Newsserver selection and a little bit else

[Daniel]

Years ago (well, a century at least) I was using newsgroups almost religiously for some technical and programming stuff. Of course, back then I didn't even dare to dream about binary groups because dialup speed and a pay-per-minute ISP reduced this to wishful thinking at best. So I have a general knowledge of the Usenet but no experience with binary groups - and today's variety of commercial news servers. On to my questions:

Are completion rates a real issue (in general or with certain providers) or can this often advertised <1% be neglected?

Many providers offer multiple connection up to 20. That's a ridiculously high value in my opinion or is is needed because the quality of connection is THAT bad?

I don't mind paying $15-20 (€10-15) for a good unlimited Usenet server as long as I can a) pay by PayPal or a simple bank transfer and b) have at least one European server to choose from. Speeds must be fine for my 5MBit home connection, anything faster will certainly be appreciated because of my faster connection at work. Does anyone know a provider that fits this profile?

Thanks!

[UsenetGuy]

Years ago (well, a century at least) I was using newsgroups almost religiously for some technical and programming stuff. Of course, back then I didn't even dare to dream about binary groups because dialup speed and a pay-per-minute ISP reduced this to wishful thinking at best. So I have a general knowledge of the Usenet but no experience with binary groups - and today's variety of commercial news servers. On to my questions:

Are completion rates a real issue (in general or with certain providers) or can this often advertised <1% be neglected?

Many providers offer multiple connection up to 20. That's a ridiculously high value in my opinion or is is needed because the quality of connection is THAT bad?

I don't mind paying $15-20 (€10-15) for a good unlimited Usenet server as long as I can a) pay by PayPal or a simple bank transfer and b) have at least one European server to choose from. Speeds must be fine for my 5MBit home connection, anything faster will certainly be appreciated because of my faster connection at work. Does anyone know a provider that fits this profile?

Thanks!

Most of the top news servers have 99% completion rates so its very unlikely you'll get any incomplete files but if you do they can be repaired using the par2 files anyway (almost all posts have par2 files) with a program like quickpar (quickpar.org.uk). Many providers do offer 10 or 20 connections but the most you'll probably need is 3 or 4 to max out your connection. Some of the top news servers are GigaNews.com UsenetServer.com and NewsHosting.com, GigaNews is no doubt the best and everyone knows that but it also costs quite alot more but you get what you pay for. I've seen people on giganews that download at 100Mbit speed! They also have a european news server, as do many other news servers (will probably tell you if they have one on their websites). Unfortunately on most servers you can only pay by credit card but if you dont have one you could always buy a prepaid visa card (search google for info) and use that. There are other news servers that let you pay with PayPal and debit cards such as NewsDemon.com but I dont know how good they are, you'll probably find alot of information on them just by searching this forum. Oh also if you pay by paypal you will have certain usenet groups removed from your account like XXX groups because its against paypal's rules/policy for you to be able to pay for access to XXX stuff.

Downloading:
All you need to download from binary newsgroups is a newsreader (alt.binz is probably the best), just setup/install that, add your server info (the one you pay for). When thats done you just need to find a good nzb website, the best is v3.NewzBin.com but you have to pay for access to it, a good free one is BinSearch.info. Once you find a post/file you want on usenet click create/get nzb, save it to your dekstop or somewhere, open it with alt.binz and it should start downloading. You can also set it in the alt.binz options to automatically check if any of the files you download are corrupt and if they are then alt.binz will repair them using the par2 files that were posted

[MultiForce]

I have never been able to get max speed from With UsenetServer.com and NewsHosting.com and their supposedly European servers. Tried 3 different ISP's.

I only get max speed from Giganews EU server.

This might be "bad luck" in Norway, but it's my experience (and yes I checked with support)

I also feel the support is better @ Giganews. Faster response times, and they nearly always know something, like when an ISP has trouble etc. When I had trouble after moving back to Norway they ts'ed everything and checked things up so I could phone my ISP and "tell them the truth" hehe.

[BigH]

always wondered what is the point of, say, 20 connections

I was downloading today, and for some reason with Giganews ('unable to recognise' message) only 3 connections worked - still got max. download

Anyone know why?

Also, only have ever had these 'recognise' errors with Giganews - they mention then in the FAQ's on their website, but they suggest 'just wait'

Reckon I'll stay with Giganews for the low monthly fee fore the next month or so, and then go back to Usenet-News.net - they're half the price, great speeds and I think they've jusy increased retentions to 100 days

[Daniel]

Well, Giganews seems to be out of the question, even though your reviews of it are encouraging. It looks like I'll be trying Newshosting because they allow me to force the use of a certain backbone - in this case Cogent, which my provider always had a very good connection with. While I'm not happy with their US based server, one month of testing and trying can't hurt

I'm also glad to see that at least some of you reach your desired speeds with less connections, that certainly encourages me and calms my previous concerns.

Thanks for the recount of your experiences, they were certainly helpful in getting a small glimpse of today's world of newsgroups.

Oh and before I forget to mention it: torrentguy, I'm from Europe and don't own a credit card, simply because there has never been a need for it. Most local and European shops accept bank transfers and those who don't generally work with PayPal. I know that this isn't representative for the rest of the world but it also isn't practical for me when I already know that I'd only need a credit card for this single purpose.

[groggy]

the speed at giganews is nothing special, more (cheaper) providers have uncapped speed too so using that as a reason why giganews is the best (which it isn't imo) is not realistic

[MultiForce]

the speed at giganews is nothing special, more (cheaper) providers have uncapped speed too so using that as a reason why giganews is the best (which it isn't imo) is not realistic

The point isn't "uncapped" speed, It's my actual speed.

[groggy]

the speed at giganews is nothing special, more (cheaper) providers have uncapped speed too so using that as a reason why giganews is the best (which it isn't imo) is not realistic

The point isn't "uncapped" speed, It's my actual speed.

was actually targeted at torrentguy's post because he said

GigaNews is no doubt the best and everyone knows that ... I've seen people on giganews that download at 100Mbit speed!

i've seen people getting 10 megabytes a second at a dutch server that i'm using, I'm just saying that giganews is highly overrated and overpriced. and highly is an understatement.

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/7296/xsnewsey8.jpg
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2593/speedru8.jpg

he's getting 11 megabyte a second on the upload server.

[Daniel]

i've seen people getting 10 megabytes a second at a dutch server that i'm using, I'm just saying that giganews is highly overrated and overpriced. and highly is an understatement.

Amazing speeds, that's true without a doubt. I do believe that xsnews.nl is an exception though. As far as I saw on their website, their userbase is limited to the Netherlands and Belgium. It's very likely that national data transfer is cheaper than international one, therefore more competitive prizes are no surprise.

[UsenetGuy]

While I'm not happy with their US based server, one month of testing and trying can't hurt

7/1/2007: NewsHosting is proud to announce our new European server is up and ready for testing. Everyone is welcome to give it a try at news.ams.newshosting.com. Please send any questions or comments to [email protected]

i've seen people getting 10 megabytes a second at a dutch server that i'm using, I'm just saying that giganews is highly overrated and overpriced. and highly is an understatement.

http://img362.imageshack.us/img362/7296/xsnewsey8.jpg
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2593/speedru8.jpg

he's getting 11 megabyte a second on the upload server.

It might be overpriced but giganews is still great, xsnews.nl is too I myself have never used them but ive heard good things about them. Both are capable of more than 100mbit http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/8...bitgigapf4.jpg