How many of you use Usenet VS torrents (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by overload@sopuli.xyz to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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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.

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[-] tostiman@sh.itjust.works 40 points 6 months ago

I think usenet users are a vocal minority.

[-] Outtatime@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 months ago

It used to be the opposite. But the normies showed up and the fight club rules are out the window.

[-] NotBadAndYou@ttrpg.network 31 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[-] ErwinLottemann@feddit.de 14 points 6 months ago

5$ for vpn and usenet? where can one hypothetically get this?

[-] shrugal@lemm.ee 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[-] Sunny@slrpnk.net 12 points 6 months ago

Just want to let you know that Privado VPN is not a private vpn, please read their privacy policy before buying into their services.

[-] shrugal@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Looks ok to me, what in particular do you take issue with?

[-] thisusernameistaken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago

This was discussed on reddit a bit ago. The same company in place now ran IPVanish and they logged and rolled over on the user. No reason to think they wouldnt do the same with privado and if you are ultra worried tin foil hat-ish, would they do the same with their usenet? who knows. https://torrentfreak.com/ipvanish-no-logging-vpn-led-homeland-security-to-comcast-user-180505/

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[-] kamiheku@sopuli.xyz 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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?

[-] davidfreina@lemmy.davidfreina.at 10 points 6 months ago

Afaik most usenet providers have a retention period of 3000+ days (some even reaching 4000+). I've downloaded multiple things from the 90s without any problems. The oldest media in my collection is from 1957, so retention really isn't a problem I would say.

[-] jaykay@lemmy.zip 6 points 6 months ago

I managed to get Thomas and Friends from 1987

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[-] jaykay@lemmy.zip 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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)

[-] hondacivic@lem.sabross.xyz 21 points 6 months ago

Always went for the free option

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[-] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 16 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] bzxt@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] BillionsMustSeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 6 months ago

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

[-] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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?

[-] overload@sopuli.xyz 6 points 6 months ago

I used the wiki on r/usenet, which was pretty helpful.

From my understanding, you need 3 things:

Usenet Provider (these are servers that host all of the content - you pay them to have access to download the content)
Indexer (this is kind of like Google but for the usenet providers - they will find and give you the .nzb file which will be used to access the content from the usenet provider above - you pay the indexer for their service)
Usenet client (This would be akin to a torrent client like Qbittorrent - it is the program which you use to download the content from the provider, using the .nzb file provided by the indexer)

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.

[-] jmp242@sopuli.xyz 9 points 6 months ago

Usenet is hurt a lot by takedown notices unfortunately. So lots of older popular stuff doesn't work. That said, things like Anime or something that isn't given a takedown seem to be on there about forever. The server speed is a benefit for sure.

[-] overload@sopuli.xyz 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I've heard dmca is an issue there. I'm not sure how stuff stays up there.

[-] Outtatime@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

If you belong to a very limited and kinda secret indexer, then this problem isn't much of an issue

[-] veroxii@aussie.zone 10 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] viking@infosec.pub 8 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] overload@sopuli.xyz 6 points 6 months ago

I have wondered this as well. Seems like it is pretty linked.

Tbf, Usenet and indexers are strictly speaking, legal.

[-] viking@infosec.pub 6 points 6 months ago

Right, but whatever I'm doing on there really isn't.

As a matter of fact my current jurisdiction doesn't even pursue copyright infringements, but I still don't want to be linked to anything commonly seen as shady.

[-] overload@sopuli.xyz 3 points 6 months ago

Fair enough, I was under the impression that if you are using SSL, all an ISP or VPN provider could see is that you are connected to whichever backbone provider you were connected to. I.e. The content of what you are downloading is encrypted.

You could be downloading stuff that is not illegal, and I don't think that is necessarily knowable by anyone except yourself.

I may be way off here, I'm not an IT person, but that was my understanding of SSL.

[-] BitsOfBeard@programming.dev 3 points 6 months ago

I'd say as a general rule any encryption can be cracked, but usually it is not worth the time and effort to do so.

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[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 5 points 6 months ago

Wait, you have to pay for using Usenet?

[-] jaykay@lemmy.zip 7 points 6 months ago

Well since someone has to host the data, someone needs to pay for it :P

[-] GasMaskedLunatic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

It's funny you put it that way, because torrents are based fundamentally on the idea of freely hosting the data so nobody has to pay to access it.

[-] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Torrents are based on the idea that everyone using them pays for it with their bandwidth and hardware cost. Except for those leechers who don't share.

I'm paying more for my seedbox than for my usenet subscription. If I used my own hardware I'd pay with stress on my hardware, e.g. the disks aging and failing earlier because of seeding. The power consumption is also not negligeble, altough the server is also used for other purposes.

With private trackers this idea of an equal exchange is more obvious because of ratio requirements.

Edit: I'd say it's similar to open source in that no single individual has to pay for it, but someone does have to, for it to exist. Most often with their (valuable) time and knowledge. If no one helps out and does their part (through money or time+knowledge), a project won't survive for long. Same is true for torrents.

[-] viking@infosec.pub 3 points 6 months ago

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.

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[-] Yuki@kutsuya.dev 8 points 6 months ago

I use both. It depends on what I need, really.

[-] Steve@communick.news 8 points 6 months ago

I was an avid Usenet user, until torrents were invented.
I've never needed to go back.

[-] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 7 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] Cwilliams@beehaw.org 6 points 6 months ago

Soulseek, anyone? I only ever do books and music, and Soulseek has everything I need

[-] the_doktor@lemmy.zip 6 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] Penguincoder@beehaw.org 5 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 5 points 6 months ago

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?

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[-] Nyarlathotep@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago

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

[-] joel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago

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

[-] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

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.

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 months ago

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.

[-] HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip 3 points 6 months ago

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.