Newsgroups ...whats the story

[Gazo]

I am curious to know how it works.......I recently tried out the usenet binaries free daily trial which allows you to download a few pictures(approx 15 depending on the sizes)..and then you use up your quota unless you are willing to pay...my question is is there another way to get to be in newsgroups..? or does everybody in them pay..? and when i am using the free trial there seems to be just pics to view..is there a sort of community in them where the members can associte or communicate with each other as in like yahoo groups.

Is it possible to gain entry for free on a permanant basis or does everybody have to go through usenet binaries pay process..from what I have seen there are lots and lots of pics there yet to be posted here and I am itching to get my hands on them to post here.

Any help or information gladly recieved...cheers

[echoes]

yes there is a community of newsgroups like yahoo groups.
ISPs some times (not sure how often) have news severs you can use to connect to newsgroups. this service should be covered along with your regular service. some prolly also offer access to their news servers for an extra monthly fee tho. my ISP doesn't have a news server tho...
an alternative is to use a pay service, as you have noticed.

[village1diot]

This might be a little late, but still might be useful:

Most major ISP's have news servers. The 4 ISP's Ive used, have all had News Servers and free access to them. They tend to be more limited than if you paid for access. They will ban more groups and delete files much quicker than a paid service. But everything else is the same.

But if you want to talk about getting large files, I suggest you use torrents. Large files on News Servers are a pain in the ass the upload or download. They weren't originally made for filesharing purposes and have not improved.

[Zortag]

I've been using the Usenet for nearly 20 years, and am very comfortable with it. I never have tried to use torrent; what kind of upload / download speeds are typical on torrents? The major advantage I see to the Usenet, is the simple ability to automate and schedule both the upload and download procedures.

For example, if I have a 4 GB video file to share, I run one program to make the splits, that takes about 30 secs to set up, and runs unattended for another 15 minutes or so; then crank up the posting program and spend maybe 2 minutes max setting up the posting job (select all the files, choose newsgroup to post to, title for posting, define upload start time). And I am done, when I'm asleep or at work, the the scheduled job starts up, and may take 4 to 6 hours to upload, but it requires no attention from me; and I have a log file, if there is a problem (maybe a half dozen failures in 20 years, all have been due to power loss during upload). On the download side, things are even easier, now that most people are using NZB files (a very tiny XML file that tells the an NZB-enabled news downloader where to find all the articles in the download); just download the NZB (less than 500 KB), drag it into the newsdownloader, schedule the download start time and destination; a grand total of 2 or 3 minutes. Then again, while I am at work or asleep, the download job kicks off, downloads everything, and even repairs and re-assembles as needed.

I find that the web-based methods are simply awful, not only are the upload and download rates dreadful (a 4 GB file might take 16 hours), but you have to manually baby-sit the whole operation: click, then wait 20 or 30 minutes, just so you can click again, repeat adnausium. This is not high tech, this is reverting back to stone age methodology.

With the Usenet, your only speed limitation is that imposed by your ISP. There are no storage limitations, I understand the retention time issues, but requesting a re-post is a simple matter, and polite requests are generally handled in a short time.

What are the good/bad points of this torrent "thingie"? I have a general inclination to stay well away from P2P, as that requires leaving my system open to the outside world, which is something that might cause many of my clients (DoD, DoE, etc) to cancel their contracts with me.

[butler bill]

I signed up for Usenet and couldn't get it to work. Granted, I am not very good with computers.
There was no response to my inquires, so I would say that if you are not computer literate don't waste your money. There is no support once they have your money.

[Zortag]

I don't know who you sent your money to, the Usenet is generally provided as a free service by most ISP's. Granted, the retention times of the free services are shorter (30 days or so), and one can pirchase a subscription to a news service if you find it useful. I have, over the years, helped quite a few people getting their news reader set up, and the number one issue, by far, is the name (or address) of their news server; for some reason most of these people don't know who is their ISP, and a simple call to the tech line of the ISP is all that is required: what's the address of the news server, what username and password is needed.

Thanks for the pointer, I'll read up on torrent.

[echoes]

I don't know who you sent your money to, the Usenet is generally provided as a free service by most ISP's.

not all ISPs have a news server, as you said. i am sure that is what he was referring to. my ISP doesn't have one either.

Thanks for the pointer, I'll read up on torrent.

no prob.

[lineback]

I'm on ATT DSL and in the last month they have decimated their newsgroups by 90%. Most of the adult groups have been removed. I'm guessing it was to remove liability for possibly hosting child porn though they gave me no notice or explanation.

[echoes]

I'm on ATT DSL and in the last month they have decimated their newsgroups by 90%. Most of the adult groups have been removed. I'm guessing it was to remove liability for possibly hosting child porn though they gave me no notice or explanation.

thats often an excuse that is used...

[Jackson]

Yea, Road Runner has dropped newsgroups lock, stock, and barrel. Others have sharply curtailed them, Binaries in particular. Not sure where one can even get a feed anymore unless your willing to belly up a membership fee equal to that of many adult sites.

[Gazo]

while I still visit them on my free daily basis I noticed the number of pic and traffic in general has delined massively..........reckon like the yahoo groups they are fighting a losing battle........seems to me its an outdated method.

Pity really ..got some good stuff there.

[Jackson]

while I still visit them on my free daily basis I noticed the number of pic and traffic in general has delined massively..........reckon like the yahoo groups they are fighting a losing battle........seems to me its an outdated method.

Pity really ..got some good stuff there.

Yea, not surprising given that the collective user base of RR and all the other ISPs that were part of that agreement with NY AG's office was probably pretty staggering. They whacked a whole lot of people real fast. Ironic actually, since these authorities also hate P2P operations which are arguably much harder to harness and control, they put a huge motivation out there for bulk sharing to fill the Newsgroups void.

Government never learns, they create a demand via a form of prohibition and people will find a way to fill it.

[echoes]

...Government never learns, they create a demand via a form of prohibition and people will find a way to fill it.

exactly. liked they tried to do with (alcohol) prohibition. same with drugs. they create black markets.