First of all, if you think the internet is just google you need to understand what the internet actually is. It’s a series of protocols, and usenet is one of them along with smtp, http, irc, dns, ssh, and tons of others. When usenet was fired up, there was no internet explorer, firefox or the like, Google didn’t exist. HTTP based discussion boards have mostly taken over usenet discussions these days, but there’s still plenty of people holding on to the old protocol.
For more information on usenet, refer to how usenet works.
What you need to view text based usenet discussions: Google Groups
Binary Newsgroups
Binary newsgroups are files rather than discussion. This includes video, software, games, photos, and more.
This is what most people are using usenet for nowadays. They’re mostly after their linux isos. (wink wink.)
If you’re familiar with torrents, you should think of an NZB file as a torrent. It basically just points to the data you need to download off the usenet protocol. Now, a torrent file does other things, but I’m trying to keep it simple.
Sign up and take a look at NZBMatrix. You can download anything on there with 1 click. At your maximum download speed every single time.
Why do people still use torrents?
So you know that usenet is by far easier to work with than torrents, why doesn’t everyone use it? Well setting up everything can be a bit of a hassle when you’re unfamiliar with it. Along with that many people choose to use the wrong usenet servers and don’t have their configurations correct. Another problem is people are trying to use the wrong software to handle their downloads or they don’t understand NZBs and try and download directly off usenet by downloading the “headers” in the groups. All these things mess people up and think usenet is far too complex. Another issue people have is cost. Generally if you have everything setup correctly it might run you $11 per month.
There’s no shortcuts to getting a silky smooth experience on usenet binaries. Don’t do it. It doesn’t work. If you’re serious, follow this guide to a t.
The Purchases
- NZBMatrix Premium account – $10
- Usenetserver $10/month
- Usenet-news 20GB Block account $8 or Astraweb $8 (this is to fill in missing parts on Usenetserver.)
Total startup cost: $28 (first month total)
Get all those things now rather than later. The next month will only be $8 or $11, and it will stay that way.
It’s hard to explain why you need the usenet-news account along with usenetserver but here’s the simplest explanation: usenet is a very old protocol, it wasn’t meant for file sharing. Some text gets lost with some servers over time, having a completely different server can fill in the missing parts. The Par2 standard was implemented to try and fix this, but it hasn’t completely, so fill servers are still somewhat necessary. Again, I don’t really expect you to understand this unless you’re familiar with usenet. Feel free to do more research for yourself, just know that I’m handing you the most optimal usenet setup to get complete files nearly every single time. (For some more in depth research refer here: Which Usenet Server? )
If you just want to get your feet wet however, check out free binary usenet here. Combine that with a free usenet nzb search engine here.
So you’ve decided to take the plunge?
The first thing you should do after you’ve made all the above purchases is download sabnzb. The setup is pretty straight forward and it will link the nzb files you download to the sabnzb program. The only things you really need to do is setup the servers and your download folder. For a full guide refer here. The usenet-news server should be set as a “backup server”. After that you just click and download the nzbs off nzbmatrix and pop it open with sabnzb. Your download begins.
For more advanced usenet features such as couchpotato/sickbeard I will be writing another tutorial.
