Multiple Providers, Connections, Suggestions

Hi all, I am new to usnet. I am not new to file sharing as I have used torrents in the past. It was a little daunting at first but I think I understand the basics. Having said that I have a few questions that if anyone cares to answer or point me to a post already about it I would greatly appreciate it.
The current setup I am working with:

Current Newsgroup Providers:
giganews - Diamond Account
astraweb - Unlimited Account

Current Client:
NewsBin Pro 6.0 64 Bit Version

Current Auto indexer:
Newsbin Internet Search

Current User indexer:
NZBMatrix (VIP)

Current VPN:
VyprVPN - L2TP/IPsec (Free Giganews Diamond Account)

Connection:
I am currently using:
Cox Cable Preferred ( 12 Mbps Download / 1 Mbps upload )
I am able to upgrade to one of these.
Cox Cable Premier ( 25 Mbps Download / 2 Mbps upload )
Cox Cable Ultimate ( 50 Mbps Download / 5 Mbps upload )


So my questions are:

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to having multiple providers and can they be used together to increase my number of connections.

I have 50 connections from giganews and 20 from asraweb. My NewsBin connections show 70 connections total however all 20 astraweb connections show as ‘State: Connected’ ‘Group: None’. Does this mean that those connections are not doing anything?

With regards to connection servers is there any advantage/disadvantage to connecting to eu servers instead of us servers?

ssl-eu.astraweb.com
news-europe.giganews.com

I currently have all my servers set up to connect to eu, my thinking behind it is the eu servers are ‘safer’ does that make sense or am I looking at is all wrong?

I like the idea of a VPN mainly because I like to bypass my ISP. My logic is the same for VPN connections as it is for servers and I connect to a eu VPN. Again does that make sense or am I looking at this all wrong as well.

My speed drops low for browsing but my NewsBin connection looks like 12 Mbps / 1.7 MBps. Would I benefit at all in uping my cable connection at all?

So considering all that how would you suggest I set my connections up or should I leave them how they are. I have giganews for the next two months because they gave me half off so I would not cancel my account so I can’t pass up that deal. I am on the monthly plan for Astraweb so I am not stuck with them ether. I picked them because I heard good things about them.

So after my two months is up I’m open to any suggestions on what to do as far as providers go. Should I stick with what I have change anything, thanks for any suggestions. :)

If you don't need the VPN from GN (which I think is very good) you can go with SuperNews. It's the same as GN.

I use AW and SN on a 100Mbps connection and I max it out with less than 40 connections so I don't know why you need so many. I'm also using Newsbin and got 20 connections to SN, and 10 connections each to the EU/US server on AW all the time. It's great if there are completion and speed issues on something.

I wouldn't last long on a 12Mbps connection anymore but I download close to 1TB/month though.
I'm using a Netgear router with DD-WRT on it because of the TCP Vegas thingy. Newsbin gets full speed all the time, but it also let's me play BC2 etc. without having to throttle anything manually. It's not perfect when it comes to "distributing" the bandwidth but I never get any lag or anything so I'm happy with it, and it doesn't matter if the BD download uses a minute or two more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geovas

I have 50 connections from giganews and 20 from asraweb. My NewsBin connections show 70 connections total however all 20 astraweb connections show as ‘State: Connected’ ‘Group: None’. Does this mean that those connections are not doing anything?

With regards to connection servers is there any advantage/disadvantage to connecting to eu servers instead of us servers?

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Reduce the number of connections and see what's happening then. If I set Newsbin to download with an insane amount of connections it just seems to "drop" the other servers because of the speed or something.

If you let Newsbin connect to both EU and US at the same time it will check for missing articles on all the servers connected so I use them all. Another thing is that AW is way less stable for me when it comes to speed than what SN and GN is, so having them both just helps getting over the bumps.

1) switch to astraweb unlimited $11/month + get a fill account from blocknews.net (100Gb is more than enough) OR switch to supernews for the same price + get a fill blocknews account. Though i must say that supernews suffers from DMCA takedowns considerably more than astraweb thus you''ll get ur fill account expired much faster

if you need VPN(why? you dont need one with usenet) then get something else it would be cheaper than giganews diamond account

2) i also highly recomend start using mysterbin.com since it searches WITHIN archives, shows you if they are password protected etc

3) there is little to none sense in using that many connections

4)Set 10(if its not enough for you-15) connections for astraweb and 5 for a fill server

5)

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is there any advantage/disadvantage to connecting to eu servers instead of us servers?

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- depends on where you live
- u can also set EU or US server as a fill one . Sometimes data might be missing on one of them but available on another

6)

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are ‘safer’ does that make sense or am I looking at is all wrong?

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both giganews and astraweb allow you to use SSL.

7)

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because I like to bypass my ISP

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you mean throttling? I think it is enough to use SSL port 443

Thank you for the info.

@MultiForce (and anyone else who cares to chime in)

- I’m actually looking to upgrade my router from a Dlink D655 to a Netgear WNDR37AV. I have not messed with DD-WRT but I think I might give it a go and I see that the new router is compatible with it. I am sure there are many comparable routers out there but I am curious since you seem to have done your research if you could get any router in the world what would it be?

- For the Newsbin Connections so set it up the way that you’re talking about I just make a new server connection with each one correct?

- Ya 12Mps is kind of slow but it meets my needs at least at the moment. So I am assuming since you have a 100Mps connection and max out 40 connections it would be safe to say that even if I bumped myself up to the 50Mps 40 connections would be more than enough.


@Hypatia (and anyone else who cares to chime in)

Ya one of the reasons I have astraweb is because of the takedowns. The astraweb unlimited $11/month seems like the way to go. I assume the concept of a fill account is similar to what I have right now with two providers. Which I am assuming is also an option but a little overkill?

If you were to go with two providers which would you pair up with astraweb?

With a fill account like blocknews.net how long does 100Gb usually last say compared to a certain amount downloaded every month on average. What controls the usage of the fill account, like when does it kick in, is there a way to control that?
So I do have my setting to SSL Port 443. Is that alone removing the option for my ISP to monitor and log my interwebs escapades and not be able to throttle me? I like my privacy and of course don’t want to be throttled. If yes, great if no do you recommend any VPNs, I was looking at hidemyass.com

So a US Astraweb Server is just as safe from say takedowns as an EU Astraweb Server because the company is not based in the US?


Thanks for any info on any of this it’s very much appreciated.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geovas

- I’m actually looking to upgrade my router from a Dlink D655 to a Netgear WNDR37AV. I have not messed with DD-WRT but I think I might give it a go and I see that the new router is compatible with it. I am sure there are many comparable routers out there but I am curious since you seem to have done your research if you could get any router in the world what would it be?

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I'm using a Linksys WNDR3700v2 now. They say it has some problems keeping the wireless up and running but I don't use it.
The reason I ended up with this is because of the WAN speed. There weren't many other routers to choose from at the time without getting a HW firewall or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geovas

- For the Newsbin Connections so set it up the way that you’re talking about I just make a new server connection with each one correct?

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Not sure I understand the question but I've just added EU and US servers as different servers and I don't set anything as backup/fill server. Newsbin connects to whatever it wants.
The number of connections is slightly overkill even on my internet connection but that is just because I don't like "slow" speeds because of AW.

To what extent do you upload copyrighted files? I think that only uploaders need to use VPNs and pay with prepaid credit cards which can't be traced and set things up with anonymous email addresses...I don't think downloaders need to worry about this.

As to whether or not you should upgrade your cable connection depends on how much you download and to what extent you want immediate downloads.

@ MultiForce
Thanks for the router info and yes you understood correctly about my connections question and answered it as to what my understanding was.


@ PasTense
Good info thanks for he heads up. On uploading, currently I am just exploring all possibilities and avenues that are available and how one would go about entertaining them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by geovas

I have 50 connections from giganews and 20 from asraweb. ........

My speed drops low for browsing

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That is far too many connections (assuming normal circumstances) and it will make web browsing extremely slow (unless Newsbin's bandwidth throttle is set). SInce it adds unnecessary overhead and hampers web browsing, the less connections, the better. I prefer to start at 2 or 3 connections and work up from there as needed.