Usenet
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I used to use the USENET almost exclusively for files. I vividly recall using those "magical" par files to repair and complete missing parts of files, and then using winrar to extract the files, etc. I even paid for Easynews for several years - a premium usenet service. My ISP used to have an excellent Usenet service included (which they did away with a long time ago).
I don't know what happened, but the Usenet got polluted with a deluge of fake files, malware, viruses, incomplete files, etc. Some newsgroups had roughly 99% fake files in them!
What really annoyed me is that the premium usenet providers did nothing to filter out the malware or incomplete files or fake files. On the usenet, typically a user is associated with the files they post, so if there is malware - that user should have all their files removed. That didn't happen though.
Luckily, as the usenet died, the torrents replaced them. I don't know what I would do for files without torrents.
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Usenet hasn't died, it still has terabytes of posts a day. But the method of downloading has moved on.
For instance, Easynews has a browser interface where you can show only completed movies, no spam and all scanned, ready to download as a complete file.
It is still the first place I look for movies and software because the download is fast, I don't have to seed but I do have to pay $10 a month
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Trying to get full and unrestricted access to Usenet these days seems very hard if not impossible… At least not for free anyway. A lot of providers now filter some of the content, and even entire newsgroups out of their systems as to make some content inaccessible. A lot of this has to do with providers being sued for having content that was deemed to be "questionable" within it.
The great part about torrents is that such content is not as filtered, and in a lot of cases, is pretty well impossible to wipe out from the internet given the nature of how torrents work, as compared to the nature of how newsgroups work in general.
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I'm not sure it was ever possible to get good access to usenet for free. My ISP still offers usenet but it only has a retention of a few days.
I'm not sure the specialist paid providers censor the content - I feel they would lose customers if they did. And I haven't heard of any usenet provider being sued. That doesn't mean they haven't
And it is still my preferred method of downloading. The biggest drawback is stuff disappearing off the bottom of the group.
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There is one particlar lawsuit that stands out to me…. Take a look at these:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/07/judge-throws-book-at-usenetcom-in-riaa-lawsuit/
http://betanews.com/2007/10/18/riaa-finally-takes-aim-at-newsgroups/
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/19/6044679/the-six-lawsuits-that-shaped-the-internet <– Not as relevant, but it touches on it
There are a small handful of other ones out there, however to my understanding, they didn't end up going anywhere because the providers were able to cough up an explanation that provided for plasible deniability due to the nature of the way that the Usenet system works.
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Thanks for those, I will read them later
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I recently went back to usenet (to get a TV series that is broadcast here with an infuriating delay of several months). I discovered that Easynews has 1-year retention on its web interface and 7-year (!) retention on its NNTP interface. Been exploring the NNTP backlog ever since.
The file names seem to be less obfuscated than I remember from the past. i don't know if Easynews uses some de-obfuscating process on the posts.
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I recently went back to usenet (to get a TV series that is broadcast here with an infuriating delay of several months). I discovered that Easynews has 1-year retention on its web interface and 7-year (!) retention on its NNTP interface. Been exploring the NNTP backlog ever since.
The file names seem to be less obfuscated than I remember from the past. i don't know if Easynews uses some de-obfuscating process on the posts.
I used to use Easynews, and that is probably the best. I used to chat with the guys that ran it… they went by the names "King Kong" and "Godzilla". I think they are gone though... and I gave up on the USENET because of so many trash files and malware. At the time, Easynews made virtually no attempt to clean the crap out of their groups.
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Usenet hasn't died, it still has terabytes of posts a day. But the method of downloading has moved on.
For instance, Easynews has a browser interface where you can show only completed movies, no spam and all scanned, ready to download as a complete file.
It is still the first place I look for movies and software because the download is fast, I don't have to seed but I do have to pay $10 a month
Hmmm.. maybe I will give it another try in a few months. The price has not changed - $10 a month.
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Frederick, combined with torrents I find the minimum is more than enough for me.
If you do try easynews again, get in touch and I can give you some shortcut tips for the Web interface
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Frederick, combined with torrents I find the minimum is more than enough for me.
If you do try easynews again, get in touch and I can give you some shortcut tips for the Web interface
I have not used the Usenet in years, but I remember they had a Web interface. Before that, I always used Forte Agent.
I have noticed that plain old web searches now do a much better job of finding things than they did even a few months ago.
I fear that in the future, the internet will be completely regulated and there will be no anonymity nor "underground" left.
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Amazingly I still use Forte Agent for email, too lazy to change I suspect. I rarely use it for movies because my version doesn't join the parts whereas the web interface does.
I still use Agent for downloading music though.
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Speaking of joining files back together, have you ever tried HJ Split?
If using Linux, I've found Gnome Split to be just the thing that I need to do that kind of thing.
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Heavens, do you think I'm an elephant ;D
My memory only goes back as far as the Crimean War… But I seem to recall HJSplit was a bad program. I may be wrong but it did cause problems.
The one I used to use was JAS, just another splitter. It became very hard to get the correct version and after people really started using QickPar/PAR2 to check integrity and rejoin, JAS fell out of fashion.
I've just done a search for JAS and it seems to have fallen into the big black hole.
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I do know of what you speak… From my experience, there was once a time when HJSplit was rather annoying and didn't work quite right half of the time. That however was long ago fixed with a new version that was released back a loooooooong time ago.
