Best free Newsreader

**zot** · 05-08-2011, 06:53 AM

Originally Posted by mjmacky

After going back and forth, the winner is BY FAR Alt.binz, leaving sabnzbd defeated. Maybe sabnzbd has the benefit of integration with nzbmatrix (that I don't use), but for general use nzb grabbing, Alt.binz is a much better program. You have more control over what happens to the downloads, you can actually see what parts are incomplete if any. Sabnzbd would be doing too much in the background while Altbinz lets you monitor every step. There was a comparison download where sabnzbd made 2 attempts to repair a file that Altbinz reported nothing wrong (par2 check), downloaded within 3 minutes of each other. So it wasn't much fun while it lasted, but bye bye Sabnzbd.

In the older versions of SABnzbd (by the original developer, not the SABnzbdPLUS developers) you could switch on "verbosity" and get more file segment details - a feature that seems to be missing in the current SABnzbd+

To me, the original SABnzbd (v.2.5) was far superior to the current (+) generation, which by comparison is bloated, resource hungry, buggy, and IMO often confusing and clunky to use. (I hate being forced to use "wizards" and C:\Documents and settings\<user>\ directories)

After a long dry spell, I tried out the new Sabnzbd+ release, and immediately my sickly old laptop processor was maxing out, and I got massive corruption/incompletes on a 1-day old file. (I shut it down since I could see there was no use continuing) I then tried the original (non-plus) version of SABnzbd and got perfect completion on the same file.

I agree that Alt.Binz (old versions included) has an excellent user interface, with all relevant file information readily available. It's not perfect, though. One complaint I have with most clients including Altbinz (I've not tried the new versions - maybe this has changed?) is that if a downloaded file has too many missing segments and the rars cannot be re-assembled, then after a secondary fill-server is added, the entire file (or entire rars) must be re-downloaded all over again, wasting much bandwidth. With Usenet Explorer, by comparison, a fill-server can be added after a failed download and the fillserver will only download the missing segments.

**Hypatia** · 05-08-2011, 08:06 AM

alt binz is not very proficient at downloading+unpacking at high speeds(100mbit+) and not overloading ones system compared to newsbin\ usenet explorer... especially newsbin6 with its RAM\cache tricks one can set up in INI

When i tried it, it was thrashing my disks severely , interface became very slowm unresponsive, speed dropped heavily, it used lots of resources...well, in my case, that is

+ i really hate when software has to connect to an authentication server every time i start it.. and headers are not supported( thus i dont think its Ok to name all those like sabnzbd\altbinz a newsreader)

**zot** · 05-08-2011, 03:33 PM

That's what turned me off Newsleecher years ago. I think it was during the trial period (fortunately) I discovered that when the program is launched, if NL could not connect to the authentication server for any reason, it would seize the PC. (apparently even some registered users preferred to use cracked versions for this reason)

Then recently Newsleecher's auth server was down for an extended period, and the developer was nowhere to be found, so paid users were getting mighty annoyed being constantly locked out.

One thing that would help with disk-thrashing (as well as NZB simplification) is if NNTP posting standards allowed for big article sizes -- like about 150K lines. (so a 15MB rar could be posted as a single article) It seems that Astraweb has always been among the most miserly on this lines/article posting limit. The limits currently in place might have been appropriate years ago, but I don't see much reason for such restrictive limits in an age of 100mbit internet.

**heiska** · 05-08-2011, 10:22 PM

Originally Posted by zot

..

One thing that would help with disk-thrashing (as well as NZB simplification) is if NNTP posting standards allowed for big article sizes -- like about 150K lines. (so a 15MB rar could be posted as a single article) It seems that Astraweb has always been among the most miserly on this lines/article posting limit. The limits currently in place might have been appropriate years ago, but I don't see much reason for such restrictive limits in an age of 100mbit internet.

I've never run a Usenet server, but it would make sense, both IO-wise and for the simple fact that every HDD fails some day, to store each article on a different HDD - that could be the reason why the article size is so restricted. I'm pretty everyone has noticed how some releases mystically miss just a few articles...

I meant of course that each article of a single post on different HDD. Every HDD would of course contain tens of thousands of articles from different posts.

**mjmacky** · 05-09-2011, 12:42 AM

Originally Posted by zot

I agree that Alt.Binz (old versions included) has an excellent user interface, with all relevant file information readily available. It's not perfect, though. One complaint I have with most clients including Altbinz (I've not tried the new versions - maybe this has changed?) is that if a downloaded file has too many missing segments and the rars cannot be re-assembled, then after a secondary fill-server is added, the entire file (or entire rars) must be re-downloaded all over again, wasting much bandwidth

For me, the success rate of auto-repairing missing parts on Alt.binz would be 50/50. However, I also have QuickPar installed, and what I appreciate about Alt.binz is that I manually select how many repair files I want, download them into the same folder, and use QuickPar to repair. I've never had to redownload the same articles. The auto-repair on Sabnabd+ failed much more in my short time of using it than Alt.binz.

Originally Posted by Hypatia

alt binz is not very proficient at downloading+unpacking at high speeds(100mbit+) and not overloading ones system compared to newsbin\ usenet explorer... especially newsbin6 with its RAM\cache tricks one can set up in INI

It maxes my download speed of 40 Mbps, therefore I can't speak on how it handles 100 Mbps, but up to 40 it works great.

I haven't tried newsbin (wouldn't shell out the money) nor Usenet Explorer (never researched it). But so far I haven't heard an overwhelming reason to try either. I was more inclined to try sabnzbd but found myself disappointed, as I described earlier. Maybe sometime later I'll look into UE.

**mfalaura** · 05-10-2011, 09:59 AM

What do you think about grabit newsreader ? i don't have made my choice for the moment...

**zot** · 05-10-2011, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by mfalaura

I use Grabit i think it's the most famous no ?

Originally Posted by mfalaura

What do you think about grabit newsreader ? i don't have made my choice for the moment...

Somehow I sense a contradiction here.

Since you run a website for profit, maybe you should recommend Newsbin - I believe they pay commissions just like all those usenet providers you run ads for. (You won't make any money recommending Grabit!)

Grabit is somewhat buggy, but would probably be OK if you disable auto-par/auto-rar and do it manually. As I said before, Grabit was once the best free client, but has since fallen behind, and is now long overdue for an update.