Usenet is unmoderated. Once you post it, it sticks forever. We could probably get one of the independent providers to give free access to a new newsgroup. Anyone have any thoughts?
I’ve used Usenet for my content needs for years because it’s so fast and risk free. I think we could also use it for our community discussions.
Hi, I keep hearing this everywhere, what exactly is usenet and how do I use it? (sorry if this is derailing the point of your question)
Usenet is a very old part of the internet. I think it predates the world wide web. It’s basically a message board. Which boards (like subs) exist on there is democratically decided. At least that was how it was done in Germany. For example, when there where too many Star Wars posts in the Science Fiction group de.rec.sf they decided to create one for Star Wars under de.rec.sf.starwars.
The actual content resides on newsservers around the globe. When you pass a message to one of them it is distributed around the globe to all the other servers. It’s similar to how Lemmy works, with the difference that with Lemmy content is only passed around when someone is actually subscribed to a particular community.
But many news servers don’t pass around messages that contain files. Because that would take up too much space. To get access to the servers that do pass around files you have to pay for the service. That is actually used for piracy nowadays.
Back in the days you could actually get access to usenet from your ISP. At least to the text only portion. Don’t know how you’d do it nowadays. It’s mostly fallen to obscurity.
This helped me understand usenet properly, thank you. I don’t see the allure of using it especially since torrents are free and largely seeded (depending on the indexer and your preference). I see why people would prefer it for more obscure stuff though.
The main reason it might be used is it integrates very well with services such as Sonarr/Radarr which can auto-download TV shows/movies if you have a good indexer. That and generally the Usenet servers do not keep access logs so it tends to be a lot safer than torrenting. For software/games etc. I would stick with torrents, but for TV/Movies if you have your own server Usenet is a compelling service.
I have used both and I don’t disagree with you, but I want to say it’s worth noting that torrents also work fine with Sonarr and Radarr!
Good point - I did find torrents a lot more fiddly to set up though.
Agreed again haha, it was way more fiddly (but also more free!)
These days I’m just using Stremio for my media though, with add-ons it’s glorious
Free is always the best price! I’ve been using a Sonarr/SABnzbd/Emby setup on my home built NAS (unRAID) for about 7 years now. Until recently I had about 9.5TB of shows but then got ransomwared :(. Got about 4 of it back now and counting!
Omg that’s awful 😱 sorry for your loss
Usenet was originally intended for sharing information but then it moved into being sort of the first social media platform then it kind of transitioned back into being mostly used for file sharing.
I can totally saturate my 1 gig internet connection with Usenet. Can download at incredible speeds. No need to ever upload. No logs of what I download. Almost instant access.
You need an indexer and you need a provider. Then you use sabnzbd to queue up what you want to download. It’s not free but depending on how much you plan to download, it’s a bargain.
For indexers I suggest drunkenslug or nzbplanet. For a provider I suggest NewsDemon or Usenet.farm. They are both good independent providers who have helped Usenet stay alive and not succumb to corporate greed.
Usenet WAS basically the internet back in the early to mid 90s,they are also called list servers, that’s basically what they are.
You post to a list by topic and it appends your post to the list. It’s like reddit in that there are topics and subjects but the list just goes on forever.
Each post will have your subject line and other header info and the software will let you reply and quote and so on.
The key is that it isn’t very centralized, servers will copy the lists and host their own. The cool thing was it would let you post binaries. So piracy and pr0n on the internet was here b4 websites were really a thing.
There are a lot of list servers out there but my understanding is that the good ones are a subscription now.
Yes. You need to pay a small amount but unless you plan on downloading many TBs of stuff the cost is really small. The speeds and lack of risk makes it worthwhile for me. I think I paid $5 for a 1 TB account and I can use the free level of access at my indexers without having to pay.
Like I said in my original post, I wonder if we can get a provider to host a newsgroup for us for free?
Where did you get this deal if you don’t mind me asking?
I personally use frugalusenet for $4/pm, which is unlimited, but if I could find $5/1TB I would switch to that.
Indexer I pay $1/pm for a big one and I have a free one that has less.
Could you point me towards the free one? I just want a taste of usenet before I commit
Also, usenet.farm (backend) has a 10GB trial.