complete noob

[kopy]

Hi,

I'm a complete noob at newsgroups, so i have a few questions

- Is the data on all newsgroups the same?
- What do the site's mean with number of sessions?
- Can I use a account with multiple people?
- I have a dynamic IP that refreshes every 24h is this a problem?
- How is the content comparing to torrent?
- Why is there a traceroute test on some of the site's? What is it good for?

-What is in your opinion the best newsgroup provider?


Thanks in advance

Kopy

[Broken]

- Is the data on all newsgroups the same?
Yes and no.
The protocol is for every news server to mirror one another, this is ideal. In reality ever provider is completely in charge of it's self, including how well this mirror is, and what groups are carried. Then there is also the issue of retention - how long the files are keep vary by provider. For example, your ISP may carry Usenet but may only keep files for a few hours. Then there are paid providers like Giganews that carry files for 200 days before the space gets recycled.

- What do the site's mean with number of sessions?
I'm guessing that you mean multiple connections.
ISP will often limited the speed of a single connection. The more connections you have the more likely that you will be able to max out the speed of your connection.

- Can I use a account with multiple people?
It's like any other net based service. Same computer/Internet connection is fine. If you try and share an account on a different computer/Internet connection you will probably loose your account.

- I have a dynamic IP that refreshes every 24h is this a problem?
No problem. You will still stay within a certain IP range.

- How is the content comparing to torrent?
The amount of content is massive. It's growing by an estimated 2-3TBs daily (2000-3000GBs) and considering that gets compounded to the limits of your carriers retention it really is unbelievable.

- Why is there a traceroute test on some of the site's? What is it good for?
One of the key things about Usenet is that you should expect to download at the full speed of your connection every time. Provider's try to route your connection around spots in the Internet that may slow down your download. If for some reason your connection is slower than it should be, you can run a trace-route to determine the fastest path to direct data to yourself.

-What is in your opinion the best newsgroup provider?
No doubt, Giganews is the best. They are also the most expensive at anywhere from $25+ a month for a unlimited account. I feel they are well worth it though. The have the longest retention, best completion (mirroring), best speeds, and never go down.

[kopy]

Ok thanks i guess this answers all my questions

I have a few other questions

- Is it possible to find something in the articles or should i always use NZB's?
- Does giganews have their own NZB search?
- I find all NZB search site's so difficult to find something you really need because when you search something on torrent you almost instantly find what you look for and whit those nzb site's it's very hard because there is a hughe list with irrelevant stuff
- Do you know a free newsgroup that provides binary's? No giganews because they want my credit card straight away

Thanks

[Beck38]

A couple things:

I think Broken may have confused your first question, Newgroups, with NewsServers. There are well over 100K news'GROUPS', and yes, the content 'should' be the same from NewsServer to NewsServer.

Giganews is the best, price is highest but unless you like 'chasing' after 'fills' (missing parts from another newsServer....). Some people do. Some get good service from others... I've tried 'em all, and 'bit the bullet' on Giganews. Three years ago, been on news for over 20 years, used to run my own server 'back in the day' when you said 'Internet' and 100% of folks said 'Uh???'

Some of us 'old timers' do header downloads, at least in the groups that we monitor closely. Many sites like this one do a pretty good job of listing stuff, others as well, but the 'king' of nzb's is, of course, the inventor of nzb's, Newzbin. VERY low cost, lots of 'humans' doing the work, but still they miss a fair amount. FYI, get a news-reader that will auto-generate nzb's, will save you some effort/time.

The good nzb sites (like this one) are pretty good, but again, Newzbin catagorizes everything, and the ability to 'slice and dice' your search is pretty supreme.

Again, don't confuse 'Newsgroup' with 'NewsServer'. Two different things, there are newsGROUPS within the NewsServer. Parent-child relationship. And the articles are within the newsGroups. So it's a Parent to Child to Grandchild relationship, totally.

[Broken]

I think Broken may have confused your first question, Newgroups, with NewsServers. There are well over 100K news'GROUPS', and yes, the content 'should' be the same from NewsServer to NewsServer.

Yep, your right.
I took the question very generically, trying not to confuse the newbie.

[mesaman]

Edit

[..:: c.R ::..]

- I have a dynamic IP that refreshes every 24h is this a problem?

My experience with Giganews is that with my dynamic IP address via DSL, once i get a renewed IP, i loose my connection to Giganews and have to wait about 15 min's for their IP queue to allow me to download again. i personally despise of this. If i'm wrong, let me know because that is what they told me. Their advise to resolve this was to request the my ISP reserve me an IP address.

==============
- Is it possible to find something in the articles or should i always use NZB's?
i don't understand this question, can you please clarify it? Give an example mabe.

- Does giganews have their own NZB search?
Giganews will NEVER have an nzb search feature on their site, no reason to. They are using their database storage for something else - their 200+ days of retention.

- I find all NZB search site's so difficult to find something you really need because when you search something on torrent you almost instantly find what you look for and whit those nzb site's it's very hard because there is a hughe list with irrelevant stuff
i'm not sure which search sites you use for nzb's but what type of query entries do you use? Personally, i prefer more "options" to choose from rather then just "one" option. Also, how broad of a query entry are you searching for? Are you typing in "batman" and come back with a huge listing on the nzb searches? That's because of how broad it is. Now if you did a search for a specific community release, then you will narrow those results down drastically - i recommend you use more specific searches.

- Do you know a free newsgroup that provides binary's? No giganews because they want my credit card straight away
Nope, stopped using the free ones back in '97 and never looked back - i'm not sure why you are so concerned about your CC info. i've been a proud member of the premimum usenet service for almost 11 years and haven't regretted once.

[kopy]

- Is it possible to find something in the articles or should i always use NZB's?
i don't understand this question, can you please clarify it? Give an example mabe.

So if i connect to a text only nntp (wich i have from my provider) i can subsrcibe to groups and then i can search inside a group to find an article but is it possible to find relevant stuff (and all parts) with searching in groups without using NZB?

[Broken]

If your service is text only you won't be downloading anything with a NZB. Your service has to offer binaries to download "files" form Usenet.

BUT, if you service did offer binaries, sure you could find an entire post without an NZB. It takes a little more time, but more than a few people like doing it themselves.

[kopy]

Thanks for all the answers but i'll stick by torrenting for a while