Cancelled Astraweb - Now what?

I've been using Astraweb for a few years now, and haven't had that many problems with it. It has been fast, reliable, and the take downs haven't affected me that much. A hand full of shows I watch are removed, and it can be difficult to get the latest movies unless I download them straight away, but I would say 80% of what I get is still up on Astraweb.

My yearly subscription has just run out, and I'm curious about other providers. Is there a provider that isn't suffering from takedowns as badly as the others are, or am I best renewing my Astraweb subscription?

Your best bet is to find some nice Private torrent sites to call home. All providers are suffering from take down requests. I cancelled Astra web because I was tied of getting so many incomplete's.

The world has changed from a situation where you can get everything you want from one source to a situation where you need to use multiple sources. For good advice you need to tell us what types of materials you are downloading and how much. As one option you might get a 1 TB block account from Astraweb instead of your yearly subscription.

Have you read this thread on Usenet providers?
http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/4...senet-Provider

So you didn't really cancel your account, it expired.

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Originally Posted by the mighty

I've been using Astraweb for a few years now, and haven't had that many problems with it. It has been fast, reliable, and the take downs haven't affected me that much. A hand full of shows I watch are removed, and it can be difficult to get the latest movies unless I download them straight away, but I would say 80% of what I get is still up on Astraweb.

My yearly subscription has just run out, and I'm curious about other providers. Is there a provider that isn't suffering from takedowns as badly as the others are, or am I best renewing my Astraweb subscription?

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I've recently stopped attempting to use Usenet for a different reason, but you can try my new (and now favorite) method - http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/4...loading-stuffs

I would never say your best bet is torrents tho. :no:

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Originally Posted by St0ry

So you didn't really cancel your account, it expired.

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Letting something intentionally expire due to disappointing results and cancelling a subscription due to disappointing results are pretty darn close in my opinion.

I smell the hint of the usual chasing after the usual crud of tv/slime out there from the OP.

I'd mention just what but let me say, things that are in the same realm as 'Mr. Ed', 'Gilligans's Island' and similar ilk from years ago, it's simply 'updated' and 'repackaged' ilk (and in HD). There is about 2-3 'series' on television as a whole that are worth watching, and probably all three are spread out over the year due to the fact that the 'fall season' of new shows has gone into oblivion, and shows 'new seasons' can start just about anywhere on the calendar.

And all of them are available in much better quality/definition on Bluray within a few months of original airing. Unless one thinks that some kind of mass extinction event is going to occur and you'll miss out on those episodes (and one would hope that it'll be way, way down on the things to be thinking about at that point!) then simply wait. Unless of course your capacity to do so has gone in the same direction as, say, your ability to keep your mind on a particular single subject.

Here's the bottom line facts:

26 years of usenet, multi-terabytes of posting, I can search back to 'day 1' of current providers on-line storage (still about Aug08), and 100% is still there (even on Astra!)... but no, well, crap. If what you are chasing after is something you won't even remember say, five years from now, it's crap. Why are you wasting your time on it now? Of all the stuff that folks have pointed to (to me) as having been 'targeted' for 'takedowns' are.... crap. 99% of that currently being posted with encrypted filenames and rar passwords are.... crap. The 'Gilligan's Island' of our time.

Usenet works great for me, I never have issues with takedowns. The biggest issue (like beck said), is that encrypted posts are bullshit. There are certain binaries that are 100% scrambled and you have to grab the Nfo to see what it is. Thank god for fst and other indexers that do the work for us.

Maybe a combination of a European server which takes down less and later and a mini seedbox for the occasional torrent from a private or public tracker. Those are as little as $15 for the year.

Agree with justlooking & Skiz. Lotta ways to skin a cat--cover your bases. Remember the EU providers have take downs as well. As far as 0day tv goes, in the current climate the onus is on you to grab the shows as they pre. The automated setups make that damn near trivial to do. If you can't wait and want Beck-like quality that's out there too, but the posts will be obfuscated & passworded.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will stick with Astraweb, and use XBMC streams for whatever is taken down.

I can currently get Astraweb for $8 a month if I sign up for a year. So that will be $96 for the year. Otherwise it is $15 if I pay monthly. Would you consider this a good deal, or am I better off with something cheaper? Frugal, for example, is $5 a month or $50 for the whole year. A lot cheaper, but I have no idea if the connection is comparable. Retention is also only 300 days.