How many of you use Usenet VS torrents
Just wondering what a rough split is of people using either Usenet, torrents, or both?
I've only just discovered Usenet and while it is paid, it is very cheap and much more convenient than torrents.
Using torrents as well with the *arr suite set up for my various Linux ISOs.
I think usenet users are a vocal minority.
It used to be the opposite. But the normies showed up and the fight club rules are out the window.
Usenet as daily driver works 99% of the time. Only use VPN/torrents for extremely new or very obscure shows. $5/month pays for unlimited Usenet and VPN.
5$ for vpn and usenet? where can one hypothetically get this?
This UsenetServer discount link gives you 1 trial month for $1, then $50/year after that, and includes a 1TB TweakNews block and a paid PrivadoVPN account.
Only use VPN/torrents for extremely new or very obscure shows
Interesting, I would have thought torrents would be better for older stuff due to their theoretically infinite retention. Like, can you find, say, LOTR: The Return of the King on Usenet at the moment? Someone has to have uploaded it in the past ~2 years (retention period) or something for it to be available, right?
LOTR = anything from 4K HDR 7.1 Atmos, down to DVD is available (theoretically, as you can have items that exists, but can’t be fully downloaded so don’t work, because of DMCA and other things). The oldest release I see is 5800 days old and the newest is 4 days old. So people keep reuploading stuff if it’s popular enough. (I still can’t find some episodes of Ben 10 tv show lol)
I have no idea what to do or how to even get started with Usenet, so I just use a VPN and torrent as needed.
I am also in that basket. To me Usenet seems like another, older protocol that achieves practically the same thing. If someone is more knowledgeble, feel free to correct me or explain further.
20% torrent and 80% stremio with real debrid.
Stremio and RD is just so easy. Torrent for anything I really want to keep forever in very high quality.
I don't even know what Usenet is, so I'm 100% torrents, which I keep seeding ad infinitum as I don't have storage issues. My most-seeded thing is nearing 150 ratio lol
I'm 100% torrents if I need it. Fmovies or other sites seem to have the majority of what I want to watch.
Is there a guide on how to use usenet? What does it offer that torrents does not? Is it nitch stuff?
I used the wiki on r/usenet, which was pretty helpful.
From my understanding, you need 3 things:
Benefits of Usenet I believe are the high speed of downloads, generally accessibility to older and more niche content, and ease of use. You don't need to fish through torrents hoping that the seed/peer numbers are enough to actually get all of the content in good time. I've found a lot of stuff there lately that I have not been able to find via torrenting sites, but are important childhood media to me/my wife.
I was an avid Usenet user, until torrents were invented.
I've never needed to go back.
I use both. It depends on what I need, really.
I'm mostly downloading fairly recently released stuff, so there's no shortage of torrents on public trackers.
I also don't want any payment details associated with anything not explicitly legal, so that'd be a further deterrent from Usenet. Sure, I could use crypto, but even that links me to a wallet that might someday be traced back to me, so I'll pass.
I have wondered this as well. Seems like it is pretty linked.
Tbf, Usenet and indexers are strictly speaking, legal.
Wait, you have to pay for using Usenet?
You pay for traffic. There are some free versions out there, but they limit you to 10-25 GB or something. Might be an option for the 1% you can't find on public trackers.
You can get free accounts from sites like Eternal September, but you only get access to text groups, which are mostly full of spam anymore. If you don't download much, it's best to just get a block account.
Yes just like paying for vpn and/or seedbox to safely torrent.
Torrents only here... I have 8gbps internet. I'm privileged, so I seed (10x or one year). I don't see a point to paying to be part of a usenet in my situation. I have a few private trackers I'm on. I should see about getting into a few more though to spread the bandwidth wealth. 4 seedbox vms to roundrobin the new torrents that get added.
Soulseek, anyone? I only ever do books and music, and Soulseek has everything I need
I used to when usenet was free from every single ISP, there was an active community behind every single alt.binaries.* group, and it wasn't "subscribe to this usenet provider that gives you 5 years of posts from every group and you download things by this oversimplified NZB crap" instead of relying on and engaging with the community to post new and interesting things all the time.
Usenet here. 4 paid indexers and the Usenet sub. Still cost less in a year than cable or streaming services cost in a month. Get everything I want and look for easily.
I pay for one Usenet provider/indexer. I also still use tons of torrent sources.
90% of the time, stuff that I'm monitoring gets downloaded via Usenet for currently airing or rather new shows.
50% of the time when actively looking for stuff from the past 5-10 years I use Usenet, the other half is torrents
90% of stuff older than that, I only find torrents
100% of non-English stiff I get from torrents (I'm subscribed to an English Usenet indexer though, so that tracks).
In short: Why not use both?
Do things on usenet get purged? Would you expect the stuff showing up today to still be accessible in 5-7 years?
Yes, they do!! With torrents, it just takes a single seeder to keep the torrent alive, but Usenet isn't peer to peer - you're downloading stuff from a centralized server(s), and they simply cannot keep everything alive forever.
IMO it's fine though. Usenet provides you with very timely access to all the "newest" stuff, in excellent, very consistent quality.
And for older stuff, there's torrents.
100% Usenet here. Maybe I am basic, but it has everything I want and grabbing stuff is very easy.
Once in a great while I cannot find something and then I ask a friend to check his private trackers.
YMMV
Both.
But becauee my indexers are free my mix is:
75% Torrent
20% Usenet (but only wirh interactive searches)
5% Somewhere else like web streaming/downloads.
I started using Usenet about a year ago and much prefer it. Once you have you it set up it's very straight forward to use, and means you don't have to worry about maintaining your ratio, or making sure your vpn doesn't drop out, or piratebay going down etc etc
I recently switched over my ARR stack to only use usenet. Working well now but you really need a good indexer. The public ones are just not quite good enough.
I tried it but TBH went back to torrents. I found it to be very fiddly to get working, every single component seems to want you to pay for it (and not wanting to pay for and keep track of half a dozen streaming things is one of the main draws for piracy for me anyway) and overall it just didn't seem worth it to find the ~1% of things I can't find on torrents (and I didn't even find all of them on Usenet either.)
Other people's mileage may vary of course, but I didn't really think it was worth it.
Both. I tend to let the -arr apps decide.
This comment section may as well be a retirement home
I'm a resident of the retirement home, but this is still funny.
I use about 8 paid indexer and have found any release listed on predb that I searched (most media is downloaded instantly after adding to jellyseer.
Just torrents and I seed as much as possible. I knew about Usenet many years ago but, for whatever reasons, never really got into it. One day...
Usenet for 30 years now. Torrent for 15 or so. Usenet primary source.