Which Newsgroup provider?

[ascender]

I've not put this in the ISP thread as its a wee bit different. I'm looking for a good Newsgroup provider who offers binary downloads and decent retention times. I've been with Claranews, but they seem to be getting slower and slower recently.

Any recommendations?

Cheers,

Mike.

[Roost]

The mighty Giganews

http://www.giganews.com/

[randombs]

i use Easynews, been with them for almost 4 years now. Here's why:

* 20GB/month allowance for $10 a month (a fiver-odd?) - rolls over unused credit. whether this is enough or not depends on how big a pirate you are (i've got racked up 120-odd GB cos i don't dl much anymore)

* no need for a newsreading program (although you can if you want) - works through any web browser

* all the files are already decoded at their end so they're smaller and you can access them while downloading (great for videos/music)

* they do wicked stuff like automatically unrar'ing videos, pictures and cd images so you can download the file directly instead of the 50-odd rar files and unrar'ing. they also automatically use the par2 files to fix/recreate any missing rar files. it's wicked for videos as they hardly compress much anyway and you can start watching straight away

* web browser support means you can access the groups at ANY pc (or even PSP, DS, etc) you want (nothing to configure), and as it uses regular html over port 80 you won't have any firewall problems (dunno if newsreading programs use port 80 aswell)

* also works fine with getright, etc, so you can turn the pc off when everything's downloaded, and also watch videos while they're being downloaded

* you can stream the mp3's/etc direct to something like winamp. drag into the playlist, click, and it'll ask for the username/password and start playing the song. good for checking just what you're getting

* (just figured this out last week) you can stream videos direct to VLC (and probably certain other players) which i've been using a lot recently as it works great.

there's a chance other companies do all this and more aswell, but i left them a while ago (they thought my credit card was a fraudy but my bank had issued me a new one so the details were a bit different) and tried others but i was back within a week or so.

wouldn't leave them for the world now.

[Madjock]

Another here for Easynews, I'm on my 5th year with them and wouldn't look elsewhere.

My only problem is speed, I belive its more bulldogs end but it varies from full 600k/sec to sub 100. Using getright to pound the servers helps a bit.

[supersmithy]

me, im with www.usenetserver.com - $14.99, 70 days retention (or 90, can't remember!), unlimited downloads, always maxes out the line! Perfect for a scumbag pirate like me! Also has a nice web-search function where you can build NZB's. Always good! Been with them about a year, and can't remember having any problems with 'em.

May I also recommend Alt.Binz as your reader of choice, as it generally rocks ass. http://www.altbinz.com/ - no suprises there!

[chaoticjelly]

Another here for GIGANEWS, nothing else compares!

[Roost]

Just had an email from Giganews advising they've increased the retention to 100days now

[randombs]

bloody heck!

[Big N Veiny]

What advantages would I get using newsgroups over using torrents?

Right now I torrent pretty much all the TV I watch, MMA and few movies via torrents. Which is about 80-90GB a month.

[ascender]

I've gone with Giganews and the speed increase is pretty amazing. Also the retention on their servers is superb, so thanks for the advice.

[neoboy259]

Giganews for me! Plus they've now increased binary retention to 100 days!

[randombs]

What advantages would I get using newsgroups over using torrents?

Right now I torrent pretty much all the TV I watch, MMA and few movies via torrents. Which is about 80-90GB a month.

you get the full download speed of your internet from the off, and you don't need to upload anything either, nor do you have to worry about people cutting off and slowing it down later, or trackers, or seeders going offline, etc.

for TV stuff i love the groups as i'll have my episode ready in 25 mins (for a 700mb 45-min show) or less, and if i'm in a hurry i can start watching as soon as i start the download (it'll have downloaded before the program has finished).

also unlike torrents, the speed you download at is the same whether you download a recent file or an old file (you know how seeders vanish after a while), and you won't get that guilty pang* when you stop seeding a file right after you've downloaded it

*not getting into an argument about the moral/community aspects here