totally new to usenet; some questions

[shakezilla]

please bear with me been using ddl for years and now am looking for alternatives. i did read the sticky and have a few questions i think i understand the procc. but some like giganews are so much more expensive than others which im not sure i can pay right now with everything else. are there any other less expensive alternatives with unlimited access that are actually worth it right now? i lost full lifetime subs to filesonic, mega and others through all this...

and i see some sites like newzbin2 charge for being able to search their site.. is this the norm and can someone tell me are there any better than others worth paying for or just look for free ones??

lastly (i think) as far as a vpn is concerned is it 100% needed / wanted and i see some like http://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-providers-really-take-anonymity-seriously-111007/ are any of them better / more recc than others??

this whole mess sucks and i was a happy ddl downloader till now...

THANK YOU for any help and being patient with me being a total newb to usenet..i just dont want to waste money on any of the ones who just suck or are not worth it

[Hypatia]

1)Nowadays almost nobody has just a single account from one provider.
What we do is we get an unlimited account as a main one and a non-expiring block account(it has XXX Gb on it).
The purpose of a block account is to fill missing parts of the main server. Thats why it cant be the same provider.

The most popular combos atm are:

1) supernews($9.99/month $99/year (http://www.supernews.com/super-special/)) + blocknews account (http://billing.blocknews.net/signup.php?price_group=-2)(9$/100Gb)

2) Astraweb ( $11/month (http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/kleverig-11.html) $96/year (http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/voucher.cgi?t=zgufplhxfr2cwsw)) + blocknews account (http://billing.blocknews.net/signup.php?price_group=-2)(9$/100Gb)

+ you can also use as backup server xsusenet (http://www.xsusenet.com/en/)(it covers 390 days and its free)

Before choosing the main provider you must consider their cons and pros

Supernews:

+fast support
+great speed
+almost nonexistent technical problems


-DMCA takedowns(mostly HBO tv shows - they remove 1-3 blocks from every file so usually it can be repaired without the help of the block account; console games that are uploaded under their full titles- now this one is bad. 100% removal. Not all of course and they get reposted often but still)+ sometimes some mega popular blockbuster shite(occasinally)
- uploading is not safe( they can ban your account for posting to usenet copyrighted material if they get complaints(two strikes policy)

Astraweb:

+little to none DMCA takedowns
+generally very good speed(but sometimes you have to try direct server's ip addesses to get more juice)
+safe uploading

-somewhat slow in terms of responce support
-from time to time they have technical glitches that ruin files. ( atm they have 200 days fucked up (out of 1200 mind you, so not that large) this is where block account comes into play

personally i would go for astraweb+blocknews+xsusenet

You might find it useful to read this thread (http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/444148-Proper-Servers-Setup-VS-Incompletes)



but some like giganews are so much more expensive than others

they offer bonus crap services like their very own client\VPN(which is useless since they ban users for downloading CR material from torrents upon receiving complaints)/30Gb personal storage and 50 connections( you dont need anything of it)


nd i see some sites like newzbin2 charge for being able to search their site.. is this the norm and can someone tell me are there any better than others worth paying for or just look for free ones??

since you are a newbie id recommend getting a paid account on nzbmatrix. Its cheap and one-time pay.

Then when you become familiar with all the tricks you can easily search and find almost everything you need via usenet index sites like
mysterbin.com ( it shows you the contents of archives and lets you search within archives) Now this is a must have. lets u easily detect fakes and such
nzbindex.nl
binsearch.info
also check this thread (http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/396406-NZB-Indexing-sites!)


as far as a vpn is concerned is it 100% needed
you dont need it at all.

[nntpjunkie]

I second what Hypatia just said although I wouldn't go with Astraweb as your main Usenet provider as they are not very reliable - lots of glitchs and speed drops, but if you are new to Usenet and you are looking for a quick and easy way to find what you want and be able to download reliably with great speed you may want to give Newshosting a go - they have a great Usenet client that has a built in search feature that lets you search the most popular free NZB search engines - it gives you great flexibility when looking for things.

Newshosting offers a lifetime unlimited account for ~$10/month - just google you'll find the links

Also no VPN needed as all providers offer SSL connectivity :)

[heiska]

1)Nowadays almost nobody has just a single account from one provider.
What we do is we get an unlimited account as a main one and a non-expiring block account(it has XXX Gb on it).
The purpose of a block account is to fill missing parts of the main server. Thats why it cant be the same provider.

The most popular combos atm are:

1) supernews($9.99/month $99/year (http://www.supernews.com/super-special/)) + blocknews account (http://billing.blocknews.net/signup.php?price_group=-2)(9$/100Gb)

2) Astraweb ( $11/month (http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/kleverig-11.html) $96/year (http://www.news.astraweb.com/specials/voucher.cgi?t=zgufplhxfr2cwsw)) + blocknews account (http://billing.blocknews.net/signup.php?price_group=-2)(9$/100Gb)

+ you can also use as backup server xsusenet (http://www.xsusenet.com/en/)(it covers 390 days and its free)

Before choosing the main provider you must consider their cons and pros

Supernews:

+fast support
+great speed
+almost nonexistent technical problems


-DMCA takedowns(mostly HBO tv shows - they remove 1-3 blocks from every file so usually it can be repaired without the help of the block account; console games that are uploaded under their full titles- now this one is bad. 100% removal. Not all of course and they get reposted often but still)+ sometimes some mega popular blockbuster shite(occasinally)
- uploading is not safe( they can ban your account for posting to usenet copyrighted material if they get complaints(two strikes policy)

Astraweb:

+little to none DMCA takedowns
+generally very good speed(but sometimes you have to try direct server's ip addesses to get more juice)
+safe uploading

-somewhat slow in terms of responce support
-from time to time they have technical glitches that ruin files. ( atm they have 200 days fucked up (out of 1200 mind you, so not that large) this is there block account comes into play

personally i would go for astraweb+blocknews+xsusenet

You might find it useful to read this thread (http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/444148-Proper-Servers-Setup-VS-Incompletes)




they offer bonus crap services like their very own client\VPN(which is useless since they ban users for downloading CR material from torrents upon receiving complaints)/30Gb personal storage and 50 connections( you dont need anything of it)



since you are a newbie id recommend getting a paid account on nzbmatrix. Its cheap and one-time pay.

Then when you become familiar with all the tricks you can easily search and find almost everything you need via usenet index sites like
mysterbin.com ( it shows you the contents of archives and lets you search within archives) Now this is a must have. lets u easily detect fakes and such
nzbindex.nl
binsearch.info
also check this thread (http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/396406-NZB-Indexing-sites!)


as far as a vpn is concerned is it 100% needed
you dont need it at all.

Wow, nice post. I would also like to mention the NZB indexing site www.nzb.su. It's free and looks nice.

[shakezilla]

THANK YOU for all that info. YOU GUYS ROCK HERE!! still wrapping my head around all this but starting to understand it all (i think at least trying the best i can quickly). def going to get some usenet now lol.. the question i guess is astraweb as hypatia said or Newshosting who seems to be highly recc where i see so many mixed things about astra..

maybe this will help what im looking for: tv shows we dont get in my area as i dont have cable (yeah i know sucks but to run a line here in the boonies comcast wants like 5,000$), new music releases i mostly right now seem to find those on mediafire but that may change and some new release by older metal bands now releasing new stuff if that makes sense, movies of course, wii and xbox 360 games. big list i guess but 100-200 a year not to much for all that i dont think.. unless free can be had better :D

[shakezilla]

since i can see my above post yet to edit to add are the one hypatia listed the only real two to consider or is there a list somewhere i dont want to miss out on another one for only a dollar more or something like that if you know what i mean. not doubting you just wanting to learn all my options and learn as much as possible going into this to do it right i dont want to be a newb for long..

seems to be mixed feelings about astra and also Newshosting. but one the main things im looking for is games (console), tv shows, music, movies etc i guess in that order. i made another post that said it would be able to be viewed soon and wasnt not sure what happened so i made this one if they both post sorry for that..comcast wants like 5g$ to run a cable here since we are out of there area and satellite sucks here..so we miss a lot of good shows.

thank you again, you are all awesome here so far!

[sandman_1]

Basically you have the choice of http://www.newsgroupservers.net/newsgroup_server_resellers to choose from.

[shakezilla]

nice thanks for the link. so astra is independant while others seem much larger. Newshosting looks to be owned by highwinds now is that good or bad? astra seems to be very popular though... they all "look" good but i dont want to deal with dmca all the time either i know its possible but hopefully more rarely..confused who to use lol

lastly am i going the right direction over private trackers will i find as much current to maybe 2-3 year old content with usenet.

after some more reading would both astra and supernews have mostly the same content up or do they have their own niches, again bear with me here just for now...

hypatia i saw this post from you about astra has this been resolved?

http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/438133-Astraweb-Large-gaps-in-articles-on-many-items-between-approximately-160-250-days


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so a few have said due to dmca a lot of console games get pulled quickly on some servers.. who would be the better choice for console games and the best overall? seems astra doesnt have the dmca but they have a bad retention issue after 150+ days. how bad is this issue and is it very common with astra? i would prefer not to buy 200$+ worth of service ...

[ernestus]

NewsgroupReviews.com may help influence your decision about which provider you choose. One other thing to mention is sometimes there are discounts/specials, for example like the ones on black friday when the prices are cheaper. So if you're on a budget and fortunate enough, you might get an unlimited account for around $5-6/ month, that's a decent savings. - http://www.newsgroupreviews.com

Regards

[hdjunky]

Forget newshosting or highwinds providers they suck. Supernews or astraweb or usenetnow are all good.