The topic says it all. I will probably use it for both binaries and text, or is it better to use separate apps for each?

Thanks!

No idea about text, but Alt.Binz for binaries. The Auto PAR and UnRAR feature is just freaking awesome. Don't have to mess around to get a complete download, does it all for you (auto-pauses PARs and only grabs them if they're needed, etc).

http://www.altbinz.net/

last edited by parabol at 13:46:18 26/Oct/08

Top stuff, thanks para!

+1 For Alt Binz

Been using it ever since Internode had Usenet :)

can someone give me a brief lowdown on usenet and its uses?

ps im back from my 48 hour 'holiday'.

the answer to both your questions - porn

usenet was my introduction to the internets back in the early 90's

much <3

I've got it all installed and connecting to nodes servers, but I can't seem to search for anything using the global searchy thing. I retrieved the newsgroup list, and that seems to be working, but the search providers don't return anything?

Sort by size and you'll be fine.

I've been having problems with Alt.Binz's search function for the past fortnight. Maybe, it's just broken?

Mantra: http://www.sabnzbd.org/

http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/2607930

sab is the win

I've got it all installed and connecting to nodes servers, but I can't seem to search for anything using the global searchy thing

Only a couple of the search engines ever worked for me. Actually currently only beta.binaries.nl seems to work inside the program. Make sure you set the post/file age to 45 days to get more hits.

You can use other search engine websites in your browser like:

http://www.binsearch.info/

Pick your download, hit Create NZB, Save and then load it up in Alt.Binz via the NZB icon.

last time i regularly browsed usenet, i used outlook express as my client

Sort by size and you'll be fine.

I don't think you understand... it's not returning anything at all. So sorting by size would be sort no results by size... :P

.. wait I lied. I searched for "teen" and it started returning things from beta.binaries.nl. All the rest of the searches returned nothing. Trouble is, I'm not looking for porn ...

I'll keep playing and see what I work out... thanks :)

edit: I just used the web to get an NZB and everything is hunky dory. And daym it's fast!!

last edited by Mantra at 18:43:50 26/Oct/08

dont know why anyone wouldnt use usenet

I've been having problems with Alt.Binz's search function for the past fortnight. Maybe, it's just broken?

Same, hasn't been working for me, my housemate, and my other mate that we share our account with.

dont know why anyone wouldnt use usenet

Because it s***s all over torrents in terms of speed.

pfft you dont know the right torrent sites

Because it s***s all over torrents in terms of speed.

Heh I love all the usenet advantage claims. So delusional :)

Maybe if you're comparing it to aids-infested public trackers. Private ones can max out your connection extremely quickly with only a handful of seeders. Downside is heaps of connections and NAT table filling up, but that doesn't really bother me as I don't game or anything while downloading anything (regardless of the source).

Also retention days are a killer on Usenet. Good for popular/new stuff (within 2-4 months on average), but sometimes it's easier to find a torrent that's being seeded over a very long period of time (i.e. a year or two) when you're after rarer stuff or packs.

On top of that, browsing is a little difficult on Usenet unless you know all the groups and know exactly what you're looking for to search. Maybe someone can correct me on this, if there are some sites that aid this? On torrent sites I can discover new s*** like documentaries, etc without any effort at all.

If you know exactly what you want and you know it's available, then Usenet is pretty good.

In summary: each has their strengths and weaknesses. Just use both.

last edited by parabol at 19:31:13 26/Oct/08

This is a thread for mantra to easily download man on man dwarf porn... and so many people are eager to assist.

Just use both.

Hear hear. It was like you took my words and expressed it so much better than I ever could have.

Yeah, I won't be getting rid of nanotorrent anytime soon, but I thought I'd check out usenet. And it is a s***load faster than getting the same content via bitorrent.

Also, Obes, I'll see if I can find some dolphin pr0n just for you :P

edit: For example, I started dling something via torrent, it was going to take an hour. Same thing via usenet, 7mins.

last edited by Mantra at 22:49:06 26/Oct/08

v3.newzbin.com

Because it s***s all over torrents in terms of speed.

Heh I love all the usenet advantage claims. So delusional :)

Maybe, but speed ain't one of them. Properly configured with a good server you'll max out your connection more or less instantly with usenet and you don't have any outgoing. It's way, way better and more efficient than torrents. Agree with your other points though; I'm sure private trackers are good for quality/sorting/organising stuff. I've never used a private tracker though (or downloaded anything juarezy via bittorrent) so don't know what the comparison is like.

I've never used a private tracker though - so don't know what the comparison is like.

Well it takes me 2 concurrent usenet streams or 5-10 seeders from a quality tracker to max out my connection (1.5Mbps). At the end of the day, a good bit-torrent setup is efficient enough to not be distinguishable from usenet from a performance point of view (judged by a human I mean). To the point where it doesn't matter which medium you download through if you know the content you are after is on both.

My argument is that if this condition is met (it is for some, not for everyone), you then have to consider other factors like retention time, availability (upload) delay, file integrity and quality, etc. Hence the blanket statement that usenet is the be all and end all of internet downloads isn't necessarily true :)

last edited by parabol at 23:18:17 27/Oct/08

I can open 16 connections to the two node usenet servers, and I easily and quickly max out my connection (8Mbit). Consistent 6-700Kbps down, means I can get a 500meg file in about 5-8mins. I think the fastest I've ever been able to get bitorrent is about 300Kbps.

That's like twice as fast maens!!

another +1 for altbinz.

if you haven t already played around with the rss feed with say tvnzb downloads the eps on queue, and can easily setup to get 720p content instead of standard or vice versa.

Currently downloading at 1400K/s from usenet, Torrents well barely ever use them and if i do speeds are never better than say 300k/s, and can say crap like you just don't know the right sites, but i don't have to when its usually so much easier to find on usenet, and most usenet servers now are getting to over 100days retention which is frigen awesome.

no, that just means you are very bad at torrents mantra

pretty much everything i download (torrents) maxes out my connection (approx 1.5m per second)

So Spook, how do you get these magical speeds? Are you paying for a tracker or something?

pretty much everything i download (torrents) maxes out my connection (approx 1.5m per second)

Does it do it from the instant you hit start? If not, it's slower than usenet

Does it do it from the instant you hit start?

Well I've posted a screenshot below of a random obscure video I started (probably not illegal but I've blanked it out anyway). Each grid is 10 seconds so it took 20 seconds to max out the connection. I just dropped the number of seeders afterwards to 5 and still max speed.

If not, it's slower than usenet

I agree that technically it can never be as fast as usenet but I'm just saying ... when you're grabbing a 40 minute video that takes 40 minutes to download (@1.5Mbps), a 20 second overhead is a drop in the ocean :)

So in this example I'm getting a file 99% as fast as on usenet.

Anyway like I say, both media have their merits. I still use both.

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis/images/t.png

I assume you seed that back in 40 minutes too? Because to max out my connection on bt i need to use private trackers and hence have to seed back for a couple of days.

Also how much wastage is there in both systems? For example when i download a file in bt my usae can be 20% more than the size of the file i am grabbing due to overheads (not necessarily hash fails), how is usenet in this regard?

As far as I can tell Bah, it's like downloading email. So it's direct, no upload, and the only overhead being the decrypting and unraring things at the end, but that's time, not usage.

As far as I can tell Bah, it's like downloading email. So it's direct

I think he means in terms of protocol, etc. I don't know the answer.

With usenet I believe you're more likely to get reliable downloads since it's usually a reliable and quality server, whereas with torrents you can waste a small amount of quota grabbing stuff off bad users or with hash fails (I rarely reach more than 0.5% wastage).

But .. that says nothing about the uploaded file integrity itself on usenet - if someone uploads improperly. You sometimes end up having to redownload the whole file whereas with BitTorrent the client will just auto-grab only the small blocks/pieces of the file that are faulty. Luckily multi-sized PAR2 packs on usenet help solve the problem.

So yeah there are heaps of aspects to consider. At the end of the day if you're getting similar performance from both, it really doesn't matter which you chose. I don't think I have much more to say on this matter. Happy downloads!

I basically agree with parabol, and would like to add that something like usenet is good for people who have uploads counted. Anyone on a decent adsl2+ connection (without uploads counted) would probably get by pretty happily with torrents.

Since the dollar died in the arse my usenet access is costing me $31AUD a month...that translates to an extra 55gb with iinet if I were to upgrade my plan.

I assume you seed that back in 40 minutes too? Because to max out my connection on bt i need to use private trackers and hence have to seed back for a couple of days.

Also how much wastage is there in both systems? For example when i download a file in bt my usae can be 20% more than the size of the file i am grabbing due to overheads (not necessarily hash fails), how is usenet in this regard?

I believe the most common encoding form on usenet is still yEnc which has very small overheads (I can't find the numbers but this article which is largely critical of yEnc says it is a "tiny overhead").

Your reasoning is sound Bah; I don't like BT for that reason and am becoming more opposed to it (actually am working on an article about why I think it sucks but having some problems making it sounds like a legitimate beef and not a whiny complaint :) Basically as a system for moving bits around it is woefully inefficient when compared with the options of just putting stuff on a single server and sucking it down. It's great if you're a publisher and don't want to pay for distribution or a consumer with bytes to burn in your quota, but for the Internet as a whole I think it sucks because it results in so many more bits flying around than actually need to be - and flying around all over the world as well.

actually am working on an article about why I think it sucks but having some problems making it sounds like a legitimate beef and not a whiny complaint

Let me know how you go with that...

:P