Highwinds' retention improves, completion gets worse

The good news: Highwinds retention has been bumped up, now exactly matches Astraweb.

The bad news: Highwinds completion is still piss-poor!



Here's a sample (500 day) file from Highwinds (barely par-fixable) using NZB Download Checker:

http://i56.tinypic.com/svqsmt.jpg



Same file on Astraweb (perfect completion):

http://i54.tinypic.com/2uy3q5j.jpg



This was the first file I downloaded in several weeks. After my last report on Highwinds dismal retention, I had thought that Highwinds would have improved its completion by now. (*I thought wrong*.) Although it was salvageable, this file on Highwinds was only 2 par blocks away from being unrecoverable! Is it just my bad luck, or is this sort of piss-poor retention typical for Highwinds these days?

Since Astraweb and Highwinds both started spooling retention at about the same time back in 2008, Highwinds has always lagged Astraweb's retention by a month or more. I would like to know where this extra retention (posts made 15August2008 - 15Sep2008) came from -- retention that Highwinds has never had for the past 3 years. It seems quite a "coincidence" that Highwinds and Astraweb now have identical retention. Unless maybe Highwinds bought --or stole-- the missing volumes from Astraweb's server?

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Interestingly, on Highwinds this 969-day-old post - at the very edge of retention range - has better completion than the above 500-day post.

http://i51.tinypic.com/1zv75g7.jpg

I'm sniffing something... it smells like a "which NSP is better" fight is a brewin'

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Originally Posted by zot

Interestingly, on Highwinds this 969-day-old post - at the very edge of retention range - has better completion than the above 500-day post.

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Shows the 'up and down' of their plant, where in the 900+ day range things were 'going good', then in the 500 day range things fell 'off the tracks'. And, they aren't using any 'fills' from other operators (Giga, Astra, et. al.) to 'back-fill' such 'fades' in their plant.

Luckily, one can get 'block' accounts from Astra or others to help out, but it's been years and years since Giga did 'blocks', which is too bad.

Every once in awhile I see little 'blips' in just about every server plant out there, a least in the groups/servers I tend to monitor, but for the 'super-majors' (Giga, Astra, etc.) it's few and far between (like maybe one 'blip' in 2-3 months or so).

@zot - we have had this discussion before - grabbing a file that is copyrighted material which subject to DMCA takedowns and using it as example to constitute calling all of any one provider's retention poor, for lack of a better word is just dumb. Don't know which provider you used, but this is obviously a DMCA takedown. What is important is the issue that the file was still repairable. No one really talks about it, but it is generally accepted in the community that Astraweb just straight up ignores DMCA takedown requests....Other reputable nsps not located in Syngapore don't have that luxury. And I don't have anything against Astraweb, but I am just saying so people don't confuse the issue. I am using Newshosting and the speed and completion are excellent, yes they do have to adhere to DMCA takedowns, but so goes Giganews and their incompletes on average are far worse.

Here is a totally random file I grabbed from Newshosting that was 520 days old - its an image of Ubuntu - as you can see from the image below the file is 99% complete - hardly poor completion.
http://i56.tinypic.com/2wdaufp.png

This image shows that there was 2 puny little segments missing from the whole file set - that's is just 2 segments of one part (.rar) of the fileset - not even something to blink at
http://i53.tinypic.com/ape620.png

I did a test here on an NZB file of 938 days on newshosting and it worked fine .. Fast actually . Im here in the southern part of south america too traveling

http://usenetreviewz.com/wp-content/...retention1.png


Message headers are only at about 700 days -- im getting a clarification on that from Newshosting but here is what my test on message header showed
http://media.usenetreviewz.com/wp-co...e-headers2.png

http://usenetreviewz.com/usenetserver-newshosting-and-easynews-retention-increases/

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Originally Posted by nntpjunkie

@zot - we have had this discussion before - grabbing a file that is copyrighted material which subject to DMCA takedowns and using it as example to constitute calling all of any one provider's retention poor, for lack of a better word is just dumb.

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I remember this discussion as well but what also I remember is that you either own or are part of that crappy site in your signature which has numerous highwinds ads on it so it is no wonder you are pimping them you are on there bank roll! They could turn off there servers and you would still pimp them out i bet!

Why cant people factor in DMCA stuff when they look at how crappy a provider is? Us end users simply want to download. If a shit ton of stuff comes back that we want as missing it really doesnt matter the reason. Are we suppose to only look for stuff all the time that wont be taken down? If it is missing, it is missing, period and since it can be retrieved from other good providers then that is what sets the best apart from the rest. As an end user, all i care about is if it is there or not.

I really dont think astraweb or usenetnow ignores them either. they have servers in the USA which could easily be seized if they did ignore them. Maybe it is just that highwinds and giganews provide there own lube so they can get f*cked by the **AA's?

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it smells like a "which NSP is better" fight is a brewin' \\

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Unless they stop DMCAing stuff they are no match to AW

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but this is obviously a DMCA takedown.

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bollocks

stuff that was DMCAed doesnt look like this

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Other reputable nsps not located in Syngapore don't have that luxury

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Its not a luxur. Its business

Yeah!BINGO!Stop introducing lame MIMOs, lame VPNs, lame "private stash"service. Move your office to dmca free zone and be happy

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its an image of Ubuntu

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im sorry ,man,but who the fuck cares about your ubuntu that is a freeware?
people pay for usenet not for this,and providers DO know it very well

As to speculation that the *incomplete* file I posted above was the result of a DMCA takedown, that's a false assumption. Taken-down files are not going have completely-random articles missing, but instead show a regular pattern of missing blocks - which is generally the first segment in every rar/par file. At least that's how H.B.O. does it. Other copyright cops will have the release deleted in its entirety.

Also, as to speculation that Astraweb ignores DMCA takedown notices - does anyone here really think that the company owners would want their million-dollar-plus server farm seized and carted away by the FBI? Because that's exactly what would happen if they were treat takedown demands like The Pirate Bay. Although its true that, like most foreign-owned providers, Astraweb apparently did not register with the US copyright office, the company claims to promptly remove all infringing/illegal content upon request.


I might be accused of picking on Highwinds in particular, but as (probably) the world's biggest NSP, I expect more out of them.

Considering that Highwinds is actually 5 *formerly-separate* usenet providers rolled-into-one, one might expect the service to be 5 times as good as others (or perhaps as good as 5 USPs combined). But it's certainly not. Maybe I'm a bit biased because I also don't think the public was served when Highwinds bought out most of its competitors and tried to corner the market, but that's another issue entirely.

I think that Highwinds management probably would have made better use of their time and money by fixing their existing completion problems rather than adding a new slab of retention (which I assume they probably got from Astraweb). It's well known that Astraweb back-fills its missing articles by buying bandwidth from other companies - yet Highwinds would rather do nothing about its incompletes month after month.

Although it seems that more and more resellers are dumping them, Highwinds is still the most-used American backend by far. Thankgod for block accounts and newsreaders that support fill-servers.

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the company claims to promptly remove all infringing/illegal content upon request.

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With all due respect,zot, i claim to be Santa Claus :D


Ive yet to find DMCAed release on AW. And i tried lots of stuff that is the main target of dmca mafia
Im not saying that it will always be like this( considering globalisation) but i do think AW is safe ATM

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onsidering that Highwinds is actually 5 *formerly-separate* usenet providers rolled-into-one, one might expect the service to be 5 times as good as others

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I believe you are wrong on this assumption.
Merging companies into one is a bitch. There will always be minor "glitches", problems in the middle of the process and for quite some time after it is done.
The goal of a good company is to minimize those problems and get rid of them ASAP.
Highwinds does seem not to care anymore.

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Originally Posted by Hypatia

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onsidering that Highwinds is actually 5 *formerly-separate* usenet providers rolled-into-one, one might expect the service to be 5 times as good as others

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I believe you are wrong on this assumption.
Merging companies into one is a bitch. There will always be minor "glitches", problems in the middle of the process and for quite some time after it is done.

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I agree that it's no small feat cobbling together a half-dozen separate outfits to create the biggest usenet provider company on the planet. But that's now ancient history. How many more years do we need to wait before they fix these 'glitches'?

If I remember (halfway?) correctly, Highwinds started its own service about 2004, then bought Newshosting in 2005, Easynews and Usenetserver in 2006, and Eweka.nl in 2007.

In 2007, Highwinds shut down its two US servers (Phoenix and NY) and moved all customers to Usenetserver's Atlanta server. (That's when I started noticing service getting worse; slow speeds [especially SSL], no connection, poor completion, etc)

Then in 2008, the Atlanta server (which had not had a retention increase in 2 years) was shut down and customers were moved to their Washington DC server. (Newshosting's server was already located in DC - but I don't know if Newshosting's server was shared or not)

Nothing major has changed in the last 2.5 years. Highwinds has not bought any more companies with usenet server farms, or relocated farms or migrated customers. Events have been comparatively stagnant during this time. (Easynews went through a major disaster 2 years ago, but that's another story). Highwinds has now had plenty of time to concentrate on fixing the glitches and honing the quality of its service -- as well as backfill its ever-eroding completion. So what's Highwind's problem?

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Originally Posted by zot

Nothing major has changed in the last 2.5 years. Highwinds has not bought any more companies with usenet server farms, or relocated farms or migrated customers. Events have been comparatively stagnant during this time. (Easynews went through a major disaster 2 years ago, but that's another story). Highwinds has now had plenty of time to concentrate on fixing the glitches and honing the quality of its service -- as well as backfill its ever-eroding completion. So what's Highwind's problem?

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@zot - I understand your complaints to a point about what everyone calls the Highwinds farms - which I personally think is stupid because the providers you mentioned are not running on the same farms they are different farms (Easily seen with different cross post discrepancies..resellers do run on same farm as the tier1 counter part) entirely especially Easynews - Everything about Easynews is custom, but to say that nothing major has changed for these brands is not correct, less than 2 years ago all the providers you mentioned had < 450 days bin retention...Usenetserver, newshosting both have a bin retention of 978 days - that is more than doubling article retention in that small time frame, that is a huge feat. That said, let me be perfectly before some flamer starts yammering on, I happen to love newshosting and have used them as well as the other brand mentioned over the years and yes I have banners for them on our blog, but I am not saying that what everyone calls the "Highwinds brands" are the best NSPs around - I am just saying they should get a fair shake. There are alot of nsp haters here that talk alot of smack about things that are in the past. They are all a very long way from where they were 2 years ago I think anyone who has used them recently would have to agree. Astraweb does get props on full completion most of the time, but that is well because they simply don't take anything down....they are supposed to but if you compare NZBs you will find completes where everyone else seems to be missing articles. Anyway I will close by saying that one thing is for sure, we as usenet users are very lucky because we now live in a time where NSPs are plenty and plenty cheap :)

Hi nntpJunkie,

I agree and think you make a good point that "Highwinds should get a fair shake" it seems to be popular to bash them

If you want the absolute best quality then I guess its Giganews -- which you can get at a discount here for the Diamond and Platinum plan -- > http://bit.ly/giganews

best quality at DMCA takdowns? =))

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Originally Posted by MarionM

Hi nntpJunkie,

I agree and think you make a good point that "Highwinds should get a fair shake" it seems to be popular to bash them

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Truth be told, a lot of people tend to get suspicious whenever a new user pops up just to take sides in an argument. Look around, and I don't think it's hard to find as much "bashing" about Giganews and Astraweb as there is about Highwinds. I used to be a big fan of Highwinds back in the mid-2000s, when Highwinds offered a much better service than any of the companies they bought out. Maybe I've turned into a critic because I can still remember the industry-leading retention and near-perfect completion that Highwinds once had, at least for awhile.


If you want the absolute best quality then I guess its Giganews -- which you can get at a discount here for the Diamond and Platinum plan -- > http://bit.ly/giganews [/QUOTE]
... also new users who post links using link-shorteners. Referral?

All the US companies have to respect US Laws - so that puts Highwinds and Giganews together. Maybe thats a good reason to be headquartered in Singapore like Astraweb. Yes, im a new user but I spend a lot of time testing and reviewing Usenet Providers.