found this online.

Easynews is testing their new usenet server, in December everyone can use their server for free

News server: news.easynews.nl
login : beta@easynews.nl
password : beta

8 connections, max. 20Mbit


I haven't tried it myself yet, so good luck but I've read some reporting it at 425 KB/s sustained.

Ok, i'm gonna have a go at downing a film from usenet, whats the best proggie to use?

I'm guessing outlook don't cut it?

I really like SABnzbd, as it's fully automatic. That is it will unpar (as required) and unrar too. Saves all that messing about with other apps. It's alittle fiddly to set up as it runs in a browser window.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sabnzbd/

However Grabit is easy peasy as is NZB-O-Matic, both free.

http://www.shemes.com/

http://nzb.wordtgek.nl/

You can search for NZBs here

http://www.binsearch.info/groups.php

And popular NZB sites include:

http://nzbmatrix.com/index.php

http://www.nzbsrus.com/ (which appears to be down right now).

I honestly haven't found any large file(s) of interest on usenet the last 2-3 weeks

Well i happen to be downing a pr0n film at the mo

First film i cum across, honest

Hehe

Just tested it out. Gave me a sustained d/load of 1160 KB/s. Not bad at all. No idea of the retention though.

Well i like the speed, i'm d/l at 170-190KB/s on my crappy NTL cable box.

One question, the films finished and i've got RAR and PAR2 files, i extracted the rar and got the film, what are the PAR2 files for? Are they in case some RARS were corrupt?

Spot on. If for any resaon there are some blocks missing you can use the PAR files to 'fix' the RARs. I use QuickPAR to do so. As I stated above though SABnzbd will do all this automatically for you. That is download extra PARs if needed, fix the rars, then unpack. It's much better IMO.

http://www.quickpar.org.uk/

Well it's just as well cos the film i'm getting now has already got 2 parts missing. There are 7 PAR2 files with this one, so if i've got more than 7 parts missing i may as well junk it, yes?

Think i'll have a look at that SABnzbd.

MANY thanks for this killingjokezzz, I have found myself (hopefully temporarily) without Usenet access, just as a huge MAME update has been posted. I am also experiencing speed issues, again hopefully temporarily, so I can only have 3 threads @ ~100k/s.

Normally it's just blocks that are missing here and there and I can't think of one I've had recently that wasn't reparable with a few PARs. Though it can depend on the newserver. Some have everything complete, others need a few PARs to repair.

This explains things quite well.

http://www.slyck.com/ng.php

Well what a waste of an hour that was!

Not enough blocks to repair it, incomplete grabs and all sorts!

I'll try that SAB proggie

Well after persevering with this and some very useful tips from killingjokezzz on PM,

i can now see why people rave about getting stuff from newsgroups, talk about quick!

People if you've never tried newsgroups, do it, do it now!

Rather than keeping the tips to PM, why not put them here?

My only experience of newsgroups was a free server and I ended up in exactly the same situation as you did above. If a paid server gives similar problems, then I'm reluctant to sign up.

So share the knowledge.

Ok, i'll try and explain it.

I'm using grabit with this site http://www.binsearch.info/groups.php

Go to the group you want and click on 'only show collections'

The mistake (?) i made was then ticking the box on the left of the collection i wanted to d/l, this left me with lots of incomplete rars which i was unable to fix. If instead of ticking that box click the word collection it shows you all the files for that film/game/whatever.

Tick all the ones you want, i dont bother with the nfo. Then click Create NZB at the top. Of course if it says incomplete, dont bother. This will then fire up grabit and d/l pretty fast. I'm only on ntl 2mbit and it takes about an hour for 700MB.

I'm not sure why clicking individual files rather than the whole collection works, but it does.

Hope this helps.

Incidentally i tried to down a game on the news server mentioned above which was 6 days old and it couldn't find it, tried on ntlnews and it's coming in.

It's all to do with completion and retention.

Most DECENT usenet providers have at least 30 day retention and ~99.x% completion.

If to quote johnathome's example of a 6 day old post being incomplete on easynews, then that is abysmal, the fact that it's available on NTL's own usenet server (Which is my benchmark for the worst usenet service imaginable) makes it even worse.

If you want decent usenet you have to pay for it, you shouldn't have to pick and choose which parts of a release to grab, a decent provider will have it all, providing it was posted within their retention limit.

You should NEVER be in a position where a <30day old release is unable to be completed with PARs, if you are : change providers

PC_A,

Now i've realised how fast Newsgroups are i'm thinking of paying for it.

I guess you use that one in your sig, is it really $15 a month with unlimited downloads?

How fast is it?

If i sign up i'll do it through your aff link.

I do and it is, IIRC though that's with the 3 months option

Maxxes out my 10mb line

Thanks

I'm still not sure why you'd have to open the collection and then select them all, as it shouldn't be any different from just getting the whole lot in one. Oh well.

I didn't realise the retention was so poor on the easynews freebie server. Sorry.

I do agree about paying though. I'm with Newshosting. $14.95 for unlimited and 8 connections. Retention is upto 80 days now.

I've seen some of your posts at cableforums PC_Arcade and it definitely seems to me that NTL is capping (not Giganews) newsservers at peak times. I'm not that bothered as I queue everything to douwnload over night, leaving Bittorrent and emule to run the rest of the time.