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my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Finding content online options
Usenet vs torrenting
usenet =
- cost per month (con)
- difficult to distinguish what’s a “safe” and what isn’t (con)
explanation: since there is no feedback system or comments like there is in the torrent community
- save lots of time (pro)
explanation: when you want a file, you can just download it. simple.
torrenting =
- lot of time wasted by 1.logging into some different sites to keep account from getting pruned 2. maintaining ratio 3. keeping abreast of sites issues, freeleeches, etc. 4. seeding (con)
explanation: I think this is a huge negative aspect of torrenting and an often overlooked one in my opinion. If sites make money everytime a user visits there site then torrent sites and associated sites (i.e. invite forums, etc.) are rolling in the dough. Torrenting can be such a time consuming process and time IS money.
- better “verifiable” quantity of quality content (pro)
explanation: this is because torrenting is a community project therefore users leave feedback on content quality
Final analysis: which one is “better” ?
Answer:
Depends on what you’re looking for.
If you’re looking for a huge amount of general movies and music in the English language then make a list of what you’re looking for and download it all via usenet on a one month subscription. This way after you have all the material you’re looking for you don’t need any further monthly subscription costs.
If you’re looking for random smaller amounts of content in the English language just use torrent sites on “no-hassle” torrent sites i.e. Demonoid, TPB, etc. . here you can simply download a torrent and be done with it.
If you’re looking for a large amount of foreign content, then torrenting (niche sites) is most likely going to be your only option.
DDL forums are also another option but again one has to be very careful because there is no community check system in place where someone leaves a comment about the files that gives you an idea if the file is indeed what it says it is.
Thoughts:
The community aspect of torrenting is a two-edged sword. It is good because seeing comments on downloaded files is a great indicator on how safe a file is to download or not. BUT the down side is that the torrent community makes some of their sites extremely difficut/time consuming to gain access to. Bithumen, Norbits, etc. sites come to mind.
I don’t download English movies from torrents ever. I don’t see a need to. Sites like quicksilverscreen has just about every single English movie available on their site to stream and view for free thus saving hard drive space on my computer.
I personally am thinking of just buying everything I utilize from now on. Since I solely use torrenting/usenet for downloading foreign music, I think it may be cheaper for me to just purchase it online than jump through the hoops of the torrent world.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Sites that take effort to get into aren't worth the effort (there are exceptions, of course, but this is true in 99% of cases). The fewer members a site has, the less potential for uploaders and content in general.
If you just want TV/Movies/0-day, Usenet is probably a good choice. If you want music, torrenting is the way to go (imo). Apps/games can really go either way.
People bemoan the community aspect of torrenting as a waste of time, but often forget that it's an optional feature. Really the only valid "time waster" I see in your list above is the seeding part. If you consider a 30 second visit every few months a huge waste of time, your life is probably far too busy to be posting this forum thread. Besides, most sites will give you immunity from inactivity deletion if you hit Power User.
For me it's just a lot easier because I already have buffers built up and friends on various sites. For me it really is as simple as just download and forget if need be. But if I were starting all over again, I'd certainly lend heavy consideration to a Usenet subscription.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
I don't agree with much of what's said there. I gave my opinion on this subject here.
But here's a full quote:
Quote:
After using usenet intermittently for the past 11 years and bittorrent since the suprnova days, here are my thoughts:
Comfort: Newsgroups win, without discussion. You add the .NZB (usenet "equivalent" to the .torrent file), files get downloaded, unrar'd, the ISO moved to the chosen destination on the HDD to the category you set, and then the RAR's are deleted (of course all this is customizable). You can shutdown the computer and go sleep. What you save on the power bill by not having the PC on 24/7 is almost enough to pay for a monthly subscription, I would dare say.
Speed: Newsgroups win. You always max out your connection speed, no matter the age of the file. Old torrents are usually extremely slow, as they are seeded by home connections.
Contents: You can't compare the usenet to a single tracker, but to the cloud. There's no clear winner, if you compare usenet to sites like TPB or demonoid for example. You can't compare it to any private tracker, as they all get squashed. I'll get to the "niche" trackers later.
Searching the contents: There are several automatic and manual indexers (FST is one of them). Also, there are several bt trackers. The difference is you would need quite a lot of memberships on sites to even close to what a NZB indexer can find. It's a clear win for Newsgroups too. Automated indexing sites like NZBIndex.nl or even Newsleecher's integrated SuperSearch blow away any competition. If you got used to the manual indexing, like you see on any tracker, then you'll find FST's NZB section very lookalike.
Cost-effectiveness: I have already mentioned that you don't have to keep your PC turned on 24/7 seeding 365 days per year. You can shut it down any time you want and still get the files when you wish without ratio worries.
Additionally, many people resort to seedboxes to keep their ratios up and build a "buffer". Once you start using newsgroups, and if you ever paid for a seedbox before, you will shake your head in disbelief when you think of the wasted money. The cost of a decent seedbox is enough to let you pay for newsgroups for one entire year. Add to this the power saving, the hassle saving, and do your math. So, saying bittorrent is free and usenet is not, is a false statement. Obviously, BT is populated with kids who live with their parents who cough up the cash for the bills, so they will always argue this point.
Community: What is a community? FST surely is one, xtremesystems is another, etc. In the end of the day, if you are a guy with too much free time, you will see you won't have to participate in some communities you otherwise wouldn't bother to, unless you are expecting some kind of reconnaissance to get you invited to other places. This saves you a lot of time you can spend on other tasks, like banging your wife / girlfriend. Newsgroups is about getting your files and few technical related discussions. Bittorrent is about the drama. So, BT wins on entertainment value, to the day you get bored.
In my personal opinion, for a perfect downloading experience you would use usenet for nearly everything, a couple of niche trackers (BCG, what.cd and a few elearning sites) and places like warez-bb or even emule for very rare contents.
PS: Oh, did I say you don't have to deal with kids who masturbate each other because they "staff" at some site? And who behave like heroes because they can ban you and even tell their buttbuddies to ban you too? Expecting it makes any difference because all summed up you can get the same content at a dozen other places.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Another negative for BT is Security: With BT everyone you download from, or upload to, can see and log your IP address. With Usenet or DDL only your service provider would have access to that.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
It can take some effort and some time but usenet can be free too.
This is a snapshot of my Sabnzbd Usenet-client that I use without any kind of paying subscription at all.
http://i55.tinypic.com/1t36hc.png
Translation:
Omvang = Total Size Downloaded
Deze maand = Downloaded this month
Deze week = Downloaded this week.
Keep in mind I deleted my history about 3 months ago.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
P2PDog
Another negative for BT is Security: With BT everyone you download from, or upload to, can see and log your IP address. With Usenet or DDL only your service provider would have access to that.
+ all of their 'staffs' can even see users email ID and can use them (to spam obv) ;)
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bijoy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
P2PDog
Another negative for BT is Security: With BT everyone you download from, or upload to, can see and log your IP address. With Usenet or DDL only your service provider would have access to that.
+ all of their 'staffs' can even see users email ID and can use them (to spam obv) ;)
Only a careless person uses a non-disposable e-mail adress when registering on a tracker!
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Disme
It can take some effort and some time but usenet can be free too.
This is a snapshot of my Sabnzbd Usenet-client that I use without any kind of paying subscription at all.
http://i55.tinypic.com/1t36hc.png
Translation:
Omvang = Total Size Downloaded
Deze maand = Downloaded this month
Deze week = Downloaded this week.
Keep in mind I deleted my history about 3 months ago.
Are you downloading the internet ?
Over 1Tb per month ? :blink: I didn't even know there was so much stuff available for download.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Don't want to disturb the usenet love-in, but torrents can be absolutely pain free, too. Time consuming? Only if you want to, that's up to you. Speeds? Ridiculous on most better trackers these days, thanks to seedbox whores. Maxing out my 100Mbit link is no problem whatsoever.
Thing is, P2P has changed the way pirated material is released these days, at least as far as certain types of content like music or movies are concerned. Torrent trackers have become a source of content themselves, in contrast to the early days when it was all about spreading scene content. Many trackers have their own internal groups with exclusive releases, more often than not faster and of better quality than the traditional scene. Just for that, I wouldn't want to miss torrents, knowing that not all of those releases make it to other trackers even, not to mention usenet or DDL.
Being a member on many sites with terabytes of combined buffer, there simply is no need for me to look for alternatives, there is too much content for me out there as it is. The only 'time consuming' part for me is to decide what I actually want to download, but this would be exactly the same with usenet or other forms of access.
Still, I'm actually glad that the usenet alternative exists, should torrenting die one day, for whatever reason. But until then, I will enjoy the 6 years retention (oldest torrents on the oldest trackers still alive), always 100% completion of bittorrent.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shipwreck
Being a member on many sites with terabytes of combined buffer, there simply is no need for me to look for alternatives
^This
I max out my speed as well on 95% of things I download (50Mbps), I can probably count on my fingers the times I didn't find what I wanted to download on trackers, so why would I care about usenet. I'm not saying it is bad, the speed/retention factor there seems great, but can you really tell me that you can find stuff from what.cd, pornolab, scc, hdbits, e-learning, music videos etc. all in one place in the same quality?
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Disme
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bijoy
+ all of their 'staffs' can even see users email ID and can use them (to spam obv) ;)
Only a careless person uses a non-disposable e-mail adress when registering on a tracker!
sadly most of the trackers block disposable e-mail adresses (domains)
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tokeman
Who blocks gmail 0_o
Pertinent answers FTW! +1
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tokeman
Who blocks gmail 0_o
I think now we need to have extra mobile number(s) to activate gamil account. :unsure: So.... (I don't have the complete information about this matter but heard something like that.)
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
I never tried NZB before, but Torrenting suits me just fine. As a low bandwith user, I don't really give a damn about the speeds, anything will maximize it. I mean it. As for the content, it's all good. Almost everything I look for is available somewhere on some tracker. Yes I had a few difficulties finding some rare files but I managed to have them at the end. I first thought the forums thing would help me with anything but with time I found that it just doesn't, or maybe i'm just not a forum person which is probably the case. But there are few forums that I do enjoy.
The things I hate are :
1- Seedboxers making it harder than it already is for me to seed and also making me one of them as I end up getting a seedbox to survive.
2- Trackers banning full countries which makes it harder for me to find specific content or just losing an account that I..... use?!.
3- Staffers making it really hard if not impossible for me ( maybe not now, but used to be ) and other new members to join their trackers for no apparent reason.
But, there are still great trackers out there which maintain good content, speed and people. And let me tell you something, good people help.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bijoy
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tokeman
Who blocks gmail 0_o
I think now we need to have extra mobile number(s) to activate gamil account. :unsure: So.... (I don't have the complete information about this matter but heard something like that.)
I just registered for another gmail account. Its logged in, not asking for any mobile numbers or anything...
Don't believe everything you read :)
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Re: Gmail, you can use the same mobile number a bunch of times, like 5 or 6 for text, then additional for voice confirmation.
On topic: Usenet is awesome because I can download say 10 interesting XXX releases without regard to ratio or seeding concerns, which are automatically unpacked the crap can be discarded from the ones I want to use, all with one hand of course.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
I use gmail daily, and just made one. Why have I never had to do this confirmation thing including on the account I just made...?
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
'Ratio problems' are so 2005. Who has still ratio problems these days, seriously? Only the most conservative sites out there don't have free leech / partial free leech torrents, bonus systems or other ways to make seeding much easier these days, even for the crappy bandwidth users, not to mention all the ratio free sites.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shipwreck
'Ratio problems' are so 2005. Who has still ratio problems these days, seriously? Only the most conservative sites out there don't have free leech / partial free leech torrents, bonus systems or other ways to make seeding much easier these days, even for the crappy bandwidth users, not to mention all the ratio free sites.
That's why I'm a member or 99% of the ratio-free trackers out there and use them most of the time. Bonus systems are crap, the only good one is IPT's one. On IPT with a few low-size seeded torrents you can have a few GBs uploaded. Seeding on TT, waffles, BMTV and and sometimes bitme (and these are sites that I use hardcorely ) is a hell, at least with my connection.
And yes, I see people with ratio below 1.0 on many sites so it's pretty common.
Edit : My connection is way to worse that you could imagine. Believe me.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Ratio below 1.0 isn't a problem per se, it totally depends on the site. What has no bonus system, very few free leech torrents, thousands of seedbox whores, but at least the ratio demands are very generous.
Problematic are only those sites that make it impossible for low bandwidth users to be awarded for seeding. Bonus systems were introduced as a consequence actually - if a low bandwidth user keeps seeding a large torrent for a relatively long time, he / she can buy a lot of upload credit with the bonus points he collects. At least the better bonus systems work like that.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shipwreck
Ratio below 1.0 isn't a problem per se, it totally depends on the site. What has no bonus system, very few free leech torrents, thousands of seedbox whores, but at least the ratio demands are very generous.
Problematic are only those sites that make it impossible for low bandwidth users to be awarded for seeding. Bonus systems were introduced as a consequence actually - if a low bandwidth user keeps seeding a large torrent for a relatively long time, he / she can buy a lot of upload credit with the bonus points he collects. At least the better bonus systems work like that.
Yep.
Too bad most of the sites with bonus systems are ratio-free trackers, so you don't actually need them. Unlike bmtv and bitme where there should be something that helps.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Regarding the GMail SMS check: it is only triggered by certain conditions, so it's perfectly possible to create and own several accounts, even from the same IP, without ever getting it.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
YoYoY
Quote:
Originally Posted by
shipwreck
Ratio below 1.0 isn't a problem per se, it totally depends on the site. What has no bonus system, very few free leech torrents, thousands of seedbox whores, but at least the ratio demands are very generous.
Problematic are only those sites that make it impossible for low bandwidth users to be awarded for seeding. Bonus systems were introduced as a consequence actually - if a low bandwidth user keeps seeding a large torrent for a relatively long time, he / she can buy a lot of upload credit with the bonus points he collects. At least the better bonus systems work like that.
Yep.
Too bad most of the sites with bonus systems are ratio-free trackers, so you don't actually need them.
Unlike bmtv and bitme where there should be something that helps.
Now, now, don't challenge their intelligence. They might ban you :lol:
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
anon-sbi
Regarding the GMail SMS check: it is only triggered by certain conditions, so it's perfectly possible to create and own several accounts, even from the same IP, without ever getting it.
thanks for this info. :)
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
There are hundreds of free mail providers out there, gmail is just one of them. Creating one or two for torrenting really isn't much of a deal surely?
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
What the hell for one would need several mail accounts (ohter than trading, etc)? i hate even having 2 account, because i have to login 2 times to check inbox or whatever, wasting time. I got only 2 or 3 spam letters in approximately a year which seems to be related with trackers. No worthy tracker uses your email to spam, just don't register rushly on all those new unreliable trackers that pop-up everyday. And don't listen to bijoy :lol:
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Erm....using a proper e-mail client? Checking a number of accounts at once easily.
I would never use my 'proper', 'official' accounts for semi-legal activity. That's just stupid and has nothing to do with trading.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
It's not like you ever have to check an email address for torrenting unless you're expecting a new invite confirmation email...
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
- cost per month (con)
$11/month.= Several bottles of beer
Quote:
- difficult to distinguish what’s a “safe” and what isn’t
Its not. For experienced users.Thus newbies should stick to torrents.Then, come to nzb sites, then learn how to work without them
On topic..
Usenet owns at :
Content wise
- Movies.
Both general and to some extent classic: BluRays (THIS! Taking into account that one can get all those huge blurays at ones max speed 100% time and even the stuff posted 2,5 years ago. that is something to look for and pay for
If you know how to search for them.. Only HDbits can compete with usenet on this one) , BDRip, DVDrip, HDTV etc movie\tv-series category
- Software
-Games(console\PC)
-XXX (both scene and non-scene)
Technical side wise
- Speed.
Oh yes , babe.How about 50 megabytes non-stop downloading files posted 950+days ago?
-Retention.
Huge. And all files that are available will be downloaded at max speed
Usenet sucks at
Content wise
- Music(both mp3 and especially lossless)
- Anime,
- and some speficic content one can find on certain torrents
Technical side wise
-DMCA takedowns. One should consider a NNTP provider that knows its way around this shit (Astraweb)
- Repair\Incomplete
due to possible temporary glitches on providers side resulting in screwed up uploads.=>repost\repair, or on the end user side(posting one).
just my 2 cents
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
i wish someone had pointed out usenet to me years ago, (and if they did i am sorry for not paying attention) i find myself using torrents less and less everyday, usenet is free for me thanks to my isp (i would gladly pay if this was not the case) and i now get to turn my pc off at night instead of seeding shit for days, all that time i wasted on torrents what a douche i was.
usenet is easy to use, i think it's safer and there is definatley a lot less drama going on.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Years ago it wasnt THAT good.Mainly in terms of retention.So youve gotten on the train right on time =))
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Usenet is pretty much useless for lossless music. Inner-sanctum has been pre'ing all the scene mp3s since early 2010, so there's plenty of them there.
For anything else, usenet win IMO.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
be serious.. there are some great torrent sites , which combined surclass any form of filesharing known to man till now!!! :)
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hypatia
- Movies.
Both general and to some extent classic: BluRays (THIS! Taking into account that one can get all those huge blurays at ones max speed 100% time and even the stuff posted 2,5 years ago. that is something to look for and pay for
If you know how to search for them..
you mean, abhdtv.net forum that requires some money just to see that it's kinda useless when you have all the major trackers?
whenever i asked for some particular stuff that i wasn't able to get from trackers, usenet lacked it too
as for all public indexers - it gives a strong messy feeling of a public tracker except that there's next to none feedback so you can never be sure what you download before you'll get it. maybe there are some advanced techniques to guess that the stuff you need is fake/passworded etc but definitely it's not "wysiwyg" in some decent %% of cases
ps for those who saw my previous requests for some particular bd's - my starter for 10 / stage beauty / oss117 in rio 32gb requests got filled through ptp.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kukushka
except that there's next to none feedback
And except that you can actually download it, full speed ;)
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Solitude
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kukushka
except that there's next to none feedback
And except that you can actually download it, full speed ;)
1 this "IT" has to exist in newsgroups,
2 it has to be found at first,
3 there should be some ways to find out without too much efforts what the pass is if there's any...
so it's not like you pay money and you get what you want, if your wishes have a bit more variety than usual scene shit, newsgroups can be useless. maybe comparing to tpb/demonoid it's ok, but apart from it, i couldn't find any hints for newgroups to be any near kind of a goldmine for my movie needs...
...i wouldn't mind to have a regular access to news as a backup solution, just like i'm using ddl, but considering all of the factors above plus the monetary one, it's just not effective for me
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kukushka
1 this "IT" has to exist in newsgroups,
2 it has to be found at first,
3 there should be some ways to find out without too much efforts what the pass is if there's any...
I really don't get any much of fakes or passworded stuff, you have a bit gloomy image.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kukushka
so it's not like you pay money and you get what you want, if your wishes have a bit more variety than usual scene shit, newsgroups can be useless.
Or can be not. I often download non-scene stuff too, like WEB-DL (truth be told BTN is still better for that), or some long forgotten DVDs.
It never was a goldmine for me, but ease of use, speed and lack of need to seed back worth paying.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
you mean, abhdtv.net forum that requires some money
one can do without it
german edition bluray is there (fr\ger audio)
Its also there, English edition
Quote:
if your wishes have a bit more variety than usual scene shit, newsgroups can be useless
there are loads of nonscene stuff there. Both classic in various edition and general.
What i was trying to say you wont find so many movies at one place, blurays as well, anywhere esle.
And available at full download speedfor almost 3 years
Lots of releases on your russian hdtracker use stuff from usenet .
And please, gief us ~15 titles(and format) that you couldnt find on usenet except those ones mentioned
Im curious.
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Re: my anaylsis on usenet vs torrenting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lucifer9999
be serious.. there are some great torrent sites , which combined surclass any form of filesharing known to man till now!!! :)
I think the relevant point is that many of those "great sites" aren't available to the average person whereas Usenet is .
For example I think it's ludicrous to bring HDbits into the equation because "great" or not it's basically a closed system so you are preaching entirely to the choir.
People may complain about Usenet being mercenary but point of fact at the same time money has no expectations and knows no prejudices .