I currently have an arr-stack setup on my home server with qBittorrent, which works relatively well. However, I mainly have two issues with it:

  1. There is very little content available on BitTorrent in my native language (Dutch), not even on private trackers afaik
  2. There are many torrents which take days to download, or even worse get stuck (hate it when that happens, especially if it’s at 99%)

This got me interested in Usenet.

As for point 1, I found an NZB indexer which seems to have a lot more Dutch content. I still have some questions, however.

  1. I understand that apart from having access to indexers I’ll also need a Usenet provider. How big are the differences between providers? I can find plans between €2 and €20 per month; does it matter that much which I take, apart from retention rate and download speed? Do all providers host all newsgroups?
  2. As for point 2, I understand that if content is on a provider’s servers, then you will be able to download it with whatever speed your provider gives you. How much content will I actually be able to find? Why isn’t content constantly taken down?
  3. Is using a VPN recommended with Usenet?
  • PenguinCoder@beehaw.orgEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    Usenet is not the WWW. It operates on a different protocol and methods. It’s not over HTTP(s) like this or standard web sites. Thus, your typical web user won’t even ever see or notice anything on or about usenet. This is why you would need a usenet provider or access. You cannot access usenet with a web browser. One notable difference between the web and Usenet is the absence of a central server and dedicated administrator. Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing conglomeration of servers that store and forward messages to one another in so-called news feeds. Individual users may read messages from and post messages to a local servers.

    Usenet is literally just a collection of text files on various servers or locations. There really isn’t an index builtin or a way to just ‘click to the next page’. This is why you need an indexer. An indexer crawls and scrapes usenet headers to allow searching and finding of specific content or posts. It automatically builds releases and indexes them like google indexes the internet.

    When someone uploads files to usenet, it’s just text. Very large files such as videos, aren’t easily represented as text and don’t “fit” in one post. It is spread over many different posts, sometimes hundreds. In text format. You could find all those posts, combine the text, and end up with an actual video or music file. But that file doesn’t “exist” on usenet as a specific, single, item. Indexers find all posts associated with something you may be searching for, and other news reader software (like NZBGet or SABNZB) combine all those text files into one, giving you the file you actually expect after downloading all the different posts/parts.

    Using a VPN account with usenet is beneficial, but not required. It is ideal to have access to multiple different indexers to find the posts you want.