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Usenet Provider Giganews Reaches 400 Days Of Data Retention

Martin — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:59:44 +0000

Giganews has been my Usenet provider for the last couple of years. Before that I switched from service to service only to be disappointed eventually by poor performance or connection problems. Yes, these services were cheaper than Giganews but you did get what you paid for, at least back then. The Usenet provider landscape has changed a bit and there are alternatives out there that offer cheaper Usenet access. Why I’m still with Giganews and not changing to one of them?

The main reason is quality and experience. Usenet providers who offer bargain accounts might run into problems eventually that might lead to situations with to many users and to little resources so that the aforementioned connection and download problems appear again.

Giganews is the quality Usenet provider and I’m more than happy to pay for that quality. What I like is that you can cap your line day and night without problems no matter if it is a 16 Mbit connection or a 50 Mbit connection (if I would have access to 100 Mbit I would love to test their servers then as well). They provide a tool called Giganews Accelerator that uses compression to download newsgroup headers 6-10 times as fast. Everyone who ever downloaded more than a million pages from a group knows how long this can take without compression.

Giganews has now reached the milestone of 400 days of data retention. This means that they keep the data that gets uploaded to the Usenet for 400 days on their servers. This must be an unbelievable amount of data as upload traffic per day exceeds several Terabytes (Giganews mentioned it exceeds 5 Terabytes per day in February 2009) these days. 400 days of retention means that Giganews users can go back and search in those 400 days for data that they would like to download.

You guys know that I never advertise services on Ghacks unless I personally use and like them. Giganews is one of the few that I can recommend to anyone. They constantly improve their service and never let me down in the past.

Here is a short list of what you need to get started working with the Usenet:

You need a Usenet Provider that is providing the access to the Usenet. I recommend Giganews but there are others out there as well.
You need a software program to access the Usenet. I personally use the commercial Newsbin Pro client but there are free ones out there like Alt.Binz or Grabit.
You need some good Usenet search engines. You can use these search engines to search for files that have been posted to the Usenet. Users who are interested in getting a Usenet account might want to use these search engines first to see what the Usenet has to offer.

And that’s it. There are lots of guides and tutorials out there that help Usenet newcomers. If you have any questions let me know and I try to answer them in the comments here.

Tags: data retention, giganews, giganews retention, newsgroups, usenet provider

A Web Interface For Newsgroups Downloads

Martin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:53:16 +0000

Users who work with newsgroups usually use desktop clients such as Newsbin, Grabit or Microsoft Outlook to do so. Some Usenet providers offer web access to newsgroups with options to download files right from the web interface which can be very comfortable in certain situations but especially when no desktop clients can be installed on a computer system. URD, which stands for Usenet Resource Downloader, is a software program that provides a similar web interface for Usenet users.

This web interface can be used to browse, search and download files from newsgroups. It supports nzb files which can be imported and exported. Other features include making use of multiple connections to a newsgroups server if that is supported by the server, using encryption if it is supported, downloading newsgroups headers, schedule updates of newsgroups, preview nfo and jpg files and smarty template support.

A few things are not supported yet like being able to upload to newsgroups or reading posts in non alt.binaries newsgroups. The web interface works with many popular newsgroups providers including Giganews, Astraweb and Newszilla.

The program itself has to be installed on a computer system running Linux, preferably a web server. Installation support is provided for Debian and Ubuntu with installation on other Linux distributions being similar.

Download to your debian-based (e.g. Debian or Ubuntu) linux PC. Doubleclick on the file to install, or alternatively run:


# sudo dpkg -i urd_0.6.2-1_all.deb
(This will install URD in /usr/share/urd, and add an apache alias for /urd to that directory)
Change PHP's max memory usage:
# sudo vi /etc/php5/cli/php.ini

memory_limit = 128M
Uncomment the include path (for Smarty):
# sudo vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

include_path = ".:/usr/share/php"

Then go to http://localhost/urd/ and follow the installation instructions.

Usenet Resource Downloader could be an interesting application for users who want to download or browse newsgroups through a web interface.

Tags: Debian, giganews, linux software, newsgroup, newsgroups, newsgroups downloader, newsgroups web interface, usenet

Read mailing lists with clogging up your inbox

Joe — Sat, 23 May 2009 22:20:22 +0000

Mailing lists still hold an important role in many free software projects and are a place where development is co-ordinated and support provided.

When you subscribe to a mailing list, you generally have the option of receiving every individual message or receiving a daily digest. However, if you need to read a few, this can still clog up your inbox.

Whilst you could read web-based archives, my favourite option is reading them though Gmane – an NNTP/mailing list gateway.

Gmane allows you to read newsgroups through a USENET newsreader (basic newsgroup facility is built into software like Thunderbird . I find this a more manageable way to read mailing lists, because the client threads them for me.

Gmane works both ways: it allows you to post to newsgroups through USENET too. All it does is the first time you try to post to a mailing list, it sends you a verification email to confirm it is indeed you.

Gmane also allows you to read newsgroups through RSS, so you could use a feed reader (online or desktop)!

There are currently over 10,000 mailing lists accessible through Gmane, ranging from the Wikipedia mailing lists to a blackjack group! To find groups, browse their website or browse their newsserver.

Tags: free software, Gmane, mailing lists, newsgroups, nntp, usenet

Giganews Upgrades Retention To 365 Days

Martin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:03:17 +0000

File retention is one of the biggest arguments for or against a Usenet provider next to similarly important factors such as connection speeds, completion rate, security and the price / download ratio the service is offering. Giganews, the one and only Usenet provider that I do recommend, announced just a few days ago that they raise the bar once again by providing their customers with a 365 day binary retention of files that get uploaded to the Usenet. The new retention rate will be updated gradually which means it will take another five months before the final retention rate of 365 days is reached.

Currently about 5 Terabyte of data gets uploaded by users world wide to the Usenet, a figure that is surely about to increase as the popularity of Usenet services rise. Giganews is currently running so called Usenet trials which offer the first three months of Usenet access of some of their Usenet plans for half the usual price. Users can for example get an unmetered unlimited download plan for $12.49 or the premium Diamond plan with additional SSL encryption and 20 consecutive connections for $14.99.

What do you get for that? If you have never heard about Usenet or Newsgroups before you might be wary about joining a Usenet provider. That’s understandable. A good start is to take a look at our Usenet Search article which contains links to several Usenet Search Engines. They can be used just like any other search engine. Just enter a name in the search form and look at the results. Downloads are only possible with a Usenet account and a software client for Usenet. There are several choices, we outlined one in our Usenet Client article.

Tags: giganews, giganews usenet, newsgroups, newsgroups search, usenet, usenet provider, usenet search

Giganews Usenet Trials

Martin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:38:42 +0000

You know that I’m a happy Giganews customer. I have been using their Usenet service for the last years and they never let me down. Sure, they are not the cheapest Usenet provider when it comes to comparing the monthly subscription prices but they quality level surpasses anything else on the market.

Giganews are running trial offers right now that reduce the price of their two most popular Usenet accounts by 50% for the first three months. That means that you can get their most popular account (the one that I’m using btw.) for $14.99 instead of $29.99. The account will get you unlimited bandwidth, 256-bit SSL encryption and 20 connections to their services which usually means full speed downloads even for fast Internet connections. I cap at 1.8 Megabytes per second with my 16 Mbit connection and 10 connections to Giganews.

Users who want to test the Usenet account do need a Usenet client as well to be able to connect to the Usenet servers. There are a few free clients available like Alt.Binz. That’s all that is needed to get everyone started with Usenet. Some additional tips include using the Giganews Accelerator to speed up header retrieval from Giganews servers and to take a look at the Usenet Search article to access some of the best search engines available to find the files that you are looking for.

The Giganews accounts come all with a 14-day free trial period for extra safety. You will not be charged if you quit in that period and followed the rules outlined on the Giganews pages.

Here is the list of steps again:

Visit the Giganews website and signup for an account.
Download Alt.Binz or another Usenet client.
Download Giganews Accelerator to speed up header retrieval
Use Usenet search engines to find the files that you are looking for.

I think that the offer is a fair one especially for new users who never accessed Usenet in their life. Keep in mind that the monthly price changes to the usual after the first three months though.

Tags: alt.binz, giganews, giganews accelerator, giganews usenet, newsgroups, usenet, usenet provider, usenet search

Usenet providers dramatically increase retention

Joe — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:38:53 +0000

In July 2008, Giganews made big news for increasing their USENET retention to 240 days. Most other providers had a maximum of about 160 days, but several of these are now promising to surpass Giganews.

Giganews is quite expensive, costing $25/month for a unlimited package. The retention and speed made up for this, but I have recently started to investigate alternative.

A friend referred me to Newshosting, a USENET provider which is beginning to roll out 250 day retention. Newshosting is slightly cheaper than Giganews, costing $15/month for an unlimited package. This sounded really good, but I decided to check alternatives.

On Newzleech, I spotted that Astraweb are increasing their retention to 270 days. Astraweb costs the same as Newshosting, $15/month for an unlimited package (or $10/month for a package with unlimited downloads capped at 1Mbit/second). However, Astraweb also offers a pay-as-you-go scheme; users can pay $10 for 25GB bandwidth or $25 for 120GB which they can use over any period of time. This is useful for light downloaders who download more than the cheapest packages Giganews provide for but only use about half of their monthly allowance. At the time of writing Astraweb are currently providing discounts, $11/month for an unlimited package.

Unfortunately, these increased retentions are not being provided at the moment. Rather, every day instead of deleting the one they would usually delete they are keeping it, waiting until they catch up with their promised retentions. Astraweb announced their increased retention from 160 days to 270 days on 31 Dec, so we’ll have to wait until mid-March until we can enjoy the full retentions.

Both Newshosting and Astraweb have American and European servers and Astraweb provides free SSL with all packages (on Giganews and Newshosting there’s an extra fee for SSL).

I cannot vouch for either service personally, although a trusted person has given me nothing but positive reviews for Newshosting.

Tags: astraweb, giganews, newsgroups, newshosting, retention, usenet, usenet binaries

Giganews Upgrades Retention once again

Martin — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:14:16 +0000

The best Usenet provider Giganews has announced that they will be starting to raise the Binary retention from 200 days to 240 days which equals 8 months by year’s end. This once again puts them ahead of the pack of Usenet (Newsgroup) providers. The Binary part of the Usenet are mainly those groups in the alt.binaries hierarchy that allow file uploads and make up most of the Usenet traffic.

Giganews also announced that they are currently running a special for AT&T customers. AT&T, much like Warner and Sprint / Verizon decided to discontinue the alt.binaries support for their customers and Giganews tries to offer them a new save home on the Internet.

AT&T customers will get the same deal that Warner / Verizon / Sprint customers got. They get up to 50% off of the first month of their subscription to Giganews. They can also signup for a free 3 day 10 Gigabyte download limit trial first.

If you want a tip I would definitely pick a Usenet plan that supports encryption to protect your privacy while being connected to the Usenet. Giganews users can also make use of the Giganews Accelerator which speeds up header downloads tremendously.

Tags: binary retention, giganews, newsgroups, usenet, usenet provider

Alt.Binz Usenet Client

Martin — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:17:11 +0000

I’m very fond of the Usenet client Newsbin which I have been using for many years. It’s not a free software and I made the purchase because at that time it was definitely the best client available. I’m sometimes getting asked if there are free alternatives to Newsbin and I always have to say that I have not tested any of them. But John Tash send me an email a while ago asking about my opinion about the news client Alt.Binz and I finally found some time to check it out.

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.

Tags: alt.binz, free usenet client, giganews, newsbin, newsgroups, usenet, usenet client, usenet search

The best Usenet Search Engines

Martin — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 11:27:10 +0000

This article is going to list some of the best Usenet search engines that are freely available. The Usenet is considered by many a dark side of the Internet, something that those who know do not talk about and those who do not know don’t want to know about because it seems utterly complicated to begin with.

The real benefits of the Usenet in my opinion are speed, if you have a good provider that is, reliability and better privacy, because of SSL and no direct user to user connections. On the downside we have the monthly fee, a Usenet client that has to be installed and configured and some time to subscribe to the right groups.

Usenet Search Engines help users find files faster. Most support the nzb protocol which combines all file information in one file that can be loaded into most Usenet clients. Good search engines should support advanced parameters, 200 day records, nzb creation and index most groups, at least the thousand+ important ones.

If you want to try the Usenet you could signup for a free 14 day trial at Giganews, the Usenet provider that I use for several years.

1. Newzleech

I have discovered Newsleech only recently but have to admit that it provides one of the best Usenet search engines. It provides users with a general search, an option to browse groups, to browse posts and to subscribe to RSS feeds to be informed when a new post matching the criteria is made.

Search results can be filtered by group, post age and size. The results are displayed in a list showing the most important information such as name, size, group, age and completion status. NZBs are created on the fly by checking at least one search result.

2. Binsearch.info

Binsearch offers basically the same features that Newsleech does. You can make a general search, search only specific groups and define post age, size and several other parameters. Results can be checked and a NZB file will be created in the process which can then be imported in the Newsreader.

3. Yabsearch.nl

A Dutch search engine with no English interface. Supports NZB creation and advanced search parameters. Displays size, name and completion status in the results.

Most information on those search engines is redundant meaning that all seem to index new posts fast enough and tend to display the same information in their search results. It’s still good to have some outs in case one of them goes down.

Tags: giganews, newsgroups, newsgroups search, usenet, usenet search

Giganews University

Martin — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 08:02:14 +0000

I’m using the Usenet (Newsgroups) provider Giganews for several years already and recommend the service to anyone who wants to sneak peak or go knee deep into Usenet. I don’t want to talk about the performance of their servers, the reliability and file retention which sets a very high Industry standard that all the other Usenet Providers have a hard time keeping pace with.

Giganews is one of the few providers who actually provide more than just access to the Usenet. They create useful software like the Giganews Accelerator which increases the speed of the header downloads immensely.

They have created several pages called the Giganews University this time which explains the Usenet to users who are new to this concept. Text and Video are used to explain the various concepts and basics of the Usenet including an explanation about the Usenet, what a user needs to access it and how to use it.

A total of eight videos have been published at the Giganews University, here is the first video entitled Usenet Basics:

As you can see their look professional and explain the concepts in basic terms. Giganews is offering a three day trial for new customers that is good for downloading ten Gigabytes from the Usenet. If you are satisfied your trial account will be changed in the regular account that you have selected during signup.

Tags: giganews, newsgroups, usenet

Giganews Accelerator Updates

Martin — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:14:09 +0000

I wrote about the Giganews Accelerator when it first came out which was just a bit more than two months ago and have been using it since then to speed up header downloads with my own Giganews account. The Giganews accelerator speeds up header downloads by the factor eight on my connection which is really great.

I always had to wait the longest time to wait until the headers of popular groups were downloaded which took an awfully long time. A great thing is that the Giganews Accelerator is also supporting SSL connections. Giganews released a total of eight new versions of the program since the initial release which is an astounding number if you ask me.

The most important changes have been fixes that prevent crashes and handle disconnections better. It happened to me that my connection to the Giganews server died although my Internet connection was alive and both programs were open. This is happening less and less due to these updates to the Giganews Accelerator.

Here is the complete list of fixes for the program:

v1.0.99.1 – June 13, 2007
- quick version bump so upgrade links will work properly

v1.0.98.1 – June 13, 2007
- new installer package should fix problems on some non-English versions
of Windows
- another posting bugfix
- handle socket disconnections better; this should fix many unnecessary
exceptions that happen when connections disconnect
- allow the program to run even if the user’s registry is write-protected

v1.0.97.1 – May 29, 2007
- properly disconnect sessions when reading compressed headers and
connection drops
- fix many different posting bugs
- include better information with crash reports

v1.0.95.1 – May 25, 2007
- new compression handling engine
- new rate-limiting engine
- removed reliance on external C runtime libraries
- fix bug with very large (>2GB) overview downloads with spinners

v1.0.94.1 – May 17, 2007
- redirect errors with compression handling to bug report e-mails
- rework underlying menu code for future expansion
- remove some control characters from log messages
- enforce upgrade to at least v1.0.93.1

v1.0.93.1 – May 16, 2007
- fix intermittent failures with compressed headers
- fix connection crash when accelerator cannot make a connection
- fix application crash with some menu items when system does not
have a default web browser enabled
- include additional version info in crash reports

v1.0.92.1 – May 15, 2007
- fix unhandled exception when server connection is unavailable

v1.0.91.1 – May 14, 2007
- enable more verbose crash e-mails for unexpected application crashes
- update compression code
- label which speed is actual and which speed is accelerated
- prevent application startup crashes on some systems

v1.0.87.1 – May 8, 2007
- initial release

Tags: giganews, giganews accelerator, header compression, newsgroups, usenet

List of Usenet Indexing Websites

Martin — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 13:54:40 +0000

There are two possibilities to download binaries from the Usenet. The first one is the most common one. You download the headers of a newsgroup that you are interested in and select the files that you want to download. All of this is done in your newsclient. This method has some serious disadvantages.

You may not search through many newsgroups at once for instance or search for files in a large list of groups. Usenet indexing sites try to aid users by offering a way to search the contents of many newsgroups at once. They index new posts that appear in the observed groups and offer web interfaces that users can use to search for files.

Most of these indexing sites support the nzb format which has all the information about the files that you want to download. If your newsreader supports nzb you simply double-click the file and all information about the files are automatically added to your download queue.

I know of some users who only work with nzb files and do not download headers anymore. We also have to distinguish between public, private and pay indexing services. While I wont talk about the private services at all I would like to point out that they are usually forums where users share their finds and uploads.

A short explanation for the terms “automatic content” and “user content”. Automatic content means that all new posts are indexed and can be searched on the site while user content means that users report new files and only those are added to the database.

Alt.Binaries.Nl (free, automatic content) – indexes more than 2700 popular newsgroups for 45 days. NZB’s can be generated as well. Great but Binsearch is better.
Binsearch.info (free, automatic content) – probably the best service. Keeps records of more than 6500 groups for 120 days. Advanced search options and the ability to download everything that you like as a nzb. My recommendation.
Newzbin.com (paysite, user content) – one of the oldest indexing sites on the Internet. You may take a look at the releases but you can’t see the filenames nor download nzb’s without paying for the service.
Ngindex (paysite, automatic content) – Ngindex has a great interface, probably the best with many information about the newsgroups that they index. Offers nfo previews and more but is unfortunately a paysite.
Nzb.to (free after registration, user content – a user driven website in German with an excellent active community. Lots of nzb files are posted everyday. Mainly interested for German speaking folks.
Nzbrus (free after registration, unknown) – I can’t really say much about the site because I did not register at it. Just wanted to make sure it is mentioned here.
Yabse (free, automatic content) – indexing posts for roughly 100 days. Allows the generation of nzb files.

There is also a program called NZB Leecher which is able to search several of the mentioned websites and create nzb’s automatically from the results.

Tags: binary indexing, binsearch, newsgroups, newzbin, nzb, usenet

Pan Newsreader

Martin — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 07:46:48 +0000

I have been trying several newsreaders for the Usenet until I finally found the one and only newsreader Newsbin. I purchased it years ago and can only recommend it to everyone else who is serious about the Usenet. I do know however that some users prefer free software and that is why I took a look at the Pan newsreader which is available for Windows, Mac and Unix.

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 ?

Tags: newsbin, newsgroups, newsreader, pan newsreader, usenet

Giganews Accelerator Beta

Martin — Tue, 08 May 2007 15:51:49 +0000

The world’s best Usenet provider Giganews has managed it once again to set another milestone by creating a software called Giganews Accelerator which uses header download compression to download the headers of the newsgroup up to 10 times faster. Header downloads are the most annoying part when it comes to using the Usenet. It sometimes takes longer to download the headers of a popular newsgroup than to download a 700 Megabytes file with my 16 Mbit connection.

You are probably wondering: Usenet ? What the hell is this thing ? Here is a short explanation that I copied from one of my earlier posts on the subject: A Usenet provider like Giganews gives you access to the Usenet which is basically a discussion platform where users can also post binaries. The binaries make the Usenet so attractive to everyone who feels that P2P is not safe anymore. Giganews offers SSL encryption which means that your Internet Service Provider does not know what you are exchanging with Giganews. If you want to get an impression of what the Usenet generally has to offer you might want to take a look at Newzbin and Binsearch. Those two sites are Usenet indexing sites that have records on many files that get posted day in day out on the Usenet.

Back to the Giganews Accelerator. The Accelerator is a standalone program that runs in the background in conjunction with your basic newsreader. I use Newsbin for that purpose but any other client is fine as well. You do not have to configure the Giganews Accelerator directly, all that needs to be done is to change the configuration in your newsreader. This is done in a matter of seconds. All you need to do is replace the url of the server with localhost and change the port to 119. You also have to disable SSL but don’t worry, the Giganews Accelerator has it enabled by default.

After making those basic changes you can try and download some headers from some groups and you will witness how fast the process now is. Downloading 5 million headers from a group took a long time before and now it is a matter of minutes (instead of half an hour or even more).

Features:

Header download compression for header downloads up to 10 times faster
Enable 256 bit SSL encrypted Usenet access regardless of client SSL support (SSL-enabled account required)
Control download speeds
See real-time statistics about each of your connections
Protect your privacy with fully encrypted Usenet authentication
Encode Usenet command traffic to work around packet sniffers and rate limiting
Compatible with any standard NNTP based Usenet newsreader

Guess what, I’m allowed to post the link to the Giganews Accelerator right here on my homepage. Enjoy this fine piece of software. If you encounter any problems let me know and I try to sort them out for you. Still using another Usenet Provider ? Time to change, don’t you think ?

Tags: giganews, giganews accelerator, header compression, newsgroups, usenet

Par2 Files Explained

Martin — Thu, 03 May 2007 16:21:23 +0000

Par2 Files are common on the Usenet today.They are not that common on the Internet in general and I can’t think of a location where I encountered them except for the Usenet. Par2 Files can be used to repair broken archives. That is the basic explanation of course, the technical is a little bit more complicated. Lets use a example to make it clearer. Let us assume that you have downloaded a number of rar files (.rar, r01, r02 and so on) that can be unpacked to create the file test.avi which has a size of 700 Megabytes.

Let us further assume that some of the rar files have been uploaded incompletely to the Usenet which happens from time to time. It would not be possible to extract test.avi because of the broken files in the archive. Par2 Files are fixers. They analyze the blocks of each rar archive and post back if it is complete, incomplete or missing. Every Par2 file can be used to fix a certain number of blocks that corresponds to the amount of blocks of the rar files.

All you need to have is enough par2 files that can fix the missing blocks in the rar files to repair these files. The real beauty of this system is that you can fix any broken rar file with any par2 file. You do not need to look for the complete rar file, all you need is to download the par2 files which are normally posted with the rar files in the same newsgroup.

I’m using the free software Quickpar to test and repair rar archives that I have downloaded from the Usenet.

The first screenshot shows tested files using Quickpar. It shows that 96 blocks are missing and are needed to repair the archive so that it can be extracted. After downloading enough Par2 files to be able to repair the archive Quickpar automatically repairs the damaged files.

The second screenshot displays three par2 files that can be used to repair the damaged files. This process usually does not take more than a few minutes and you can extract the archive when the operation has been finished.

Tags: newsgroups, par2, par2 files, quickpar, rar archive, recovery files, usenet

NZB Leecher

Martin — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 22:38:37 +0000

Newsgroup indexing sites such as binsearch.info and binaries.nl make it easier to search for files that have been posted to the Usenet by allowing searches in all groups. If you are familiar with the Usenet you might know that you can only search one group at a time which does not help much if you do not know if the file(s) that you are looking for have been posted in that group.

NZB Leecher is a small freeware program that lets you search most of the well know newsgroup indexing sites at once. It displays the results in its window and you can immediately select them to download in your favorite newsreader. It queries all indexing sites and displays the results in tabs which makes it easy to switch between the various indexing sites for best results.

You may select the retention between 1 and 60 days, select some of the popular groups or a general category such as TV or Games. You have to provide username and password for some sites before NZB Leecher is able to query the site. The results are displayed fast and with all the information that are needed. If you want to download some files you have to mark them first and then select download selected from the right-click menu.

You do need a Usenet account if you want to download any files from newsgroups. I suggest Giganews, the reason is posted below this article but you are of course free to choose any service that you want.

Tags: freeware, newsgroups, newzbin, nzb, nzb-leecher, usenet, Windows

Giganews has now 100 days of retention

Martin — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 12:25:32 +0000

The Usenet provider Giganews announced today that they would increase the retention of all binary newsgroups to 100 days over the next two weeks. If you never have heard about the Usenet before let me explain the concept with just a few words. The Usenet can be divided into binary and discussion groups. Thousands of binary groups for every purpose, from mp3 to movie to games exist and every user who has Usenet access is able to download all the files that get posted to the Usenet daily.

Talking about files, take a look at newzbin and binsearch to get a understanding what people post on the Usenet and decided for yourself if you want to give it a try. One of the best features of giganews is that they encrypt the traffic which means that your provider, and everyone else tapping the line, has no chance of finding out what you upload and download from their servers.

I always get max download speed when downloading from their fast servers, my cap is at 1.8 megabytes per second. Last but not least you should consider the following, more than 2 terabytes – that is 2000 gigabytes – of data are uploaded every day to the Usenet. This is huge if you consider the retention of 100 days which would mean that giganews currently hosts about 200 terabyte of data on their servers..

Tags: alt.binaries, encryption, file-sharing, giganews, newsgroups, provider, retention, secure, usenet

Giganews offers Encrypted Usenet Access

Martin — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 07:44:31 +0000

Giganews announced yesterday that they are offering SSL encrypted usenet access as of now. (which means your ISP will not be able to know which data gets exchanged) All existing users may upgrade their accounts for $5 and receive the ability to use encrypted access to the usenet and also 10 additional connections to Giganews. You do not need the additional 10 connections unless you have a really fast line at home. I always max out my 16 Mbit connection with ten connections already giving me speeds of 1.8 megabyte per second.

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.

Tags: encrypted usenet access, giganews, newsbin, newsgroups, usenet provider

Newsgroups, the ultimate P2P alternative.

Martin — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:49:30 +0000

P2P is in the news, every day. You see organizations like the RIAA hunting down filesharers, you read about trojans and virii that are spread through P2P networks. Everything seems rather risky at the moment. A new player is emerging from the shadows which is using a very old communication system, the Usenet. You might know a part of the Usenet if you ever read something from Google groups. Google Groups is an archive of the part of the Usenet that looks similar to bulletin boards.

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.

Tags: giganews, newsbin, newsgroups, P2p, usenet

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