Those Newsgroup things
 

Right I'm sure I'm not technical enough to ever use one but am I right in saying you have to pay to get on them but once your on you get mad download speeds and can pretty much grab everything? Someone tell me about them

Strike this a failure for the Tech Forum. :(

Right, first off there's a subscription. These can range from $5 to $20 for a basic subscription but there are two things you need to take into account:

1. How much you can download

2. Wht the retention rate is.

In regards to 2, the retention rate is how old the files you can see are. These are usually 30-90 days, so you don't get much of an archive.

The service I used to use is http:/www.easynews.com . $9.98 a month for 20gb, but only 12 day retention so you do have to be on the ball with checking your groups.

As for a client, I used http://www.shemes.com/ (Grabit). Easy to set-up and browse and has .nzb support (Where you can download a .nzb file, put it into the client and it will grab all the files as most downloads are split over 50 or so files.

PROS:
Stupidly fast
Most games/apps/movies go on newsgroups before anywhere else

CONS:
No archive of old downloads
There is no error correction, so your files will download incorrectly, and often. But there is a fix to this.

As well as downloading the RAR files, you can download PAR files. Basically, it will fix a broken download of rars automaticall for you (Only a certain amount, if the whole downloads buggered, you're screwed.). If you get this far and want to know more abot .PARs, let me know.

Jeeze, give me a chance, G

So only useful for new releases then no scope for things a bit older?

Older things get uploaded now and again, but they don't stay.

What, why don't you just use torrents? I don't understand what this is even about.

Yeah what? Why would you pay for access to illegal things that you will have access to for free later on?

Faster speed, no need to upload and it's the first place everything is uploaded. It was good being on the bleeding edge for a while but yeah, torrents are way more simple

I have to pay for torrents anyways with my access. If I wouldn't blitz that 20gb a month limit I'd probably still be on it.

Just a little motivation. Can't have the Tech Forum slacking any. :D

From the sounds of it Ogen, I'd just stick with torrents. :y: