What is the best usenet service (based on amount of content, file transfer limits, cost, and speed)?

QUOTE (PsychoZX @ Sep 7 2002, 01:21 AM)

What is the best usenet service (based on amount of content, file transfer limits, cost, and speed)?

I dig Easynews, but make sure you have a big pipe. I had the 6 Gig/month for about 6 months, and never came close to using a third of it, on dialup.

I've got a cable modem and it costs me about 30 dollars a month to use easynews.com because I download so damn much...

QUOTE (Gassy @ Sep 7 2002, 06:59 AM)

I dig Easynews, but make sure you have a big pipe.

2mbit down/ 368 kbit up cable modem

I use easynews.com ***AND*** news2me.com

easynews.com has GREAT retention, but there's that darn $10/6GB thing...

news2me.com is $10/month, 1.67GB PER DAY, $0.50/GB over the daily limit.... but the retention is not as good as EasyNews.

Between the two, I can download a LOT. Where EasyNews cost me $40-50 a month, Now I only spend about $22-24 for more data.

Hrmmm... I might have to look into that...

news2me account usage for this month:

Doesn't count, I was away >>09/01/2002: 0 KB
Got back late this day>>09/02/2002: 486.0 MB
09/03/2002: 2147.5 MB
09/04/2002: 458.4 MB
09/05/2002: 1633.2 MB
09/06/2002: 1223.8 MB


So for the first 4 days, I already would have gobbled up $10 worth on EasyNews.com

Keep in mind, I had to fill from EasyNews, and I've used about 1.7GB since the 3rd from that service.

I use Airnews.net. They've got pretty good retention, and best of all, no Download Limits. The bad thing, they've got a speed cap. I pay $15 a month and I get capped at 30k. No biggie, stuff still comes down pretty fast. They have bigger packages that allow you more connections to their server and more bandwidth. I've been with about 4 other companies and I've always come back to airnews...

:d:

QUOTE (Demon @ Sep 7 2002, 12:41 PM)

I use Airnews.net. They've got pretty good retention, and best of all, no Download Limits. The bad thing, they've got a speed cap. I pay $15 a month and I get capped at 30k. No biggie, stuff still comes down pretty fast. They have bigger packages that allow you more connections to their server and more bandwidth. I've been with about 4 other companies and I've always come back to airnews... :

Is that bits/sec or bytse/sec??

Even if it's 30kbytes/sec, it's a bit restrictive. I download at 180+kbytes/sec.

Plus both EasyNews and news2me have web interfaces.

QUOTE (BenJeremy @ Sep 7 2002, 05:06 PM)

Is that bits/sec or bytse/sec?? Even if it's 30kbytes/sec, it's a bit restrictive. I download at 180+kbytes/sec. Plus both EasyNews and news2me have web interfaces.

it's in bits.

30kbits? Hell no, it's 30kbytes. Jump over to www.airnews.net to see their plans.

I have had other news servers that allow me to download in excess of 200Kbytes/sec. However, you run into download limits. Most give you 1gb per day, or so.

Airnews doesn't have a cap. You get speed throttled instead of download limited. Since I like the server, I don't mind.

:

How fast is news2me?

Just curious, what software you are using? freeagent? newsbin?

News2me.com has a nice web interface... BUT it doesn't have any kind of download manager... you have to go one file at a time, which is unlike easynews which has the GREAT zip manager.

News2me really does have pretty sucky retention to... not to mention it takes a little while longer for files to hit there. No sir, can't say I like it... I'm all about fast and now... easynews.

new2me seems more for pr0n than anything...

BenJeremy, if you've found a better way to download from news2me, let me know...

QUOTE (snakejoe @ Sep 10 2002, 03:05 AM)

Just curious, what software you are using? freeagent? newsbin?

Newsbin.

Great program!

Agent is good, but I don't like the database that you have to manage.

:d:

I use newsreactor.

QUOTE (N00bvin @ Sep 10 2002, 04:35 AM)

News2me.com has a nice web interface... BUT it doesn't have any kind of download manager... you have to go one file at a time, which is unlike easynews which has the GREAT zip manager. News2me really does have pretty sucky retention to... not to mention it takes a little while longer for files to hit there. No sir, can't say I like it... I'm all about fast and now... easynews. new2me seems more for pr0n than anything... BenJeremy, if you've found a better way to download from news2me, let me know...

Well, I drag and drop to the GetRight download manager.

As for EasyNews, I don't use the manager.... I wrote a program to scan the web pages and gleen off the files available.... then I can do searches across multiple newsgroups in a snap, multiple-select the files in a 'results' listbox, creates a GetRight queue file and automatically submits them to GetRight. Very easy, and it only takes me about half an hour to set up several gigabytes of stuff downloading (which is why it's costing me so damn much)

I may develop something similar for news2me. Right now, it's not that bad to drag and drop 30 or 40 URLs (50MB files) to GetRight every day. In fact, I think I've caught up to all the stuff worth downloading for the Xbox for now.

really the only good one is easynews I have tried all the ones mentioned and they by far have better speed, retention and less missing files. The best thing to do is combine in with a decent unlimited service that and with newsbin pro set it to download the file from the unlimited service first and if its missing it will get it from easynews, because if not you go through that 6gb in less than a week. Also another thing to do is sign up for there free gig program with udagent and for every 15 days of cpu time you'll get another gig free with easynews.

I've had great results with giganews. Back when I had a fat pipe, I could pull down 300kb/sec easy. But now with a cable modem I can only pull down 1.5 Megabit/sec, but it easily saturates me completely. They have phenomenal binaries retention (1.5 - 2 weeks), at least in comparison to supernews which I used to use (it was like 2 days), and generally all posts are complete and valid.

Agent works well with it, although its insistence on using a database to store everything will suck up disk space like mad and result in poor performance as windows must do a lot of swapping every now and then. (I'm hoping the PAN port to windows is released soon.)

QUOTE (sombrero @ Sep 11 2002, 03:17 AM)

I've had great results with giganews. Back when I had a fat pipe, I could pull down 300kb/sec easy. But now with a cable modem I can only pull down 1.5 Megabit/sec, but it easily saturates me completely. They have phenomenal binaries retention (1.5 - 2 weeks), at least in comparison to supernews which I used to use (it was like 2 days), and generally all posts are complete and valid. Agent works well with it, although its insistence on using a database to store everything will suck up disk space like mad and result in poor performance as windows must do a lot of swapping every now and then. (I'm hoping the PAN port to windows is released soon.)

newsreactor is better. http://www.daansystems.com/newsreactor/

Hadn't tried GetRight, but certainly will... with the advice coming from a true professional...

I wish I could say I wrote my own program to do "this or that"... I have to rely on the smart of others...

But hell, I can fix Airplanes!!!

Damn I'm amazed to read all this stuff.

Here I've been using Newsfeed with it's 9 gigs per DAY (that's right) limits, though it's split across several servers, and then upgraded to "unlimited".

It's a hell of a lot cheaper than what everyone is posting @$135/year for the premium, which gives access to the wonderful "EXE" server that has a retention of 1-2 MONTHS or more. Most posts are INTACT during this period. Note: EXE only gives you approx 1gig/day, but you still have access to 16+ other servers.

No I'm not affiliated with them in any way shape or form. I use three different news service providers and Newsfeeds gets my vote.

Personally I don't see the need to pay for an extra service since i get access thru my cable modem service. The retention isn't that good but I have no limits and I can most often hit around 256KB download speed split across 4 different files using a newreader called Grab IT!

QUOTE (Duece @ Sep 14 2002, 06:58 AM)

Personally I don't see the need to pay for an extra service since i get access thru my cable modem service. The retention isn't that good but I have no limits and I can most often hit around 256KB download speed split across 4 different files using a newreader called Grab IT!

You are missing far more than you know!

I currently have 56kb connetion but probably will be getting a broadband 500kb connection when it comes to my area (who no's when that will be!). I won't be doing many downloads of full games, just utilities. Which service shoud i use or shud i even use one?

Canada: what is the best news service to use in Canada? anyone?

omg, EASYNEWS GOD DAMMIT!!!

QUOTE (sombrero @ Sep 11 2002, 03:17 AM)

I've had great results with giganews. Back when I had a fat pipe, I could pull down 300kb/sec easy. But now with a cable modem I can only pull down 1.5 Megabit/sec, but it easily saturates me completely. They have phenomenal binaries retention (1.5 - 2 weeks), at least in comparison to supernews which I used to use (it was like 2 days), and generally all posts are complete and valid. Agent works well with it, although its insistence on using a database to store everything will suck up disk space like mad and result in poor performance as windows must do a lot of swapping every now and then. (I'm hoping the PAN port to windows is released soon.)

1-2 weeks retention...

HAR, HAR, HAR, HAR. Piffle!!!

1-3 MONTHS is more like it! Anything less than 1 MONTH is a joke!

I have Bellsouth DSL and they have a pretty good news server. Most files are complete. I get up to 5 simultaneous connections. Average 200+kb/sec download. and more importantly NO download limits.

I have pulled a little over 16GB off that server in one day.