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Can someone explain the benefits of Usenet to a long-time torrent-er? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by nopersonalspace@lemmy.world to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6240929

I'm a pretty heavy torrent user, running a media server complete with sonarr/radarr for automatic downloads. I download a lot, and have multiple TBs of upload on various private trackers. I've been torrenting forever, but I've always wondered about usenet. Over and over on this, and other, forums I see people saying that usenet is way better - but why?

I understand what it is overall, but what makes it better than traditional torrenting? In my mind, it's always just seemed like a different means to the same end. I pay for a VPN and torrent for "free", or I pay for usenet access and download directly from there. As someone who's "snobby" around the quality of the stuff I torrent, does usenet provide an advantage there?

Usenet fans, I'd love to hear what makes you love it! I'm always open to trying new things, and if It really is better I'd love to know why! (Plus, maybe what providers/tools etc you recommend).

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[-] Nyarlathotep@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 year ago

Good summary, that will help a lot of people.

I think it is worth pointing out to those that don't know that automation via the *arr apps is optional. Sure, it's great, but it's not like you need to learn that whole toolchain right away. With a good indexer, a good server, and a good download app you can get going really easily. You're just doing manual searches and clicking to download nzb files.

I have also found that having more than one indexer helps. Part of the trick is finding a few that complement each other--and then getting an invitation to register. Everyone has their own opinion on what combos are good.

[-] BrownianMotion@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As I have said in the past, there are plenty of good free ones, and there are also spotweb (spotnab) sites that are great as long as your a fast (ie dcma).

Also the "arrrs" were designed with usenet first, its not an afterthought.

if you want to get access to good indexers, then yeah you may need to wait until you get am invite or an invite period opens, but you have to do this, its just how they operate.

you can do torrents and usenet in your arrr, at the same time. So nothing stops you from having both.

but the SPEED AND RELEASES youll see on usenet are unsurpassed and probably at least a week earlier than on your torrent sites.

Also you can run your own indexer for usenet (wont be as good as some because it wont deal with obfuscated posts, but as a backup it will be fine)

Id suggest you go down the rabbit hole and decide for yourself if you like it, you can always cancel.

oh and usenet is encrypted (if you enable it, ie port 563) so not much chance of knowing what your are doing. No more than a VPN company letting on to what a user was doing.

[-] nonamefool@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Agreed. Automation is optional. You can easily get started with many popular Windows apps that are readily available (my advice is to always go open-source).

Setting up automation was a laborious task for me. I set it all up on TrueNAS - so it was a bit harder that just using Windows apps and file systems. But, well worth the time!

My indexer has been darn rock solid for all the things I have ever looked for. Do you have any insight as to any other indexer that might benefit me? Got an invite to give out?

[-] Nyarlathotep@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

I will give you a quick overview of what I have found. No invitations are needed for the indexers I use. AFAIK we can name names here, right?

NZBPlanet has been good for me, and I bought lifetime there years ago. However, as time went on I noticed some holes in their coverage--mainly for older stuff. I still use it as my primary, though. I am not sure if they still sell the lifetime tier, but registration is open so you can take a look. I am not sure what the free tier gets you though, it isn't listed in their tiers page. If you are interested primarily in current stuff, I feel like the lifetime membership still ain't bad. Registration appears to be open.

I found that DrunkenSlug filled in a lot of the gaps that I found on NZBPlanet. I liked it enough that I recently bought a year. The free tier at 5 downloads per day is not generous, but it can definitely help if you are in a jam. They also have open registration, at least right now.

ABNZB is also in my rotation, but only at the free tier, which is also 5 downloads. (I think I am a "legacy" free member with 25 downloads.) My impression is that its coverage is similar to NZBPlanet but once in a while it helps me find something that I don't find at Planet or Slug.

Lastly, the totally free and primitive looking binsearch.info is worth a bookmark as a site of last resort. It's bailed me out before.

If I was starting over from scratch I might do Slug instead of Planet.

We're all looking for different stuff and it's hard to be definitive about coverage, but these are my impressions.

For a server I have been very happy with Eweka. I don't even have a block account elsewhere for fills. Once in a blue moon there is something I can't get at all, I just roll with it. I already have more Linux ISOs than I can use. :)