you. I don’t see the allure of using it especially since torrents are free and largely seeded (depending on the indexer and your preference). I see why people would prefer it for more obscure stuff though.
You don’t need a VPN with Usenet. The connection is encrypted. That, and the fact that speeds are dramatically faster make up the difference in cost.
Ah, I’m from a country that doesn’t enforce copyright much (at all) so using a VPN has not been a requisite for me, but I see how the speeds could be worth the money.
The main reason it might be used is it integrates very well with services such as Sonarr/Radarr which can auto-download TV shows/movies if you have a good indexer. That and generally the Usenet servers do not keep access logs so it tends to be a lot safer than torrenting. For software/games etc. I would stick with torrents, but for TV/Movies if you have your own server Usenet is a compelling service.
I have used both and I don’t disagree with you, but I want to say it’s worth noting that torrents also work fine with Sonarr and Radarr!
Good point - I did find torrents a lot more fiddly to set up though.
Agreed again haha, it was way more fiddly (but also more free!)
These days I’m just using Stremio for my media though, with add-ons it’s glorious
Free is always the best price! I’ve been using a Sonarr/SABnzbd/Emby setup on my home built NAS (unRAID) for about 7 years now. Until recently I had about 9.5TB of shows but then got ransomwared :(. Got about 4 of it back now and counting!
Aside from the other two comments I’ve heard Usenet is good for more obscure content such as older TV shows that may not be well seeded
Usenet WAS basically the internet back in the early to mid 90s,they are also called list servers, that’s basically what they are.
You post to a list by topic and it appends your post to the list. It’s like reddit in that there are topics and subjects but the list just goes on forever.
Each post will have your subject line and other header info and the software will let you reply and quote and so on.
The key is that it isn’t very centralized, servers will copy the lists and host their own. The cool thing was it would let you post binaries. So piracy and pr0n on the internet was here b4 websites were really a thing.
There are a lot of list servers out there but my understanding is that the good ones are a subscription now.
subscriptions
Yes. You need to pay a small amount but unless you plan on downloading many TBs of stuff the cost is really small. The speeds and lack of risk makes it worthwhile for me. I think I paid $5 for a 1 TB account and I can use the free level of access at my indexers without having to pay.
Like I said in my original post, I wonder if we can get a provider to host a newsgroup for us for free?
Where did you get this deal if you don’t mind me asking?
I messaged the owner of the Newsgroup direct website on Reddit and asked if he would honor an old price and he did. He was very active on the Usenet subreddit.
I personally use frugalusenet for $4/pm, which is unlimited, but if I could find $5/1TB I would switch to that.
Indexer I pay $1/pm for a big one and I have a free one that has less.
Could you point me towards the free one? I just want a taste of usenet before I commit
Registering closed
I’ve had a lifetime sub for NZBGeek (indexer) since 2015 (one-off payment of something like 20-30 USD) and currently pay 6 USD/month for unlimited downloads with NewsGroupDirect. The NGD sub was 4 USD/month until recently and I got it at that price through a promotion that I found out about on Reddit (probably r/usenet) a few years ago.
There’s some free trials listed here, but sadly all the best info is probably still on r/usenet.
Thank you!
Full circle…
Everything old is new again.
IRC xdcc when?
IRC/XDCC/FTP was never old, it was always relavent to those who always used it. This options is as good and/or better than torrents/usenet. But whatever you choose chances are you will find what you are looking for.
We can go back to XMODEM, or using HS/LINK to courier some warez to some BBSes ;)
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I think your definition of widely used and mine might be a tad different ;)
When there are thousands of bots, packs and users I think its widely used ;)
rubs hands togetherit’s all coming together!
Usenet is fine for downloading but getting providers these days involve paying for it, which gates of a lot of folks. Torrenting and federated social media does not.
Is torrenting really free though? VPNs and seedboxes are not and torrenting without any of those is a bad idea in many countries. Usenet is quite cheap. I use both but I prefer the usenet tbh.
You do not need a seedbox nor a VPN. It is advised to use some VPN if your ISP is hostile to pirating, but in a lot of countries that’s not the case. Seedboxes are only necessary if you’re on a private tracker with strict demands, but even then content has a way with leaking out of those communities onto public trackers.
I’m in one of the counties where it’s impossible without a VPN because there’s a big industry making money by suing people for copyright violations. But you’re right, in many countries nobody really cares.
federated social media
Usenet was the original federated social media. Back when it was actually used for discussions, you’d post to your ISP’s server, which would be federated with the other Usenet servers.
Well, why not go back to BBS then ? I’d be happy to host a server
rubs hands together Oh yes, it’s all coming together!
You put the tw2002 door on it and I’m so there!
Nostalgia++
OMG… we need a federated BBS.
Do you mean a BBS that could communicate with the Fediverse via the Activitypub protocol? Not sure if your post was a joke, but it might be doable lol. Synchronet is open source, and if someone is willing to get their hands dirty, it can be done.
I was serious. Conceptually it makes a lot of sense to do, I’ve thought about a number of CLI clients, but like a federated BBS from someone with the experience to do it right would be… just… chef’s kiss
I’m of the wrong era. I got the tail-end of using them and wasn’t developing until well into the WWW days.
Not exactly what you’re looking for, but someone wrote a TUI for Lemmy: https://github.com/mrusme/neonmodem
I see no reason why activitypub couldn’t work on Telnet tbh
Big oof… can’t we use something better than telnet? ;)
HUGE problem I see with using a BBS today is that telnet transmits in clear-text, which wasn’t much of an issue when we were still using dial-up modems. Suppose BBS software can be adapted for SSH, but to go through all that, may as well host shell accounts on a *nix platform IMO.
Off top of my head I can think of 2 BBS software that use SSH.
In any case, I would be hesitant on using any BBS that I cannot use key-based authentication.
If determined on clear-text BBS… may as well consider using Gopher instead of HTTP… just a thought since we’re pulling out the legacy protocols.
DOORs would def need to be a part of any BBS project… can’t imagine this would be that easy considering nearly all of them were DOS.
Couldn’t we all move to i2p by similar logic?
i2p seems very rudimentary for piracy imo even though it has been around a long time (I have only recently ventured into the realm of i2p, so forgive me, and let me know if I am wrong)
If you are referring to the availability of torrents and people seeding compared to the regular web I think you might be right.
That said from what I’ve read you don’t need a VPN when torrenting over i2p
I pretty much only use Usenet.
Lots of pirate forums use it too.
There has been a surge of new users on USENET as of late. If you’re looking for a free NNTP server, I recommend eternal-september.
I haven’t used the Usenet in about 8 years or so. What is currently a good provider? Is sabnzb or wtf it was called still the best software? And what search engine would you recommend for finding nzb in 2023?
In my opinion, the best provider is Eweka. You can still get the €3.99/mo offer at https://www.eweka.nl/en/landing/special-deal. They don’t follow DMCA so uploads tend to last a lot longer. Ideally you’ll have at least one block account from another provider on a different backbone. Check here for a map of providers and backbones https://usenetmap.b-cdn.net/latest.svg. The block account is for when your main provider is missing some parts. However, with Eweka this has been extremely rare for me so you can probably wait on getting a block account if you go with them.
Nowadays, you’ll also need a good indexer (or two or three). Long gone are the days of searching for an nzb on a public site. Nzbgeek is probably a good one to start with since it has open registration. DrunkenSlug is another great one, but requires an invite. I don’t think there is a lemmy alternative, so checkout r/usenetinvites if interested.
SABnzbd and NZBget are the two most used downloaders, but the latter is no longer being maintained.
I second eweka. Great price and has pretty much everything. Then NewsDemon as a 2nd.
Uploads do not last a lot longer on Eweka. That is a common misconception that the corporate staff at Eweka seem to be successfully pushing so they can trick you into buying their product TWICE. They own Eweka plus a bunch of other US based sites and want you to purchase an account at eweka and an account at one of their US sites. Now you can see why people are leaving Usenet, when the largest provider is shady like that.
Eweka has to follow NTD rules which are just basically the EUs version of DMCA. Both NTD and DMCA providers get all the same notices I’ve read. Maybe it takes a couple extra hours to process NTD but if you’re using automation then you will be grabbing it in the first 24 hours anyway.
Don’t waste your time paying the extra money for Eweka unless maybe you’re in the EU and just want a server close to you. They don’t have a US based server location.
That’s interesting, never heard that before. I’ve been using them for about 2.5 years and got in at €2.99/mo. Maybe my download success could be attributed to the indexers I’m using? I think I was using NewsDemon before that and definitely had some takedown issues.
I think Newsdemon was still on Omacon 2.5 years ago so maybe that was the issue.
If you’ve been following on the Usenet subreddit there has been a lot of info about Omacron being bad. They’ve run off competition and done some shady things with user data. I think they even voluntarily handed it over to the government once for a court case. They own Eweka.
Yeah I use SABnzbd, Sonarr and Radarr. You can basically add shows / movies through sonarr and Radarr, set the quality you want, and when they become available they’ll automatically download for you. I’ve got mine setup on a raspberry pi which is also running a plex server. Would definitely recommend.
It’s pretty good for movies and tv shows but that’s it (at least in my country). For software or games there are much better websites. But still I absolutely love the Usenet. I prefer forums over indexer because they’re free and also have every show and movie I wanted to download.
Someone would need to make a request to news.groups.proposals if it needs to be under the big-8. Otherwise, there is alt.*.
I wonder if alt.tasteless.jokes is still going?
did it get back to normal at some point? I remember checking it out about 2000 and things like pets had obvious shills (post about purina being quality and great for your animal and note this was before the chain dog foods kicked it up a notch health wise.)
I dunno, I stopped using usenet in about '98
A lot of the comment here don’t seem to understand what you’re asking. I think you’re talking about using Usenet for its original purpose (discussion forums), not for piracy.
This is a summary of the posted article (I’m a bot).
Inflation held steady at 8.7 percent in May despite analyst expectations it would fall to 8.4 percent. It makes it almost certain the Bank of England will increase interest rates to 5 percent in August. The country’s economy now risks a wave of mortgage defaults as a slew of fixed rate deals head for expiry in the second half of this year. The data is likely to unnerve Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who pledged in January he would slash inflation in half if he came to power.
Something i hoped that would not float across the sea from reddit. Useless bots.
