50% Thundernews Usenet service today

[DudeAbides]

Hey guys, have been a long time lurker. Hope to help some with this special I found on another forum. If this has already been posted, please delete this thread...

http://www.thundernews.com/mayspecial.php

According to their offer, you can get 50% lifetime discount on any of their plans, but the offer is only good until May 23rd.

Unlimited usenet access for less than $10 is a great deal!

 

[SuperSix]

Does anyone still use this type of service with the BitTorrent onslaught?

 

[evilsaint]

Don't a lot of the original Torrented releases come from Usenet to begin with? Either way, heck of a deal, considering how much more quickly (in general) you can download stuff from UN vs most torrents.

 

[DudeAbides]

A lot of people still use usenet. Take a look at top1000.org, they have stats of all the core providers.

 

[MBony]

marked

 

[mscdex0]

IMHO (at least for me) astraweb is one of the better ones out there. Compared to the top 3 or so usenet providers, they are the only ones who provide pay-as-you-go service in which the bandwidth you buy never expires. I prefer this because there may be long periods of time where I may download nothing or very little, which doesn't justify paying a monthly fee for usenet access. It's great for the budget-conscious. Also there is no transfer rate caps with pay-as-you-go and the max connections is 30 more than the monthly plans.

As previously noted, usenet is still relevant since at least several of the popular providers don't cap transfer rates, so you can get better speed than with bittorrent many times.

That's my $0.02 anyway.

 

[foolish501]

thanks op, was using newshosting, but will save myself $5 a month, and get 20 connections instead of the 12 i get now

 

[California Roll]

Hmm, Thundernews for $11/month or Astraweb for $13/month?

 

[Cabages]

Never used newsgroups before, is the UNLIMITED / MO SSL with EU a good one to go for?

 

[psynce]

thanks for this! i was JUST looking for a good and affordable provider. and if they are reselling newshosting, that would mean that they are spooling to 400 too?

@Cabages - the unlimited plan is what i would go for. if you're running usenet on a wireless network or in anyway that you want to keep your usenet traffic private, the ssl is the way to go.

 

[Slick5150]

Sorry, but nobody finds it a tad suspicious that there are 2 guys posting in this thread (both with the black guy avatar of course) that both joined on the same date 2 months ago and hadn't posted a thing until 1 created the thread and the other jumped in to validate it as a hot deal?

Smells like spam

 

[psynce]

i dont think i would have chosen morpheus if i had a choice. im more of a neo type of guy.
and im not selling the service.

however, i could see the corelation that could be made.

im just actually curious about my assumption on the retention.

 

[ibex333]

Wait... It says that this offer is not available for 3,6,12 month term accounts... Well, what other accounts are there?!

EDIT: Nvm.. I see there's a monthly unlimited account. Btw.. Can someone explain to me what is the difference between SSL and non SSL servers? I know what SSL means in terms of webpages, but what does it mean for news service?

Originally posted by: SuperSix
Does anyone still use this type of service with the BitTorrent onslaught?

People who use bittorrent to download/upload pirated software often get shakedown letters with threats of legal action from their ISP. (Depending on which ISP you use off course) The infringer in question gets around 3 strikes before there is a good chance he will indeed get sued in worse case scenario, or his internet service gets canceled by his ISP or upload speed gets throttled(best case scenario). Some people say this is BS, but I assure you it's very true, and it happens quite often.

Anyway, the only way to avoid receiving shakedown letters and keep "infringing", is to use newsgroups. The reason for this is very simple. You don't upload anything! Unless you choose to off course. Downloading pirated software is not "legally" considered a crime, but uploading/sharing/distributing is considered very evil by software companies and ISPs.

 

[mscdex0]

Originally posted by: ibex333
Btw.. Can someone explain to me what is the difference between SSL and non SSL servers? I know what SSL means in terms of webpages, but what does it mean for news service?

It means the same thing when used anywhere, be it webpages, usenet connections, SSH, etc.

SSL prevents any information sent back and forth between you and the server from being sent as "cleartext." Without SSL, if someone were to eavesdrop on your connection, they generally could see what you were doing (i.e. your login credentials being sent to the server, etc.) in plain sight.

Wikipedia has the details on how it protects data being transmission here if you're interested in knowing more.

In short, you most likely would want to use the SSL server.

 

[mscdex0]

http://

 

[superHARD]

WOW this is a great deal!

 

[Wag]

I use Astraweb because they're migrating their retention rate of all their servers/groups to 365 days. Only costs $11/monthly. Very fast. Well worth it. No problems.

 

[Cabages]

Originally posted by: Wag
I use Astraweb because they're migrating their retention rate of all their servers/groups to 365 days. Only costs $11/monthly. Very fast. Well worth it. No problems.

Sorry, but again I must ask a question.

By retention rate, do you mean how long a file will be hosted? So if the retention rate is 365 days, 365 days after being posted it will no longer be available for download?

 

[abaez]

Originally posted by: mscdex0
IMHO (at least for me) astraweb is one of the better ones out there. Compared to the top 3 or so usenet providers, they are the only ones who provide pay-as-you-go service in which the bandwidth you buy never expires. I prefer this because there may be long periods of time where I may download nothing or very little, which doesn't justify paying a monthly fee for usenet access. It's great for the budget-conscious. Also there is no transfer rate caps with pay-as-you-go and the max connections is 30 more than the monthly plans.

As previously noted, usenet is still relevant since at least several of the popular providers don't cap transfer rates, so you can get better speed than with bittorrent many times.

That's my $0.02 anyway.

Interesting.. I like the pay as you go.

Can anyone recommend a newsreader? I used Agent waaaay back when (late 90's?).. what's a good one now?

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: Cabages

Originally posted by: Wag
I use Astraweb because they're migrating their retention rate of all their servers/groups to 365 days. Only costs $11/monthly. Very fast. Well worth it. No problems.

Sorry, but again I must ask a question.

By retention rate, do you mean how long a file will be hosted? So if the retention rate is 365 days, 365 days after being posted it will no longer be available for download?

Yes. Unlike torrents which can go in or out depending on seeders, you're guaranteed access to the posts/files for however long the retention rate is. I use usenet a lot to download foreign language shows unavailable in the USA.

Having long retention rates means you don't have to rush to download the shows. Sometimes if I"m real busy it might take me two months before I queue a new batch of files to download.

I'm curious if they truly have 365 day retention rates. Normally the cheapy usenet providers give you about 70-90'ish days while the better ones give about 200'ish days. A full year retention is a lot.

 

[Spelvin]

If you are interested in the Binaries you will want these three things:

http://www.shemes.com/ Free Grabit newsreader You actually will only be using this for pulling .NZB files not for actually searching or browsing the Usenet, unless you really want to.
http://www.par2.net/products.php Free PAR2 file validation Par files are parity checks that can repair damaged files that you download.
http://www.rarlab.com/ Demo of WinRAR Most Binaries are split into a bunch of parts. WinRAR reassembles them.

Grabit can also be setup to automate the PAR2 validation and repair and then the WinRAR reassembly and extraction.

To find the files you want you can use these two search engines:
http://binsearch.info/
http://www.newzleech.com/


I got on the NewsDemon offer a couple months ago and have enjoyed their service very much.

definitely go unlimited use if you use any P2P now and you will have no more worries about low seeds on HD rips or slow speed.

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: SuperSix
Does anyone still use this type of service with the BitTorrent onslaught?

Does anyone still use BitTorrent when Usenet is faster, more reliable, and consistently delivers releases faster?

 

[Elganja]

Originally posted by: DudeAbides
Hey guys, have been a long time lurker. Hope to help some with this special I found on another forum. If this has already been posted, please delete this thread...

http://www.thundernews.com/mayspecial.php

According to their offer, you can get 50% lifetime discount on any of their plans, but the offer is only good until May 23rd.

Unlimited usenet access for less than $10 is a great deal!

thanks for the deal.. just signed up...

Originally posted by: Wag
I use Astraweb because they're migrating their retention rate of all their servers/groups to 365 days. Only costs $11/monthly. Very fast. Well worth it. No problems.

ThunderNews Announces 400 Days Retention

 

[imported_Husky55]

Originally posted by: Spelvin
If you are interested in the Binaries you will want these three things:

http://www.shemes.com/ Free Grabit newsreader You actually will only be using this for pulling .NZB files not for actually searching or browsing the Usenet, unless you really want to.
http://www.par2.net/products.php Free PAR2 file validation Par files are parity checks that can repair damaged files that you download.
http://www.rarlab.com/ Demo of WinRAR Most Binaries are split into a bunch of parts. WinRAR reassembles them.

Grabit can also be setup to automate the PAR2 validation and repair and then the WinRAR reassembly and extraction.

To find the files you want you can use these two search engines:
http://binsearch.info/
http://www.newzleech.com/


I got on the NewsDemon offer a couple months ago and have enjoyed their service very much.


definitely go unlimited use if you use any P2P now and you will have no more worries about low seeds on HD rips or slow speed.

Much appreciated for links and advices. I have not used usenet since the old days and have no idea even where to begin now.

 

[jalaram]

FWIW, I use 7zip for my rar use.