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
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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.
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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 add.jpgAdd
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* 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.
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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
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Now you right click the correct group and select Subscribe. Then you click back.jpg Back and you will see a list of all groups that you subscribed to.
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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.
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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.
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Originally Posted by jobijo
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