How to Usenet?

Hello,

I tried in the past to wrap my head around usenet, and I bought access to some news downloader (iirc it was called that way not sure, but it was Eweka) and tried using it, the problem was that every download I tried to get was dead on arrival (link being dead, failing to verify file integrity) yet so many people on piracy forums swear by Usenet and claim that for ~$60 a year they get a much more superior experience than torrents, and yet, I currently torrent everything with no issues at all.

The reason for trying Usenet that when attempting to search some less popular TV shows/movies, I could not always find it in the quality I wanted to see, and therefore decided to give it a try.

Any suggestions?

gwi1785,

well, my experience and use of usenet is kind of limited but the really goud stuff with (mainly) working links can be found on restricted boards. you at least have to register and access is not always open.

then you need an app like sabnzb and a good usenet provider (depending on what you seek).

mirc is or at least was a free irc client but if you get access to a well managed board that has your stuff you will just need sab. and a vpn of course.

if you just surf and search on your own there is a ton of crap, incomplete stuff, wrongly labeled files etc.

TrenchcoatFullofBats,

You need 2 indexers (in case one goes down temporarily) and two providers with different backbones - one primary and one to backfill if all portions of the file you want aren’t available on your primary.

Here’s a good overview of Usenet backbones. For example, Newsdemon with Eweka is a decent combo.

This all works best with an *arr stack + SABnzbd. *arr apps will connect to the indexers so you can find stuff to download when you search for something - for example, Sonarr for TV shows.

When a file that meets your requirements is found, Sonarr will download the nzb file and put it in a directory that SAB watches. SAB then downloads the file and puts it in “completed” directory that Sonarr watches.

Sonarr then moves the file to that TV show’s directory, which your media player (like Jellyfin) watches, and then it shows up there for you to enjoy.

If you get everything dialed right, it works perfectly and is super reliable.

BuffLettuce,
@BuffLettuce@kbin.social avatar

I use Eweka, I have 5 trackers including nzbgeek and drunken slug, set up with SabNZB, and Sonarr for shows. I manually do movies by searching with NZBHydra. Shit is great man. I find everything old and new. I think you just need to mess with your setup. Usenet is 10000x better then trying to torrent everything. Torrent is great for like... Mass.downloading some older stuff maybe, but Usenet has everything you need. Yarrrr

mrmanager,
@mrmanager@lemmy.today avatar

How is it better than just going to a torrent search site? It has a lot more content?

BuffLettuce,
@BuffLettuce@kbin.social avatar

Usually. I would also say it has "Different" content. its also usually faster as your not relying on seeds/leachers

TrenchcoatFullofBats,

More content and also much longer retention - many providers retain files for 4000+ days (11 years).

It doesn’t matter if that one guy in Macedonia is still seeding, if it’s on a server with good retention, you’ll get it immediately and at very fast, non-Macedonian speeds.

nyk,

Usenet is paid, right? Can you find free resources there?

navitux,
@navitux@lemmy.world avatar

Is that still a thing ?

retro,

It’s much easier than trying to play the private tracker game if you are willing to spend a couple of dollars.

heavyboots,
@heavyboots@lemmy.ml avatar

I feel like it is very unlikely it was Eweka if all the files were incomplete/corrupted? They very rarely are with that service. Stuff that is like 6 or 8 years old comes down fine from there quite frequently.

I will say that if the show you are looking for is by a large enough company, they may have hired a takedown service that will delete just enough files to cause the entire thing to be corrupt depending on the newsgroup provider. Mainstream usenet service providers get hit the worst. If it’s something you really want to see, you may only have a few hours to DL it before it is corrupted in that case.

sp451,

You will also need a good indexer. Ideally one that can be integrated into your nzb downloader and your media system. I’m using nzbget together with sonarr for TV series and a few indexers

CriticalMiss,

At the time I used NZBGeek, but as mentioned previously unless the content was really new, it didn’t work as good as I wanted it to.

sp451,

I will need to check to which ones I actually have sonarr connected. I also use nzbgrabit.xyz which does not offer an API but it’s manual download of nzb files. It has most of what I’m interested in. Wait for a good offer to subscribe (like Black Friday)

retro,

I found that Geek paired with DrunkenSlug served me very well for new and old content.

CriticalMiss,

I heard of Drunken in the past but I couldn’t get an invite and always missed the registrations dates, so I just stuck with Geek.

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