Newsgroups guide for Newsleecher

Newsleecher Guide

Last updated: 10 August 2006

NewsLeecher is a tool made for fetching and managing articles from the Usenet. It downloads Usenet articles in a snap, and uses it's inline engine to assemble and decode all the downloads. The powerful featureset and state-of-the-art user interface makes it an application "you simply can't live without" if you are a serious Usenet user.

Newsleecher is shareware, so you need to buy it.
There are 2 different 'versions'. The NewsLeecher Only Package and the NewsLeecher & SuperSearch Package.
Supersearch saves lots of time if you don't use .NZB files because you don't have to download all the headers of one group. The Super Search Engine contains an index of all binary articles posted to the Usenet within the last 65+ days.
The NewsLeecher Only Package has all the same options of the supersearch Package except for the supersearch option.



Configuration

This is the main window of Newsleecher

Attachment 2218

When you select options from the menu you can make many changes, one of the most important option you can change is where you want the downloaded files to be saved.

Attachment 2219

As you can see you need to click on download in the Setup Dialog. I've chosen to save my files in 'C:\download'.
If you select 'put downloads into groupfolders' you will get new folders for every group you download from, example: C:\download\alt.binaries.movies.divx\.

If you plan on using .NZB files go to NZB files in the Setup Dialog and select Associate With Newsleecher and Activate on .NZB import



Add a server

Select the tab Manager and click Attachment 2224Add

Attachment 2220

* Enter your Server Address
* You only have to change the portnumber if your usenet provider has instructed you to connect to a specific port if not leave it as it is.
* Connections depends on how many your provider allows, a good start is to try 4 and see if you get your maximum download speed.
* Tick the box next to Server Requires Login and enter your Username/Password.
* Now click Apply and then Ok.



'Fetch' groups

To download files from different groups you first need to download the grouplist from the server. To download the grouplist click Subscribe to Groups, You will get a popup message which says that the grouplist is currently empty, click ok. Now click Fetch Entire Group List.
When Newsleecher is finished downloading the list you will get another popup, click ok. You can now scroll to see all the groups available.

Attachment 2227

When you click on Popularity Newsleecher will sort the groups by the number of files in that group.



Download headers

Now you can download headers from a group. Search the group you are looking for by scrolling down the list or type the name of the group in the Name Filter. In the picture below I was looking for the group named alt.binaries.multimedia

Attachment 2221

Now you right click the correct group and select Subscribe. Then you click Attachment 2225 Back and you will see a list of all groups that you subscribed to.

Attachment 2222

Right click the group and select Update -> Start Update (Selected). The first time it will take some time because it needs to download ALL headers from that group, if you need to download the headers from that group again it will only download the headers that are new.



Download files

Click the tab Articles. select on the left side the group from which you want to download files.
When you selected the group you will get a list of files, because this list can have millions of files you need to use the search option (Subject Search) when you type your search text it will automatically only show the files containing your search text.

Attachment 2226

You can download the file(s) by right clicking the file and choose leech twice. If you need to download multiple files you can select the first file then hold Shift and click the last file, all files between the first and last are now selected.
To view which files are being downloaded click the Queue tab.



Incomplete files

Incomplete files can be caused by different reasons. To understand these, it is important to know that files consist of multiple smaller pieces, called articles, when they are in a binary newsgroup. Normally articles aren't noticed: the newsreader downloads all small parts and puts them together in the background before saving the file to a hard disk. When a file is incomplete, one or more articles of that file are missing. One possible cause for this is that something went wrong while downloading. However, in most cases an external factor causes this problem.

Most common cause involves retention: files in binary newsgroups are not stored permanently, but are removed after a certain period of time. The length of this period differs per server. While some pay servers offer a retention of approximately 60 days, other servers may store files for just three days. When files are old enough to be deleted, chances of missing articles increase.



Repair incomplete files

You can use the program QuickPar to verify whether downloaded files are complete when the poster also posted a PAR2 file. You can also download extra PAR2 repair files to repair corrupt, missing and incomplete files! So fortunately you will be able to repair incomplete files when PAR2 files are available. If a lot of files seem to be incomplete, you can ask the poster for extra PAR2 files. A more permanent solution might be to acquire access to a better server, like a pay server.



NZB

NZB is an open file format originally designed by Newzbin. A .NZB file contains information about one or multiple files, like the name of the Usenet group and the message-ids uniquely identifying the posts that make up the file. You can pass the nzb file to a capable newsreader, which will then begin to download the files referenced, if they are available on your newsserver.

Often there are .NZB files posted when someone uploads something.
These NZB files can also be created with a 'binary newsgroup search engine'. www.binsearch.net is one of the most popular search sites.

FileSharingtalk has a NZB Post Index where members can upload .NZB files. This section has many .NZB files

When you have downloaded the .NZB file you need to double click it and Newsleecher will be opened. The files you wanted to download are now all added to your download queue. When you click 'Connect' the files will be downloaded.
Many people use NZB files because you don't have to download many headers before you can download the files you want.



Supersearch

If you have the NewsLeecher & SuperSearch Package you can use the Supersearch option in Newsleecher. If you use this option you never have to download headers which saves a lot of time.

Click the tab Super Search Service
Type the name of the file you want to search for next to Search For: and click Go. Now Newsleecher will search for all files that have the name you entered. Select the files you want to download then right click and choose Leech. The files are now added to your Queue list.

Great work {I}{K}{E}!
Definately worth a pin!

Really great guide

Nice addition to the section...

Excellent Guide, very cool :yup:

GOOD, but i have a question.
where can i find server address?
thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jobijo

GOOD, but i have a question.
where can i find server address?
thanks

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You can signup with the servers below with our refferal links which support the site...
GigaNews | NewsHosting | PowerUsenet | NewsDemon

thx for this nfo. am really new to this but i am starting to get the hang of it and it is totally way better than useing torrents.
TCG.

i have been using News Leecher now for about a year or longer and i must say its got to be 1 of the best out there.

Can I get newsgroups for free?...I mean really "free"...I am too poor to pay..but still want to use newsgroups....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DontCare

Can I get newsgroups for free?...I mean really "free"...I am too poor to pay..but still want to use newsgroups....

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check threads in the Newsgroup section. Many have asked the same question before.

is there any way i can see how usenet works before i pay ? what i really want to know is: will i find something i can't find on torrents ? i will not ask any questions regarding legal aspects since it's as illegal to download copyrighted stuff from usenet as it is to download same stuff from a tracker.

Thank you for the guide.
Excellent guide, great work

Quote:

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Originally Posted by astarow

is there any way i can see how usenet works before i pay ? what i really want to know is: will i find something i can't find on torrents ? i will not ask any questions regarding legal aspects since it's as illegal to download copyrighted stuff from usenet as it is to download same stuff from a tracker.

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good questions, the same ones i'd like to ask

and idid all it said in the guide and i still cant get to connect to a server....very confused!

well bone that man

I just signed up for the $2.99 a month - pay by the month with no minimum.
It is not free, but based on what I've read here, seems like not much to lose - only the $3. My DSL ISP is supposed to be pretty decent - 7 days+ retention
so I'll give that a shot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by astarow

is there any way i can see how usenet works before i pay ? what i really want to know is: will i find something i can't find on torrents...

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Great guide IKE, simple and easy.

I just signed up for the giganews 3 day trial. So far I tried some free ones like yottanews but they of course didn't have good retention, so I'm trying a pay server now. Giganews has alot of groups, lol the grouplist has been downloading for liek 5 min. and it's still going :) do they have the entire internet on there or what?

i'll give an update if possible to say if i had any luck with giganews.

hey man, I've got a question.

Newsleecher is downloading the headers of only the past 8 days. How do I make it to download the headers of the past 60 days?

Thank You,

flamy

Whats your retention on the server you have and what server is it you have.
Maybe thats your retention as not sure of an option that changes that...

I have powerusenet. My retention is 55 days for binaries.

Nice man, tnx for this, I had problems with it .

So how do you know about the search results.There are no comments.If i search for a movie for example

Nicely done.

Nice I will test this programm.

Newsleecher is Excellent. I used to use Agent, back in the days of Forteinc Agent 2.0 :) But then i found Newsleecher and have used it ever since.
One thing i would like to add to the guide, is that Newsleecher allows you to view image files as they are downloading, by pressing the preview button above where you can see the downloads :)Very useful for those collecting picture files.

Thanks for the great guide and a friendly forum :)

I'm still really confused as I'm totally new to this.

I have installed Newsleecher and my problem is I cannot connect. I'm lacking the server address. Based on this post I understand that I have to use a provider as Giganews. Correct? But Giganews also costs money and so does Newsleecher? Can I use Newsleecher through filesharing???

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TripleXXX

I have installed Newsleecher and my problem is I cannot connect. I'm lacking the server address. Based on this post I understand that I have to use a provider as Giganews. Correct? But Giganews also costs money

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That's the idea. News providers offer a service you have to pay for. There are some free ones you can use, for example just4today.net. They won't have the same functionality as a paid one, but are still usable.

If you don't want to pay for a client, download a cracked version or use SABnzbd (it's free).