Today’s giveaway is one of the few software products that I have bought. I usually rely on free software but this one is in my opinion the best of its kind. Newsbin Pro is a binary newsreader. It handles downloads from the Usenet. I really do not want to get into details about the Usenet in this thread, only this much: You do need access to a Usenet server to work with Newsbin Pro. One reliable (and many say the best) Usenet provider is Giganews which I use for several years as well.

The Newsbin Pro client has been developed over years and several useful features have been added to it. But first things first. If you start the Usenet client for the first time you have to add a Usenet server and some groups of that server to the client. The useful options begin right at this stage by providing SSL support, slave and fill servers and header compression. The maximum amount of connections can be configured during server setup as well.

Groups can be added in the Groups > Add Groups menu. The client will download all groups available on the server and provides filters to find the desired groups easily.

The interface can be customized beyond what is usually possible. All window elements can be positioned for maximum screen estate. Newsbin Pro uses tabs to display the additional data. The bottom window can for instance contain the download queue, downloaded files, failed files, status, thumbnails (if you are downloading images) and more. That’s very efficient because everything is accessible in the main interface.

Newsbin Pro provides access to several features that reduce the work of the user. It includes for example automatic rar and par processing, split-file processing, automatic header updates, extensive options to sort downloads into folders, support of mp3 id3v2 tags, an image viewer and download prioritization.

It obviously supports the common features of Usenet clients like nzb integration, speed limits, extensive filters and ban options.

Support is fast and good. I did encounter problems after moving from one computer to another but they were quickly solved by the support team and the crowded forum. Linux users will be happy to know that the forum has a Linux section as the client is apparently running fine under Wine. Windows users with 32-bit or 64-bit editions of 2000, XP or Vista will also be able to run the software.

Five licenses for Newsbin Pro are up for grabs. All you need to do is reply in the comments. It would be nice if you would mention your current Usenet provider and client that you are using and what you think of them.

Update: The guys at Giganews spotted the post and are sponsoring five one month Diamond accounts. These accounts will be given to five additional users who commented on the thread.. Please note that you need to signup at Giganews and mail me their Giganews username which I pass on to make sure that they do not pay for the first month (there is no obligation to after that month). You should also note that you need to be at least 18 years of age to signup for the account.

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Alt.Binz is a free Usenet client that supports several of the most important features a news client should have. These features are multiple connections and SSL and NZB Support. Let me explain why I think that those three are essential. Multiple connections is a no brainer, Giganews (the best Usenet Provider) provides access to ten connections to their servers and a client should support that to maximize the speed from the server.

SSL is important for security. You don’t want your ISP or someone else snooping on your traffic finding out what you are downloading, right ? And NZBs are a a standard that makes it a lot easier to download from the Usenet. NZB files contain information about multiple files and their location on the Usenet. Instead of clicking on hundreds of files to download them you can simply load one NZB.

Alt.Binz looks like a great client. I had no troubles adding the Giganews server information to the client and support for the Giganews Accelerator was given as well.

The major difference is the approach. Newsbin provides direct access to Usenet groups while Alt.Binz does not, at least not in the way I have been using it for years. Alt.Binz has some Usenet search engines directly integrated into the program interface that provide access to NZBs. That’s a great feature and I hope the guys at Newsbin will implement it soon.

Supported are respected sites like Newzleech, Binsearch and several others. A full server wide search is supported as well. Now with Newsbin I usually visit the website of those search engines and download the NZB from those websites. This step is no longer required in Alt.Binz.

Alt.Binz is a great free Usenet client which I will definitely keep an eye on even though I have paid for Newsbin. The interface is intuitive and fast and it does provide access to several features that are definitely missing in Newsbin. Oh, and yes it seems to work under Wine in Linux.

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Pan Newsreader is offering a lot of features that commercial Usenet readers such as Newsbin are offering as well. It does support download binaries of course offering single-click encoding, multiple connections and simultaneous downloads and image previews of downloaded images.

I have to admit that Newsbin is not the perfect newsreader for reading and writing news. Pan seems to be able to handle this task better which is definitely a good thing. It does however lack a few essential features that I do not want to miss. The most important feature in my opinion is the SSL encryption.

As far as I can tell Pan does not offer SSL encryption which is a feature that I do not want to miss anymore. I’m not sure about nzb support but I could not get it to work either.

This leads to the following question. Which newsreader are you using ?

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You probably do not know about the Usenet and wonder why you would have to pay for accessing it. I would like to direct you to the following two websites that could give you an impression of the kind of files (and discussion) that you find on the Usenet. Try Binsearch to discover the treasures of the Usenet. It is of course illegal to download copyrighted files like the latest movies, games and tv series – but no one would know if you would do which is different from P2P networks where you seed a lot and everyone is able to find out your IP.

You do need a program that connects to the usenet and supports SSL to be able to use this new feature. I use Newsbin which is a commercial software with many features but there are others that are completely free. Newsleecher is one for instance.

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But there is a hidden side, a side that many never heard about: The binary side. The Usenet holds also a large binary archive which is growing by 2800 gigabytes daily. Yes, you read that right, 2,8 Terabyte of files every day. All files (and the discussion as well) are stored in groups, like alt.binaries.dvd or alt.binaries.mp3. You can take a look at some of the files that are stored at the Usenet by visiting yabse.com.

The first lists user submissions in categories like movies, games and mp3, the second is a Usenet search engine. Just enter a search term and it will search many groups for matches. If it finds matches you are able to download them, if you have a Usenet account and a program that is able to download such files.

So, what are the main differences between P2P and Usenet ? First, if you want to download something from P2P networks you are always uploading the same file to other users while downloading. It is easy to detect filesharers by simply looking at the IPs of people who upload a certain file. In Usenet, you don’t upload at all. You download with full speed without ever uploading a single bit. Second, P2P downloads are slow most of the time. If you have only a few seeders the file might take very long to complete, if at all. Sometimes the seeders decided to stop seeding the file and you sit there with a file that is unusable. Usenet files are always finished. If you see the file you know it is finished. Sometimes there are incomplete files but this is seldom if you have the right Usenet provider and there is a way to complete those files even though they are incomplete.

I?am using a commercial program to download files from the Usenet, it is called newsbin. There are free tools out there that have the same functionality, one of them is grabit. I will explain how to configure grabit at the end of the article.

You also need an account from an Usenet provider. I’m using Giganews because it is the provider that has the highest retention (stores files the longest time) and offers the highest speeds of all Usenet providers. I’m for instance downloading files with 1,8 Megabytes per second using all the bandwidth of my 16 Mbit line.

Binary accounts to the Usenet are not free. Providers have to change some money due to the immense transfer volume of the Usenet. As I said earlier there are many Usenet providers, some are good, some are bad. Giganews is the best, they offer three different account types. I’m using their unlimited account type, which means I’m allowed to download an unlimited number of files and megabytes for 29,99 $ a month. They also offer 35 gigabyte transfer volumes for 12,99 $ and 10 Gigabytes for 7,99 $. All accounts come with a 14-day free trial that can be canceled anytime.

So, the Usenet offers everything that P2P networks offer. The pro is that you don’t have to upload, that you can download with full speed and that RIAA and the like are concentrating their efforts on P2P networks and not the Usenet. The bad might be that you will have to purchase an account to download files and take part in the discussions.

Let us take a look at the grabit configuration. Install and start grabit. Just click next on the dialog until you see the main window of grabit. Right-click on my grabit on the left and select Add Server. A new window appears. Enter the following data. Hostname: news.giganews.com ; Account name: the user name Giganews send you ; Password: the password Giganews send you. Maximum allowed connections: 10

The entry should be updated. Right click it (it should appear below my grabit) and select Refresh Group List. This retrieves all newsgroups from giganews. (more than 100.000 atm). Click on all groups on the right to see a listing of all groups. You can sort the groups by article count to see the most popular groups at the moment or take a look at newzbin to get an overview of some of the binary groups. You can also perform a search for some groups, for instance enter movie or binary in the search field.

Rightclick a group and select subscribe to add the group to your private listing. A + icon appears when you add the first group on the left and if you click it you see a listing of all your subscribed groups. Select the group there, right click and choose full update to retrieve all files that are stored in that newsgroup. The process might take a while at the first time because some groups hold lots of articles. The batch tab shows a progress bar of the downloads that are currently happening.

Clicking on articles will reveal all files that are stored in that group. New files are added all the time, it is worth to check groups more than once a day if you are looking for a special file. You double click an article to download it. It is really that easy.

It is of course illegal to download copy protected files and I do not encourage you to download such files. I for myself would never download such files from the Usenet. It is possible though..

If you are interested, the Usenet holds the largest amount of files worldwide, applications, games, movies, books, music and of course porn.

If you have further questions let me know, I will be glad to answer everything that came up during this long article.

Try out Giganews now.

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