Title says it. Is anyone still on the newsgroups? For reasons I need to amass a large collection of music in MP3 format, preferably full albums, and I’d like to do it somewhat quickly. Is there a better place to hunt before I buy news server access? I been on land for too many years.
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for music theres also soulseek, or ripping from streaming platforms (deezer/tidal/qobuz)
Usenet is all I use… highly recommend it.
I predominantly use Usenet for procuring all my media, except for
- Switch ROMs, which I rely on torrents via NSWTL. I have 4 indexers and all of them give me “missing parts” error when I try to download Switch ROMs.
- Music, which I rely on Telegram bots. I am in the process of migrating my streaming library to Navidrome and I haven’t found a better workflow than to send a playlist link to the bot, and downloading the music and then tagging it using Picard.
could you share the telegram bot you use? used to use some but they got banned some time ago
Sure. It is called deezload2bot. Found it on fmhy.net.
Edited to remove direct link.
The missing parts sounds like a provider issue, not an indexer one. Do you have a backup block on a different backbone?
I don’t have one yet, but I do plan to get one as I infrequently get those errors with movies too.
I am using NewsHosting as my primary/sole provider (the bundled Privado VPN is what I bound qBitTorrent with), which is on Omicron.
Will look for a fallback on a different backbone. Though any inputs on this will be appreciated. :-)
BlockNews or Usenet.farm seem like they could be good fits for your set up. Since you can already get what you want, it may be worth it to wait until Black Friday sales.
I use it exclusively. I think it’s better than worrying about torrents. It almost feels obfuscated with the indexer.
I have not used torrents in years after discovering usenet. You can find the most obscure stuff that is impossible to find on torrents. Plus you are not dependent on seeders, nor do you have to seed yourself. Or the frustration that the torrent stops at 99% and you still can’t play. And to top it off the speed is amazing.
I do want to give a shout out to Kevin who developed the NZB360 app. It’s the best app for usenet and my most used app on my phone.
Usenet is still very much alive.
For music, I use Lidarr (along with the rest of the arr stack) and Headphones as an indexer.
It doesn’t have absolutely everything that I want but enough to make it worth the price.
Local public libraries may have CDs you can borrow and rip. If you have a CD drive.
What’s the benefit of usenet over torrents?
You get to sit through interviews, possibly get to pay for access and have to deal with gatekeepers.
Joking aside, theres some variety in the selection. In my experience, torrents have excellent selection of mainstream and well known artist, not so much with smaller, niche and local artists. Soulseeks fills that hole nicely. Some friends of mine who use usenet have reported that when you need to find that one EP from that one band that existed for 4 months in 1978, you have good chances of doing that there.
For me, its not worth the effort and trouble getting things set up and getting in to a server. Others will disagree and tell you its the best thing since recording C-cassette tapes for your friends.
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Generally don’t need a VPN with usenet because according to isp providers it’s general downloaded content with encryption so they don’t see what you’re downloading
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speed depends on your provider, not seeder counts, meaning that it’s generally much more consistant speeds and can easily reach multi gigabit
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don’t need to worry about seeding at all, instead you have two caps to worry about that reset daily for indexes, api hits and download counts. Generally you get a couple thousand api hits for third party apps or your Starr apps and a few hundred downloads per day.
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older content is generally easier to find on usenet because there is no inactivity deletion due to lack of seeders like on private torrent trackers. The only limitation is your providers retention time generally in the thousands of days range
The one major downside of usenet over torrents is that you pay for access either monthly, yearly, or lifetime for both the provider and the indexer.
And you do need both because the providers give you the ability to download the files and the indexers host the files. So if you have just an indexer you can see the files but not download them or if you have just a provider you have the ability to download the files but can’t find any files to download.
Hope this helps!
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Uses encryption so you can’t be dinged by copyright trolls, high speed downloads (usually), easier automation and higher quality control.
Only note is that it isn’t free.
Usenet is still very much a thing.
I use Eweka.nl (Usenet access) and NZBGeek (indexer). Works well.
How much does this setup cost?
Yes.
I get my music from slsk though, try nicotine+ (client for soulseek).
Thanks for reminding me to hunt for that one japanese album I can’t find anywhere on usenet though, that’s the only place I haven’t looked. Can’t even buy a physical copy (and would be willing, I’ve been looking so long).
E: OH but be warned, put some files in your slsk share folder before you download, and you can also re-share your downloads folder. Some losers have auto-ban scripts for people “not sharing” which is mostly new people (though they’re too dumb to realize that). Just throw a few albums in your “share” folder (and set that up in settings,) you’ll bypass them. Also, would VPN, preferably with port forwarding but beggars can’t be choosers.
Hell yeah. It’s good to have as an alt source in an arr-stack setup. I prioritise torrent since that helps folks who don’t/can’t pay but it’s there when TL falls or smth.
I know Usenet is still alive and well for video, at least. Check out soulseek for music downloads if you want to try avoiding a subscription.
slsk would also be my recommendation for music, though I’m not sure I can recommend in good faith leeching a bunch of music all at once. Unless it’s a pretty even split amongst source users, and OP intends to share afterwards.
All the time!
Wow, that brings back memories
Loud, screeching memories
lots of people using Usenet.
I have 2 main servers on 2 different networks, plus some block accounts as backup and a couple of indexers.
But for music, especially if its anything unusual, rare, or otherwise difficult to locate elsewhere, get onto soulseek. I use N+ personally and have uploaded ~80TB this year so far and downloaded about 600Gb. I dont do torrents very often so SLSK is how I give back to the community.
Soulseek is an old school free file sharing P2P platform, like limewire, kazaa, winmx, ed2k etc. just like the good old days.
That sounds like a great place to start! Many thanks, matey!
