What are newsgroups?

[spol]

Q: I keep hearing that folks are moving from BT to newsgroups but I honestly have no clue what it is. Can someone explain this for those who dont know/

thanks. :)



Answer by Spare-Flair:

Some of the answers in this threat are really complicated. I'll try to help you out a bit. Newsgroups are basically Usenet. Usenet is an old part of the internet that's existed since the late 70s. You ever use Google and see the link beside "images" that says "groups"? That's Google's Usenet archive.

Usenet is basically a huge bulletin-board like service. People post messages or upload files to it, and people are free to download. In two decades, it's been the most constant and fastest method of sharing files in spite of everything else that's come up in all these years. It's also considered among the safest and most reliable. Before the flood of P2P products and bittorrent, it was basically Usenet and IRC/FTP...and BBS's too but you can't get anything worthwhile off a 14.4 baud modem

If you want to see how it looks, well it looks different depending on what you access it with. You can access it with Google, just hit the groups link and browse around but you aren't going to be able to download files (which primarily exist in the alt.binaries groups). You can even view newsgroups with Outlook Express. Your ISP should provide a free news server. You can usually get sustained 130-200kbps instantaneous downloads with newsgroup binaries because they are actually hosted on your ISP's own server.

The drawback is that some ISPs have limited retention. Like a regular bulletin board, things posted on it will disappear, usually within 2-3 days on ISP news servers. Paid for news servers however have long retention, anywhere from 14-90 days.

The most obvious benefit of newsgroups is that it's no-hassle download. If you want something and you see it there, you just highlight all the parts and hit download and then you have it. No fluctuating speeds, unstable trackers, leeching peers, uploading requisites, logins, passwords, nothing.

Essential tools for using usenet are: A news reader. Something like XNews is what I use but there are apparentely better ones out. You'll also need Winrar (most binaries are rar'd) and Quickpar (to repair damaged files).

If you want to see what's available currently, there are some free websites that track them so you don't have to go download all the group headers manually.

http://www.newzbin.com/

Is a good one but not that comprehensive.

[MrDisco]

this is commonly asked. a search helps.

For the politically-correct police and those who fear the distribution of knowledge IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM AM I ADVOCATING PIRACY. This is a primer on how to use Usenet. What you choose to do with it is your business. I can't believe providing help on how to use the tools commonly available can be seen as a BAD thing but apparently it is so do what you will with this.

(this comes up fairly regularly. this is my 5th time reposting this)

First advice. while OE is good to start off with, if you're going to be doing any serious downloading you're better off using a dedicated newsgroup program like Agent.

Usenet is a global discussion medium. Also referred to as newsgroups, or nntp services, the basic idea is that you launch your nntp client, connect to your nntp provider (ie. Sympatico or Rogers), and download a huge list of groups. You want mp3s? there are groups for it. You want anime? There are groups for it. You want pics of naked pregnant women? There are groups for it. Anything you can think of there's a group for. Some are pretty obvious, i.e. alt.binaries.women, others not so obvious (for obvious reasons). To be blunt yes there are many groups dedicated to piracy of various forms. THERE IS MORE TO USENET THEN JUST PIRATING! If you've ever used Google Groups you are in fact looking at a cached copy of discussion groups carried out over Usenet.

Ok great you've got your client grabbing a list of all the groups available from your paticular provider (more on this later). First thing you'll notice is that it's hierarchial based. That means there's a root structure. alt, meaning alternative, is THE most popular branch. from there it splits up into many different contexts with alt.binaries being the favourite destination for many. THIS IS NOT MEANT TO SUPPORT PIRACY. This is a simple matter of fact and the reality of the situation.

So now what? now you 'subscribe' to the groups you're interested. so say that group alt.binaries.goats looks really appealing to you. you subscribe to it and download all the headers. Headers are the subject names for all the posts available in that group. say what??? in english think of a big bulletin board. you're looking at the board for goats. on it there are all the messages (posts) created by people. you read off the subject line of these posts to see what interests you.

ok so you see a header that says 'Come look at my furry goat'. you then tell your client to grab the body of that post. now you can see the contents of that message.

pretty simple right? well it is if you're just dealing with text. originally this was a discussion medium but like everything it has evolved. people started posting binaries. Binaries are things such as exe, jpg, mp3, etc etc

In order for people to post messages of an actual file (say a .jpg) it needs to be converted into a text form. now days this is automatic so we can safely ignore this. you'll see people referring to yenc postings, etc but with a modern news reader you can ignore such details. the main thing is that you need your client to grab these encoded files and allow it to reconstruct it back into its original file format.

most of the time you can simply click of the headers and download them. i.e:
Happy Video.mpg [1/14]
Happy Video.mpg [2/14]
....
Happy Video.mpg [14/14]

ok in this case the file has been split up into 14 posts. you'll need to use your client to combine them all into one post and then download the file. most of the time this is automatic but sometimes newbie posters can mess things up so you'll have to do it.

now for larger postings it will often be split up into rar files. so:
happy bunnies.rar
happy bunnies.r00
...
happy bunnies.r65

you just need to grab all these rar files and unarchive them using a program like WinRAR.

But what if a piece is missing you may ask. Next I introduce the concept of software parity checking. there are two types. the original format is called par. the original poster will post not only the original files but also some software parity files. they work on a 1:1 ratio. so if you're missing 2 rar files you'll need 2 distinct par files (provided they were created and posted). so i.e:

Happy Bunnies.par
Happy Bunnies.p01
Happy Bunnies.p02

Note the file .par is just to check your files and doesn't contain any rebuilding info...for that you'll need the pXX files. A program like FSRaid will do this for you.

A newer scheme is par2. Rather then wasting time and bandwidth on downloading an entire par file, what if you have parts of the original file and only need a few bytes? enter par2. it rebuilds a corrupt file thus saving you from re-downloading a much larger par file. A program like QuickPar will do the checking and rebuilding for you (QuickPar can also handle par files). I find par2 to be slow but it does save on downloading complete files.

Going back to my analogy of a bulletin board, Usenet is pretty static. This means if you want a specific file (say pics of hamsters) you will either have to wait until someone posts it, or you can try and post a request message and hope someone is kind enough to fill your request (be sure to follow the rules! some groups have dedicated request groups to tracks such posts). Clearly this is not the medium to be used if you are very impatient. For popular stuff though it's a sure bet you will find what you are looking for.

To help aid in finding information there are a small handfull of indexed search engines you can use. I will not post the URL for such a search engine lest it be seen by some as a means of pirating software.

With regards to viruses, using Usenet is no more dangerous then using any other p2p applications. I would say Usenet is slightly safer in that people are not directly connecting to your PC to download content. If you plan on downloading binaries just make sure you trust the source and your anti-virus program definitions are uptodate. Remember if its too good to be true, it probably is (so don't go downloading a file that says naked Lindsay Loughan pics and executing it b/c 1. its fake (for now :P), 2. it may really be a trojan (etc) in disguise).

So that's it as far as leeching is concerned. back to the ISP. Many isp based nntp services are severly crippled in various ways:
Censored - they will not carry groups like alt.binaries.* for legal and bandwidth reasons
Completion - refers to how complete posts are. its useless if you're only seeing say 65% completion
Retention - by now you can probably appreciate the amount data that can flow through (or be spooled) on an nntp server. we're talking GB to TB of data. How long a newsserver will retain posts can help you in grabbing those super huge postings. its quite frustrating if you're into the 2nd day of downloading that playboy dvd and suddenly the posts are gone because they fell of the server.

With these 3 terms in mind its why people resort to a dedicated pay service. you'll have to decide which is best based on your downloading habits. you'll want no censorship, high retention, and a high completion rate.

have fun

[WiZZLa]

go to www.slyck.com for a tutorial.

[rangermcfadden]

this is commonly asked. a search helps.
With these 3 terms in mind its why people resort to a dedicated pay service. you'll have to decide which is best based on your downloading habits. you'll want no censorship, high retention, and a high completion rate.


Excellent post. Does anybody have any recommendation for a cheap yet decent usenet binaries provider?

[Wildfire]

Excellent post. Does anybody have any recommendation for a cheap yet decent usenet binaries provider?
http://www.newshosting.com/

They offer a on Unlimited (single user) account for $14.9 5USD/monthly

(they have other account options as well though)
http://www.newshosting.com/services/personal.php

[divx]

newsgroup is a paid service, certainly not all BT user would switch to them. newsgroup is only good for getting new/hot releases, BT is the way to go to get everything.

[spol]

thanks for the info everybody, can someone post some screenshots?

thanks.

[M-e-X-x]

newsgroup is a paid service, certainly not all BT user would switch to them. newsgroup is only good for getting new/hot releases, BT is the way to go to get everything.

actually, i can get a lot of things via newsgroups, but sometimes i can find some goodies with BT as well...

in regards to a good news server, u could use ur isp news server.. mine's pretty good in terms of speed and retention... not all isp news servers are good.. the rogers ones have good retention, but are capped on speeds.. the bell ones i hear aren't working anymore...

i guess i do 'pay' in a sense.. it comes from my internet access fee hehe :D

[GTI]

Hard to teach people newsgroups. They go "So www what?". Then they gotta learn how to use the client.

Napter, Kazaa, BT, etc. are so popular cause they were easy to use. I'm surprised the warez/mp3/movies newgroups are still around while all the BT P2P stuff are being shutdown. One thing great about newsgroups is that it's all downstream.

[Menace]

The stuff available on BT are usually on newsgroups a few hours/days before. However, I sometimes find the corrupted files from the newsgroups, they turn out ok on BT.

[Beradon]

There's also IRC channels but that's for another day and another pain for the RIAA/MPAA/SIIA. Mouhahahhahahahahha! :lol:

[mrmoe]

actually, i can get a lot of things via newsgroups, but sometimes i can find some goodies with BT as well...

in regards to a good news server, u could use ur isp news server.. mine's pretty good in terms of speed and retention... not all isp news servers are good.. the rogers ones have good retention, but are capped on speeds.. the bell ones i hear aren't working anymore...

i guess i do 'pay' in a sense.. it comes from my internet access fee hehe :D




right.


rogers uses giganews
giganews = best news server out there

[poppa]

if only Rogers had bought the high speed tier...that would be even better.

[MrDisco]

giganews is really good
easynews is good too
newsfeeds was great but i dont like their new pricing scheme

[Spare-Flair]

newsgroup is a paid service, certainly not all BT user would switch to them. newsgroup is only good for getting new/hot releases, BT is the way to go to get everything.

That is not true at all. All major ISPs have free newservers. If you are current you can usually grab all the parts before they expire unless something is fragged which is rarer now with pars.

[Spare-Flair]

I keep hearing that folks are moving from BT to newsgroups but I honestly have no clue what it is. Can someone explain this for those who dont know/

thanks. :)

-edited title-

Some of the answers in this threat are really complicated. I'll try to help you out a bit. Newsgroups are basically Usenet. Usenet is an old part of the internet that's existed since the late 70s. You ever use Google and see the link beside "images" that says "groups"? That's Google's Usenet archive.

Usenet is basically a huge bulletin-board like service. People post messages or upload files to it, and people are free to download. In two decades, it's been the most constant and fastest method of sharing files in spite of everything else that's come up in all these years. It's also considered among the safest and most reliable. Before the flood of P2P products and bittorrent, it was basically Usenet and IRC/FTP...and BBS's too but you can't get anything worthwhile off a 14.4 baud modem :)

If you want to see how it looks, well it looks different depending on what you access it with. You can access it with Google, just hit the groups link and browse around but you aren't going to be able to download files (which primarily exist in the alt.binaries groups). You can even view newsgroups with Outlook Express. Your ISP should provide a free news server. You can usually get sustained 130-200kbps instantaneous downloads with newsgroup binaries because they are actually hosted on your ISP's own server.

The drawback is that some ISPs have limited retention. Like a regular bulletin board, things posted on it will disappear, usually within 2-3 days on ISP news servers. Paid for news servers however have long retention, anywhere from 14-90 days.

The most obvious benefit of newsgroups is that it's no-hassle download. If you want something and you see it there, you just highlight all the parts and hit download and then you have it. No fluctuating speeds, unstable trackers, leeching peers, uploading requisites, logins, passwords, nothing.

Essential tools for using usenet are: A news reader. Something like XNews is what I use but there are apparentely better ones out. You'll also need Winrar (most binaries are rar'd) and Quickpar (to repair damaged files).

If you want to see what's available currently, there are some free websites that track them so you don't have to go download all the group headers manually.

http://www.newzbin.com/

Is a good one but not that comprehensive.

[divx]

does anyone know if sasktel have news server?

[spol]

thanks Spare-Flair for putting it into simple words.

[Deal]

Newsgroups started out as a place for folks with the same interest to gather and post annoucements and have discussions. eg. rec.gardens, alt.tv.west-wing, alt-support diabetes... .

Well it turns out instead of merely posting comments that were a few KB in size, you could post larger files in multiple parts, naming each one accordingly.

Binary-savvy news readers know how to post and read the naming convention and consolidate all the files for you in the background, unlike say, Outlook Express, etc.

Smaller multipart files like MP3s (~5MB) are easily displayed as a single file by these binary news reader apps, and can even be downloaded with a single click.

But when it gets to 500MB or 5GB files, posters will typically like to first chop up the file into 15-50MB chunks before posting those parts as multi parts themselves as reposting an interrupted 5GB post is a real pain compared to one that's 5MB. The most common of these file types are .rar files.

Here's where most people get confused, because before you can get:
YouGottaSeeThisVid.mpg

You'll first have to get all the parts:
YouGottaSeeThisVid.rar01/45
YouGottaSeeThisVid.rar02/45
...
YouGottaSeeThisVid.rar45/45

So what happens if part 23/45 is missing? Used to be you'd have to ask for a repost and wait for it.

Thankfully .rar files now come with a handy repair feature. In addition to .rar files, most posters will also post a handful of these multi-purpose repair files called .par files.

So for those looking for binaries, here's what you'll have to do:

- subscribe to groups witha binary-savvy news reader (Grabit [www.shemes.com])
- download/search the headers of your favourite group for file of interest (~3 min)
- download all the .rar and .par files of the file (~30 min)
- repair any damaged .rar files, head count for all required parts (QuickPar [quickpar.org.uk])
- recombine the multipart file (WinZip, WinRAR, Quickzip, etc)

And no, there's no Easy Button app yet that'll do all that with one click.

Newsgroups files are hosted on your ISP or News service provider's server so they'll download faster, but unlike files on someone's BT shared folder, news servers are purged every few days to make room for new articles, so you have to keep checking frequently for new files.

Checkout Newzbin.com for a list of current files as reported by other users.

[quikkid]

They do, but speeds are capped, at least for me :(


does anyone know if sasktel have news server?