Block News / da faq?

[supdubdup]

I can't for the sake of my life figure out what a Block News account is after searching it for it in these forums and on Google. I don't upload and I don't download TB's of stuff. I just download. Should I even bother with block news stuff or just get an unlimited Astra account. Thanks in advance!

[hdjunky]

This might help http://faq.blocknews.net/index.php?action=artikel&cat=2&id=24&artlang=en but basically yea if you do not download much this is good. Good completion and it is NOT a highwinds provider.

[koolfaze]

Blocknews is another Usetnet provider. A block account is a specified amount of allowed download size. If you download more than 40-50 GB/month than its more cost effective to grab a monthly account over a block. I got this by comparing the prices of block accounts with the price of an unlimited account. You can contact the support of Usenet providers to grab a trial account and see if it's something that you would be interested in.

[Beck38]

Having an additional '2nd provider' is one of those 'must haves' when dealing with usenet, no matter how much or how little one downloads.

The two biggies, of course, are first, does the service have good retention, and an overall good reputation. The second is, do the blocks purchased have a expiration date; many providers do that for whatever reason.

It's been pretty much acknowledged around these parts that the service 'Blocknews' is good to go on the retention/rep, and their blocks don't 'expire', so get a good deal today and you'll still be able to use them, slowly munching away using them as 'fills', for years to come. I have some from 3-4 years ago I bought when they first appeared on the market.

Then again, I have non-expiring blocks I bought from Astraweb almost 10 years ago I don't really use, particularly as I changed my 'main' service to them (from Giga) 4-5 years ago. BTW, they're still 'good', the account still is there and operational.

[Skiz]

I can't for the sake of my life figure out what a Block News account is after searching it for it in these forums and on Google. I don't upload and I don't download TB's of stuff. I just download. Should I even bother with block news stuff or just get an unlimited Astra account. Thanks in advance!

The Astraweb deal of $50 for 1000 gigs is the best deal I know of.

[supdubdup]

Is NewsLeecher still a recommended client?

[zot]

Is NewsLeecher still a recommended client?
Newsleecher supports fill servers -- as do many other clients -- since this is the primary reason most of us use block accounts.

[supdubdup]

Haha. Now i'm more confused. Hopefully what I read means "Fill servers client support = good thing."

[zot]

^^^ not just "= good thing" - some of us consider a client's support of fill servers to be an absolute necessity.

[supdubdup]

Would you guys consider Newsbin Pro the best commercial software? I know hypatia seems to like Usenet explorer, but Newbin Pro is only 20 dollars (Newsleecher is too i think)! Or is something free like Alt Binz .39 enough?

[supdubdup]

Hi, again, Are there any other clients that does this? "Newsleecher Leech Tweaks – Pasworded RAR-in-RAR Archives"

[Funkin']

You should be lucky that I'm not reaching through my screen right now and punching you in the mouth for type 'the' as 'da'.

[zot]

Would you guys consider Newsbin Pro the best commercial software? I know hypatia seems to like Usenet explorer, but Newbin Pro is only 20 dollars (Newsleecher is too i think)!

"Best" is highly subjective, and based on everyone's own personal criteria. Newsbin Pro appears to be the only closed-source news client under constant full-time development, if that means anything to you. (Other mature newsreaders like Newsleecher and Usenet Explorer often seem to go months --or sometimes even years-- between releases.)

But since the discussion here has been about using fill servers, I should point out that Newsbin's chief limitation (in my view) is that it currently only allows one level of server prioritization. For instance, if you have a paid unlimited account, a free bandwidth-restricted account, and a paid block account -- and you want to prioritize them in that order -- Newsbin Pro can't do it. But Newsleecher, Usenet Explorer, SabNZBd and many others can.



Or is something free like Alt Binz .39 enough?
I could be wrong on this, but I think that all the "free" Alt Binz v.39 copies floating around are fake and/or virus-infected. I'd leave them alone.

Alt.Binz Versions up to 0.25 are officially free releases, and the last non-DRM'd version was 0.28.5. I don't think there have ever been any working cracked versions of Alt.binz (but many trojan'd releases are out there)


Hi, again, Are there any other clients that does this? "Newsleecher Leech Tweaks – Pasworded RAR-in-RAR Archives"

You can try NewsbinPro.

As many of us have learned, any rar-in-rar (passworded or not) is almost certainly going to be a fake (the one exception might be 0-day apps - as some release groups like to use nested rars/zips- but it's obviously dangersous to get these or any other executables off an anonymous system like Usenet).

Search engines like Mysterbin appear to even filter out all these rar-in-rar NZBs from search results, so if you use Mysterbin, you should never have to even worry about it.