Questions about Usenet
-
I currently have an arr-stack setup on my home server with qBittorrent, which works relatively well. However, I mainly have two issues with it:
- There is very little content available on BitTorrent in my native language (Dutch), not even on private trackers afaik
- There are many torrents which take days to download, or even worse get stuck (hate it when that happens, especially if it's at 99%)
This got me interested in Usenet.
As for point 1, I found an NZB indexer which seems to have a lot more Dutch content. I still have some questions, however.
- I understand that apart from having access to indexers I'll also need a Usenet provider. How big are the differences between providers? I can find plans between €2 and €20 per month; does it matter that much which I take, apart from retention rate and download speed? Do all providers host all newsgroups?
- As for point 2, I understand that if content is on a provider's servers, then you will be able to download it with whatever speed your provider gives you. How much content will I actually be able to find? Why isn't content constantly taken down?
- Is using a VPN recommended with Usenet?
wrote last edited by [email protected]It has been a while since I used Usenet, so instead of giving you possibly out of date info I will just link to this FYFM section which has way more info than I can give.
In particular I found this guide to be fairly easy to follow.
As for using a VPN: it can't hurt!
-
I currently have an arr-stack setup on my home server with qBittorrent, which works relatively well. However, I mainly have two issues with it:
- There is very little content available on BitTorrent in my native language (Dutch), not even on private trackers afaik
- There are many torrents which take days to download, or even worse get stuck (hate it when that happens, especially if it's at 99%)
This got me interested in Usenet.
As for point 1, I found an NZB indexer which seems to have a lot more Dutch content. I still have some questions, however.
- I understand that apart from having access to indexers I'll also need a Usenet provider. How big are the differences between providers? I can find plans between €2 and €20 per month; does it matter that much which I take, apart from retention rate and download speed? Do all providers host all newsgroups?
- As for point 2, I understand that if content is on a provider's servers, then you will be able to download it with whatever speed your provider gives you. How much content will I actually be able to find? Why isn't content constantly taken down?
- Is using a VPN recommended with Usenet?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Usenet is not the WWW. It operates on a different protocol and methods. It's not over HTTP(s) like this or standard web sites. Thus, your typical web user won't even ever see or notice anything on or about usenet. This is why you would need a usenet provider or access. You cannot access usenet with a web browser. One notable difference between the web and Usenet is the absence of a central server and dedicated administrator. Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing conglomeration of servers that store and forward messages to one another in so-called news feeds. Individual users may read messages from and post messages to a local servers.
Usenet is literally just a collection of text files on various servers or locations. There really isn't an index builtin or a way to just 'click to the next page'. This is why you need an indexer. An indexer crawls and scrapes usenet headers to allow searching and finding of specific content or posts. It automatically builds releases and indexes them like google indexes the internet.
When someone uploads files to usenet, it's just text. Very large files such as videos, aren't easily represented as text and don't "fit" in one post. It is spread over many different posts, sometimes hundreds. In text format. You could find all those posts, combine the text, and end up with an actual video or music file. But that file doesn't "exist" on usenet as a specific, single, item. Indexers find all posts associated with something you may be searching for, and other news reader software (like NZBGet or SABNZB) combine all those text files into one, giving you the file you actually expect after downloading all the different posts/parts.
Using a VPN account with usenet is beneficial, but not required. It is ideal to have access to multiple different indexers to find the posts you want.
-
It has been a while since I used Usenet, so instead of giving you possibly out of date info I will just link to this FYFM section which has way more info than I can give.
In particular I found this guide to be fairly easy to follow.
As for using a VPN: it can't hurt!
That is THE guide afaik. I think it has some outdated advice, but largely seems still accurate.
-
I currently have an arr-stack setup on my home server with qBittorrent, which works relatively well. However, I mainly have two issues with it:
- There is very little content available on BitTorrent in my native language (Dutch), not even on private trackers afaik
- There are many torrents which take days to download, or even worse get stuck (hate it when that happens, especially if it's at 99%)
This got me interested in Usenet.
As for point 1, I found an NZB indexer which seems to have a lot more Dutch content. I still have some questions, however.
- I understand that apart from having access to indexers I'll also need a Usenet provider. How big are the differences between providers? I can find plans between €2 and €20 per month; does it matter that much which I take, apart from retention rate and download speed? Do all providers host all newsgroups?
- As for point 2, I understand that if content is on a provider's servers, then you will be able to download it with whatever speed your provider gives you. How much content will I actually be able to find? Why isn't content constantly taken down?
- Is using a VPN recommended with Usenet?
wrote last edited by [email protected]I am no expert but I learned enough to set it up with my *arr stack and it's my primary ship for sailing the seas. My use case is English language popular content. So YMMV.
Search for the Usenet backbone map or usenet provider map. You will see that there are only a handful of companies providing different "backbones". Content may be different on different backbones and the copyright takedown notices may be different (DMCA or NTD).
I pay for an unlimited subscription from a provider on one backbone and purchased a couple of 500gb blocks (on sale) on another backbone. (A block is a one-time fee that allows me to download a specified amount of data, from a provider, and they don't expire).
My understanding is that content on Usenet is broken into multiple parts and the file names are obfuscated, making it more difficult to take down. If they are taken down, it might only be a few parts. Your download client can be configured to download the missing parts from multiple servers (in my case the blocks).
I don't recall finding something in my indexers that wouldn't download because of takedowns.
My recommendation would be to try it with blocks or the cheap €2 providers to see if you are happy. If you struggle to find content branch out.
I don't use VPN with Usenet. I don't want to bottleneck those sweet 500/600 Mbps download speeds. Never had an issue. Edit: because I setup the SSL servers)
-
I currently have an arr-stack setup on my home server with qBittorrent, which works relatively well. However, I mainly have two issues with it:
- There is very little content available on BitTorrent in my native language (Dutch), not even on private trackers afaik
- There are many torrents which take days to download, or even worse get stuck (hate it when that happens, especially if it's at 99%)
This got me interested in Usenet.
As for point 1, I found an NZB indexer which seems to have a lot more Dutch content. I still have some questions, however.
- I understand that apart from having access to indexers I'll also need a Usenet provider. How big are the differences between providers? I can find plans between €2 and €20 per month; does it matter that much which I take, apart from retention rate and download speed? Do all providers host all newsgroups?
- As for point 2, I understand that if content is on a provider's servers, then you will be able to download it with whatever speed your provider gives you. How much content will I actually be able to find? Why isn't content constantly taken down?
- Is using a VPN recommended with Usenet?
A VPN won't be useful because you'll have to login to the Usenet server. But (someone please tell me if I'm wrong) I've never heard of anyone getting busted downloading stuff from newsgroups.
-
I am no expert but I learned enough to set it up with my *arr stack and it's my primary ship for sailing the seas. My use case is English language popular content. So YMMV.
Search for the Usenet backbone map or usenet provider map. You will see that there are only a handful of companies providing different "backbones". Content may be different on different backbones and the copyright takedown notices may be different (DMCA or NTD).
I pay for an unlimited subscription from a provider on one backbone and purchased a couple of 500gb blocks (on sale) on another backbone. (A block is a one-time fee that allows me to download a specified amount of data, from a provider, and they don't expire).
My understanding is that content on Usenet is broken into multiple parts and the file names are obfuscated, making it more difficult to take down. If they are taken down, it might only be a few parts. Your download client can be configured to download the missing parts from multiple servers (in my case the blocks).
I don't recall finding something in my indexers that wouldn't download because of takedowns.
My recommendation would be to try it with blocks or the cheap €2 providers to see if you are happy. If you struggle to find content branch out.
I don't use VPN with Usenet. I don't want to bottleneck those sweet 500/600 Mbps download speeds. Never had an issue. Edit: because I setup the SSL servers)
100% agree with all of this.
Only thing to add is occasionally you can find coupons/deals on providers and indexers. Lots around November for black friday and a handful of indexers have lifetime plans.
-
It has been a while since I used Usenet, so instead of giving you possibly out of date info I will just link to this FYFM section which has way more info than I can give.
In particular I found this guide to be fairly easy to follow.
As for using a VPN: it can't hurt!
Some unlimited plans ban for account sharing so if the vpn changes your IP more frequently than an internet provider changes your IP maybe it could get flagged. It doesn't specifically break the rules in the ones I read though. Also on some usenet guides I've looked at it is recommended not to use vpn, but if it works and you live somewhere with shittier piracy laws why not.
Where I live if you get the letter you can ignore it and they can pound sand, but with vpn on torrents but not usenet I haven't had the letter in years.
-
100% agree with all of this.
Only thing to add is occasionally you can find coupons/deals on providers and indexers. Lots around November for black friday and a handful of indexers have lifetime plans.
Oh yeah like that one that does a percentage discount based on the daily high temperature in their home city.
-
Watching this post. I still don't fully understand how Usenet works.
In some ways is similar to lemmy: it has groups (similar to Lemmy communities), decentralized
usenet servers (each server chooses what groups want to host and serve to clients, and how much time to save attachments). Each post can have attachments like in emails.There are other services acting as indexers. they are something like Google, you can search for files and you download them from the Usenet server.
Sorry for my poor explain, English is not my first language.
-
I currently have an arr-stack setup on my home server with qBittorrent, which works relatively well. However, I mainly have two issues with it:
- There is very little content available on BitTorrent in my native language (Dutch), not even on private trackers afaik
- There are many torrents which take days to download, or even worse get stuck (hate it when that happens, especially if it's at 99%)
This got me interested in Usenet.
As for point 1, I found an NZB indexer which seems to have a lot more Dutch content. I still have some questions, however.
- I understand that apart from having access to indexers I'll also need a Usenet provider. How big are the differences between providers? I can find plans between €2 and €20 per month; does it matter that much which I take, apart from retention rate and download speed? Do all providers host all newsgroups?
- As for point 2, I understand that if content is on a provider's servers, then you will be able to download it with whatever speed your provider gives you. How much content will I actually be able to find? Why isn't content constantly taken down?
- Is using a VPN recommended with Usenet?
Here are my answers as someone who exclusively uses Usenet.
- You'll want more than one provider on different backbones - that way if one is missing something, the other may have it. I've had good luck with thundernews. This is your subscription/primary provider. You'll also want a block provider. Unlike the subscription provider, block providers are literally what they say on the tin - buy a block of data to download and if it takes three months, fine. Two days? I'd revisit your choice for a primary provider, but whatever when the block is gone, it's gone.
- There are speed limits and multiple thread limits that determine how fast you can actually download things. Stuff is taken down, but it's rare. The lowest hanging fruit for content protection is torrents rather than big servers somewhere.
- I'm very meh on Usenet+VPN. Unlike torrents, you aren't sharing anything so your IP isn't advertised to those content protection folks leeching on a magnet/torrent dl. Secondly, as long as the providers use SSL, the actual content is encrypted from your ISP.
Something that you didn't mention, but needs addressing - indexers. Yes, there are free indexers but they're often capped at a certain number of grabs per day. Expect to pay for access to these as well - but some have lifetime memberships at a reasonable price. Get more than one and sabnzbd can prioritize by user-assigned weight. (By the way,these are typically what gets hit by content protection/LE). Indexers provide the nzb files that tell you download client where in the providers' server to find the download bits/bytes.
The *arr stack works wonderfully with Usenet, I think if you go this route, you'll be surprised how little you have to fall back to torrents.
-
I currently have an arr-stack setup on my home server with qBittorrent, which works relatively well. However, I mainly have two issues with it:
- There is very little content available on BitTorrent in my native language (Dutch), not even on private trackers afaik
- There are many torrents which take days to download, or even worse get stuck (hate it when that happens, especially if it's at 99%)
This got me interested in Usenet.
As for point 1, I found an NZB indexer which seems to have a lot more Dutch content. I still have some questions, however.
- I understand that apart from having access to indexers I'll also need a Usenet provider. How big are the differences between providers? I can find plans between €2 and €20 per month; does it matter that much which I take, apart from retention rate and download speed? Do all providers host all newsgroups?
- As for point 2, I understand that if content is on a provider's servers, then you will be able to download it with whatever speed your provider gives you. How much content will I actually be able to find? Why isn't content constantly taken down?
- Is using a VPN recommended with Usenet?
For dutch content on Usenet, I can strongly recommend Spotnet. If you are familiar with docker, you will find a turnkey solution here to get you going with spotnet.
Short explanation (from Wikipedia): "Spotnet is a protocol on top of Usenet, providing a decentralized alternative to usenet indexing websites, and the NZB format in general. Spotnet allows users to create and browse private 'newsservers', or decentralized repositories of files and information. Members share spots (file sharing) with one another, similar to the seeding process in torrent sharing".
-
Watching this post. I still don't fully understand how Usenet works.
Watching this post. I still don’t fully understand how Usenet works.
It's ok not to understand something, that's always the default. And I'll try to support that sentiment by admitting: me neither!
