ThunderNews throttling?

[yuit]

Anybody have an account with ThunderNews and find the speeds to be low? It seems each download thread is limited to about 8kbps...

edit: I'm on their $5 special plan

[zot]

The Thundernews $5 plan is notorious for throttling and canceling accounts of heavy users -- all while the company denies everything. There have been lengthy discussions about this on other forums such as Slyckdeals, whirlpool.net.au, NZBmatrix, and others, so I'd suggest checking there for stories of other victims like yourself. (as I remember from reading those horror-stories, throttling was just the first step. If you continue to download too much, they will cancel your account, keep your money for your unused time, and even refuse to email you back.)

Thundernews and Newsdemon (both owned by the same person) have a long history of screwing over their heavy-use customers, with complaints going back years. The only reason (in my opinion) why they have so many review sites recommending them is because they pay high commissions.

[yuit]

:( Thanks for the info.

Looks like I'll have to change providers. Any recommendations?

[zot]

It really depends on what your needs and priorities are. If it's mainly an ultra-low price you're after, there's frugalusenet.com ($6/month or $60/year) from the same owner of Blocknews and UsenetNow -- someone who is liked by most everyone for his honest dealing as well as helpful personal service. (kind of the exact opposite of what you've been getting at Thundernews) Swintec hangs out on DSLreports.com, which is semi-down right now.

Please read this:

http://slickdeals.net/f/2418757-Unlimited-Usenet-5-00-For-Lifetime-Thundernews
http://slickdeals.net/f/4149036-5-Unlimited-Usenet-Thundernews

[hdjunky]

It should be criminal what they do but it is just more of the same from stupid ass highwinds sellers and they get away with it because customers let them. They go crazy over "unlimited" usenet for 5 bucks where for another dollar or two they can get actual unlimited usenet without bs.

For what it is worth...I am on usenet just about every day so frugal usenets price and retention work great for me.

[zot]

@hdjunky - what kind of retention do you now get at FrugalUsenet? I understand it's MUCH higher than the listed 300 days.

As much as I dislike a lot of things about Highwinds, to be fair to them, I don't think that Highwinds itself has anything to do with any Highwinds reseller's throttling of users (unless of course their reseller policies might tend to encourage this behavior in some way). In my opinion, anyone who wants to get an unlimited account that feeds from Highwinds backend (not that I'm actually recommending this!) would probably be better off to buy it directly from Highwinds itself, as with (Highwinds' owned) UNS and Newshosting's $10 unlimited account 'specials' (and even put a few dollars in nntpjunkie's pocket in the process)

I agree that what Newsdemon/Thundernews do should be illegal. I'm not against throttling (in fact I think it's a fair policy if openly stated) but I'm disgusted with the company's continuous lies and denials about throttling users. This causes a lot of users to waste their time, and the time of their ISP's tech support, trying to figure out why they are getting such slow speed.

It's nothing short of false advertising, perhaps even theft since they are selling monthly unlimited service and don't give refunds for unused time when they step in and pull the plug.

I know that a lot of light users (or those who pay full price) might have no complaints with Newsdemon/Thundernews service, but I would never want to do business with any company that selectively cheats people -- even if I felt that I personally was getting an excellent deal.

[yuit]

FrugalUsenet looks good, but I need more retention for now. What's really annoying is that I haven't really used ThunderNews for the past 6 months..... and now I'm capped. Agree with zot. If you're going to cap, at least be upfront about it.

edit: Astraweb looks good so far. Any experiences with them?

[mjmacky]

I agree that what Newsdemon/Thundernews do should be illegal.

It's nothing short of false advertising, perhaps even theft since they are selling monthly unlimited service and don't give refunds for unused time when they step in and pull the plug.

On the other side of that, most newsgroup users wouldn't want too much legal attention brought to this area.


edit: Astraweb looks good so far. Any experiences with them?

The only service I'd ever recommend personally. Fair prices, excellent retention and speeds, few takedowns. As long as you have both EU SSL servers and US SSL servers set up in your client, you'll get around any of their random connectivity glitches (maybe not so random, Sunday nights I think).

[CyberCitizen]

I am also a major fan of Astraweb, its who my local ISP use for their newsgroups. I can pretty much download what ever the retention is great.

[hdjunky]

@hdjunky - what kind of retention do you now get at FrugalUsenet? I understand it's MUCH higher than the listed 300 days.

Well I don't like to point it out for fear of it being fixed but I will just say it is exceeding my expectations. :cool:

[nntpjunkie]

In my opinion, anyone who wants to get an unlimited account that feeds from Highwinds backend (not that I'm actually recommending this!) would probably be better off to buy it directly from Highwinds itself, as with (Highwinds' owned) UNS and Newshosting's $10 unlimited account 'specials' (and even put a few dollars in nntpjunkie's pocket in the process)


** @zot I totally agree, that is a rather shady practice and people ought to steer clear. Again it really depends on what your goals are when looking for a new provider - if your looking for speed and reliability with good support I would suggest a proven tier one provider like UsenetServer or Newshosting, but I would not stop there - I would also supplement with a block account from another provider like Astraweb who can bridge the gap to fill in any missing incompletes from your primary account.

Newshosting + Astraweb has been a great fit for me - I typically get nearly 100Mbit from my Newshosting account and still have bokus left on my astraweb filler account.

[Hole69]

First off, avoid Highwinds completely if you can. Second I recommend what has worked for me with zero problems - annual $96 per year/$8 per month subscription from Astraweb and a 200GB block account from Blocknews as a backup/fill. Astraweb is a Tier One provider and it owns its own servers. There is also Usenetnow (same company from Blocknews) which uses Readnews so it should be good too. I wouldn't touch newshosting or anything highwinds, no matter what anyone says.

[zot]

First off, avoid Highwinds completely if you can. .... I wouldn't touch newshosting or anything highwinds, no matter what anyone says.
I always like to see people give precise reasons why ... so I just thought I'd add a few myself.

1. Highwinds (along with Giganews) gets the most DMCA takedowns
2. Highwinds has a lot of random missing articles that remain unfixed for months if not years.
3. Highwinds has awful header retention and completion.



I am definitely not trying to plug our site
words worth remembering ;)

[nntpjunkie]

I always like to see people give precise reasons why ... so I just thought I'd add a few myself.

1. Highwinds (along with Giganews) gets the most DMCA takedowns
2. Highwinds has a lot of random missing articles that remain unfixed for months if not years.
3. Highwinds has awful header retention and completion.

Couple of counter points to be completely fair and unbiased;
1. DMCA takedowns are just a given since laws in the United States must be obeyed to keep the doors open and the server plants going - unfortunately the larger providers get the blunt of these takedowns - That's why almost everyone on this board with any experience or knowledge at all recommends getting a fill server account with a provider with less takedowns to fill in missing parts - many of us use Astraweb block accounts.
2. Given that both @zot and I appear to be Usenet dinosaurs, I could see where this statement would come from because a few years ago random missing articles where a huge problem, but today is a totally different story. Newshosting for example is excellent in retention at the top and bottom end and speeds are incredible when compared to the competition.
3. It is true header retention is only around 400 days, but these days that doesn't matter to most anyone because most everyone on the planet uses NZB files to download - for anyone who doesn't know, headers are needed when manually browsing through all the articles in a particular group (These days almost nobody does this anymore) - who wants to comb through millions of headers when you can just use an NZB file to grab all the parts you need. Only Usenet Dinosaurs use headers - article retention, not header retention is what really matters today.

P.S. - just to make @zot happy no one has to visit my blog after reading this post :)

[mjmacky]

Couple of counter points to be completely fair and unbiased

If you really wanted to do a sincere post, you should have led with the following:
"I am ad-sponsored by Newshosting, a Highwinds group provider, so take my comments with a grain of salt".
In fact, you should start every post that way.

[nntpjunkie]

Couple of counter points to be completely fair and unbiased

If you really wanted to do a sincere post, you should have led with the following:
"I am ad-sponsored by Newshosting, a Highwinds group provider, so take my comments with a grain of salt".
In fact, you should start every post that way.

Laughing as I slap you in the face and challenge you to a dual!

[mjmacky]

If you really wanted to do a sincere post, you should have led with the following:
"I am ad-sponsored by Newshosting, a Highwinds group provider, so take my comments with a grain of salt".
In fact, you should start every post that way.

Laughing as I slap you in the face and challenge you to a dual!

A dual? Well, at least you don't want to fight, but I was kind of hoping for a menage a trois.

[hdjunky]

I always like to see people give precise reasons why ... so I just thought I'd add a few myself.

1. Highwinds (along with Giganews) gets the most DMCA takedowns
2. Highwinds has a lot of random missing articles that remain unfixed for months if not years.
3. Highwinds has awful header retention and completion.

Couple of counter points to be completely fair and unbiased;
1. DMCA takedowns are just a given since laws in the United States must be obeyed to keep the doors open and the server plants going - unfortunately the larger providers get the blunt of these takedowns - That's why almost everyone on this board with any experience or knowledge at all recommends getting a fill server account with a provider with less takedowns to fill in missing parts - many of us use Astraweb block accounts.
2. Given that both @zot and I appear to be Usenet dinosaurs, I could see where this statement would come from because a few years ago random missing articles where a huge problem, but today is a totally different story. Newshosting for example is excellent in retention at the top and bottom end and speeds are incredible when compared to the competition.

Newshosting and other highwinds crap does not have excellent completion. Their dmca problems cause there completion to look like swiss cheese. This should be reflected in their completion claims at least until dmca affects all providers. If I can get articles that highwinds has missing, from other providers then it reflects poorly on highwinds.

[mjmacky]

Notice how if you have any other newsgroup provider, Astraweb should be your fill server, but if Astraweb is your provider, the fill server could be just about anyone (even Highwinds), or even done away with altogether? Just saying.

[Malcontent]

Notice how if you have any other newsgroup provider, Astraweb should be your fill server, but if Astraweb is your provider, the fill server could be just about anyone (even Highwinds), or even done away with altogether? Just saying.

In my experience from reading various forums, if Astraweb is your primary provider then Blocknews.net is the best choice for a backup server. Blocknews has better completion then Highwinds.

Even Astraweb on occasion needs a backup server. No single usenet provider is 100% perfect. I've haven't found a perfect one yet.

[nntpjunkie]

In my experience from reading various forums, if Astraweb is your primary provider then Blocknews.net is the best choice for a backup server. Blocknews has better completion then Highwinds.

Even Astraweb on occasion needs a backup server. No single usenet provider is 100% perfect. I've haven't found a perfect one yet.

Biggest problem with Blocknews/UsenetNow is that their speed is slow as snails on old files - really annoying but not an issue for everyone. @Malcontent I agree totally, no one provider has all the trimmings, you really have to find a combo that works for you. Most of time that combo involves more than one provider.

[RIFKinator]

I really don't see what the issue is when it comes to DMCA takedowns for Highwinds... I've only stumbled upon one set of files that seems to be DMCAed on Highwinds (Newsdemon), and that's GTA4 + GTA:ELC...

[Malcontent]

I really don't see what the issue is when it comes to DMCA takedowns for Highwinds... I've only stumbled upon one set of files that seems to be DMCAed on Highwinds (Newsdemon), and that's GTA4 + GTA:ELC...

If you have no interest in targeted content (your not trying to download it) or are downloading it almost immediately after being posted then YOU wouldn't have an issue. For those that regularly download HBO, ect. it can be an issue because it gets hit with DMCA within hours/day of being posted. Trying to download older HBO posts is next to impossible without a backup server.

[Hole69]

I have no problems with the standard Astraweb + Blocknews combo. I've used less than 30MB out of 200GB.