cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6240929
I’m a pretty heavy torrent user, running a media server complete with sonarr/radarr for automatic downloads. I download a lot, and have multiple TBs of upload on various private trackers. I’ve been torrenting forever, but I’ve always wondered about usenet. Over and over on this, and other, forums I see people saying that usenet is way better - but why?
I understand what it is overall, but what makes it better than traditional torrenting? In my mind, it’s always just seemed like a different means to the same end. I pay for a VPN and torrent for “free”, or I pay for usenet access and download directly from there. As someone who’s “snobby” around the quality of the stuff I torrent, does usenet provide an advantage there?
Usenet fans, I’d love to hear what makes you love it! I’m always open to trying new things, and if It really is better I’d love to know why! (Plus, maybe what providers/tools etc you recommend).
I’m a torrenter with the sonarr radar lidarr prowlarr *arr setups.
I’ve dabbled with Usenet and here’s my understanding.
With torrents you’re all sharing something live, if you want ubuntu.iso and I have ubuntu.iso you can get it from me and many others who seed this file. A torrent tracker (or the dht) helps put us in touch so you know where the file is.
With Usenet it’s more like I dead drop this file, zipped and encrypted(?) onto a Usenet news server. All the Usenet providers mirror each other or something like that, so if you’re on a diff provider than me that same file should still be available. Then I tell an indexer, like dognzb or nzbgeek that this file is in fact ubuntu.iso and not garbage data. When you want ubuntu.iso you ask the indexer, indexer gives you a link and you get the file.
Beyond this, I don’t know about how much safer it is, but my immediate guess is that since you’re not seeding there’s less risk.
Now if you’re really snobby like me, you’ll quickly realize that the release groups you’re used to aren’t as well represented. I’ve often landed in situations where episode 7 of 20 is missing on Usenet…
As a snob, I’ve decided private trackers are probably the best place to be to keep my quality expectations satisfied.
Hope this helps.
Both torrents and usenet have their pros and cons. The major difference being that usenet is centralized but torrents are decentralized. Usenet is faster in general than even well seeded torrents, usually by many magnitudes, but it costs about $8-12 USD/month if you get it directly from the provider, and not a reseller. Well seeded torrents can’t (easily) be taken down and they’re free to access, but if the content their seeding isn’t popular it’s usually very slow to download and the availability of the file is up to those seeding it.
I was under the impression that “the scene” mostly released to Usenet and torrents were reuploads. But also that you needed to be on some private indexers or something to find the original uploads bc they’re not uploaded with obvious titles bc of the issue of DMCA takedowns (that are honored by Usenet hosts)
Never liked paying for Usenet, so I didn’t use it very long.
The scene uploads to their own ftp servers. Someone who has access to those servers then uploads to usenet or torrent sites.
This is a really great ELI5 explanation of how Usenet filesharing works technically, nice!
Awesome, yeah that makes sense. My biggest worry/confusion was about how more niche releases end up on there and so that clears things up. I’ve mostly been happy with what I can find via private trackers, so maybe it makes sense to stick with that.