Newsgroups, downloads, info needed

[lee_sufc]

I usually use Torrents for downloading stuff but have heard many people saying about newgroups and usenet for downloading at much faster speeds.

I can't seem to work this out and don't know where to start?!? Does anyone here know much about this?

 

[Mr Plow]

Best to start at http://www.newzbin.com/ there's some tutorials linked at the top of the main page.

Then get yourself a binary Usenet reader, there's a free one at http://www.shemes.com/ called Grabit that I use and find it works really well.

To access newsgroups you basically need two things:

1) A Usenet account of some sort (be it free or paid for, some ISPs provide you with an account although they aren't gonna be anywhere near as good as a paid-for service such as http://www.giganews.com or http://www.usenetserver.com/ )

2) A program to browse the newsgroups (linked above).

So if you have the above, all you need to do is install the program, whack in the account details that the isp/newsgroup provider gives you and then you have access. You can then use sites such as Newzbin.com to search for what you want to download and either access that newsgroup from your newsreader program directly or (if you sign up to the website, it costs something stupid like 20p a week) download a small text file called an NZB file that will allow you to just grab the files without loading in the newsgroup and manually searching for the post.

Probably sounds a little complicated but it's not really once you get the hang of it, and if you're gifted with Telewest 10Meg cable like I used to be ..

.. you can pull down a whole DVD in less than an hour.

 

[lee_sufc]

cheers for the help - all a lot clearer now!

 

[jstallan]

Agree with 'Mr Plow'... also have a look at http://www.slyck.com/ng.php

I use http://www.news.astraweb.com/ who offer a PAYG service (25gb of downloads for $10) with no expiry time....

 

[The Artful Shrimper]

tut tut tut, what about those poor starving hollywood actors you're ripping off, or The fuel for Bono's lear Jet to get him to end world poverty.