6 ms·

Can someone explain why people still utilize Usenet over BitTorrent? I'm sure there are good reasons, it just seems like a bizarre anachronism to me.

• fla 11y ago
  In Switzerland uploading copyrighted content is illegal but downloading is not. And beside that, speed is much better.
• surye 11y ago
  No upload element. Obscurity keeps it out of the targets a lot of times. Though DMCA requests definitely have a strong reach into Usenet now.
  • icelancer 11y ago
    The week I spent setting NZBs and all this archaic stuff up (subscribing to NZB providers... which ones again... well they keep going out of business... sigh) and setting up Sickbeard and Headphones and everything was a complete waste when the production companies began their assault on Usenet. It became functionally less useful than Bittorrent immediately. Tons of stuff I could find on torrent sites were just not available on Usenet. My experience was a complete waste of time and money setting everything up.
    • nickik 11y ago
      I just did made the setup a couple of weeks ago, it was pretty easy and works fantastically. The only thing stopping me is my lack of storage. How does this assult effect you?
    • hias 11y ago
      You need to join closed indexers which index obfuscated files.
      • Cyph0n 11y ago
        Any recommendations? I'd like to get in on the fun :P
        • hias 11y ago
          Check /r/usenet
• hias 11y ago
  Usenet is so much superior to BT or the "new" OCHs. Always fullspeed, no waiting times, no problems fetching ~10 year old files. (if your providers retention rate is high enough) And great automation. Just config your setup once and then just open Kodi each day and check what is new :)
  • idop 11y ago
    What's your provider? I'm on Giganews and while retention is pretty high, old files (>2 years) almost always are a problem for me. Something is missing, and there are not enough of pars to fix. This happened so much that I no longer bother with anything above 2 years.
    • hackerboos 11y ago
      DMCA take-down notices affect Usenet much more than Bittorrent. The problem with Usenet is that it's centralized.
    • hias 11y ago
      Eweka + Newsoo block. But YMMV, I usually get older non-english stuff.
  • hbosch 11y ago
    For the same cost as a Usenet provider and indexer (some indexers have a fee(s)), you could easily buy a little torrent seed box. I find torrent sites are much more organized in their content libraries and more reliable for quick, complete downloads - especially with a dedicated torrent box doing the work. That is not to mention the added benefit of using remote storage so you don't have to have multiple TBs of drives around, and the opportunity to run a Plex server right from the box. As a Usenet subscriber a couple years ago I have had the opposite experience you described: multiple failed downloads, poor retention, bad labeling (often foreign language content downloaded by mistake), and high barrier of entry for automation (relatively). I used DogNZB and combined multiple provider block accounts for redundancy. Alternatively, the private tracker community is much larger and more active than the Usenet community in my experience. And they don't charge you for access. The seedbox situation outlined above can be just as automatic (autodl-irssi for one example) and often much faster (dedicated euroservers often burst to ~100Mbps to 1Gbps depending).
• mrmondo 11y ago
  It's generally faster especially for unpopular items, it's more anonymous and its illegal to use p2p in many countries.
• malbs 11y ago
  The only entity that knows what you are downloading is the usenet provider you are paying to access usenet in the first place.