Question about using Usenet

[ShooperMAN]

So I'm pretty new with using Usenet. I've been a very long term torrent user, but I recently moved to the states for school, and within a week of torrenting I received a letter from the school officials.

I'm not really sure how usenet works. I'm guessing that it is just one huge server that I download from without needing to upload. Right now, I'm using Newsbin and Giganews. I paid for the search functionality in Newsbin(is this scrubbish? I have no idea..), and I can search for everything just fine without even inputting any Giganews server information.

Why exactly is that? I can't download anything, but I can search just fine. Is Newsbin actually searching the Giganews servers, or something else? I'm so confuzzled.

Oh, and sorry my first post is a question.

[c0ld]

The paid search function in newsbin is similar to supersearch in newsleecher. It searches an index stored on DJIs servers (they make newsbin) rather than the headers on giganews directly. To search giganews files, you need to download the headers for the groups you're interested in and search them locally, but frankly that is prohibitively time consuming and uses quite a bit of hard-disk space.

Just to add though, Giganews is considered extremely over priced nowadays. Especially since you'd probably need SSL to hide your traffic from your school. Astraweb is a far cheaper (and better) service.
There are also smaller (and free) clients that no longer have the built in header storage features that newsbin and newsleecher have. Sabnzbd and alt.binz for instance. These rely on external nzb indexing sites (also free) like Nzbindex and binsearch (and for a small fee Newzbin, who invented the whole nzb thing). This method, especially when combined with rss, is a lot faster than header downloading and cheaper than the built-in 'paid' search engines.

[ShooperMAN]

The paid search function in newsbin is similar to supersearch in newsleecher. It searches an index stored on DJIs servers (they make newsbin) rather than the headers on giganews directly. To search giganews files, you need to download the headers for the groups you're interested in and search them locally, but frankly that is prohibitively time consuming and uses quite a bit of hard-disk space.

Just to add though, Giganews is considered extremely over priced nowadays. Especially since you'd probably need SSL to hide your traffic from your school. Astraweb is a far cheaper (and better) service.
There are also smaller (and free) clients that no longer have the built in header storage features that newsbin and newsleecher have. Sabnzbd and alt.binz for instance. These rely on external nzb indexing sites (also free) like Nzbindex and binsearch (and for a small fee Newzbin, who invented the whole nzb thing). This method, especially when combined with rss, is a lot faster than header downloading and cheaper than the built-in 'paid' search engines.

Thanks for the reply. This raises a few more questions for me though.

So...DJI stores headers from all usenet servers? Or just the Giganews one? Or...are all the usenet servers the same?

When Giganews says they have the highest retention rate, doesn't that mean they have the most files? Am I missing out on a lot of potential files by only searching the DJI servers?

Also, I'll definitely check out the other options. Giganews is expensive as hell. I'm not paying for the SSL though. Is that necessary? I thought the only way they catch you is if you upload.

[c0ld]

So...DJI stores headers from all usenet servers? Or just the Giganews one?

I'm not sure who DJI connects to, they might peer with several

Or...are all the usenet servers the same?

In theory, all are the same. When someone posts something to say, astraweb, astraweb then pushes it out to any server that is peered to it, and those servers do the same. Wikis article explains it better than I can. In practice though, other factors can affect what is successfully stored. Old or overloaded harddisks and controllers on the server can lead to completion issues, and lack of drive space will restrict retention.

When Giganews says they have the highest retention rate, doesn't that mean they have the most files?

They claim to have the best retention, I don't think that is the case any more. Certainly a few years ago they did. The line is blurred atm because the all often just claim to be 'working toward' a certain retention, rather than actually having it. Tbh though, I rarely if ever have need for files that are that old. Most things get re-uploaded more frequently than that anyway.

Am I missing out on a lot of potential files by only searching the DJI servers?

Possibly, you'd have to compare the results to other indexers and maybe the raw headers. If you do a search for something common, like 'efnet', and sort the results by date, you'll easily find out their retention.

Also, I'll definitely check out the other options. Giganews is expensive as hell. I'm not paying for the SSL though. Is that necessary? I thought the only way they catch you is if you upload.

If your school (or their ISP) ever got paranoid, they could do some simple packet sniffing and discover what you were transfering. SSL protects you from that, and when it's free as is the case most places, it's well worth having.