Usenet for More Advanced Users

Usenet is an incredible service for finding and downloading digital media,

giving you speed and reliability you won't find with other file-sharing options,
such as uTorrent.
Here's a quick guide on setting up and getting started with Usenet.

An Introduction to Usenet
What is Usenet?
Let's just talk about how it's relevant, shall we? Once binary newsgroups made
their way into Usenet, it quickly became a popular place to find any sort of files
that interest you. A site called Newzbin started indexing the binaries available on
Usenet and creating the NZB file format. An NZB file is basically the Usenet
equivalent of BitTorrent's torrent file, in that when you download an NZB, you're
simply downloading a file that points to files available on Usenet. Applications
supporting the NZB format can use them to make downloading Usenet binaries a
piece of cake. I'm going to attempt to walk you through how to set up Usenet
access, configure a newsreader, and then find NZB files so you can get the content
you want.
Please note that I never actually wrote most of the following article. I've taken it
from LifeHacker.com and modified it to suit my particular audience. All
original author credit should go to LifeHacker.com and their fantastic writers.

Regarding the First Rule and Other Issues

People have kept quiet about Usenet to avoid directing unwanted attention to
it, hoping it doesn't suffer the same fate as, say, Napster or Kazaa. Usenet
hosts all kinds of files, including copyrighted works, and it is therefore a
potential target for the hammer of the MPA/MPAA, RIAA, etc.

However, with these large content rights organizations already abundantly

aware of Usenet's existence, it seems silly to pretend we're still protecting it
through silence. There are two controversial issues attached to writing about
Usenet: 1) the first rule of Usenet is that you don't talk about Usenet, and
2) it's commonly used to download copyrighted material.
In regards to the fact that Usenet can be used as a means of acquiring copyright
works, I leave that up to the individual user. My intent is only to look at how
Usenet works and what you can do with it, leaving the choice of that usage entirely
up to you.

That Very Important First Step: Choosing a

Usenet Service Provider
Unlike most file-sharing services nowadays, Usenet is not peer-to-peer. In
other words, it doesn't matter who else has the file. You are not connecting
to anyone else- you connect to the servers themselves. 99% completion for
weeks like what torrents offer, is exceptionally rare. In fact, incomplete
files are usually due to a lower quality provider.

First; the free: you do get (very poor) access through your Internet service
provider (Shaw, Telus) but honestly- you're going to want to pay for Usenet
access that will actually prove useful. Currently I
use Newshosting (Expensive), Astraweb (180GB for $25 which never expires
$50 for never-expiring 1 TB blocks at a time) and SuperNews ($5.99/month
for unlimited downloads- after I found a coupon code; normally $11.95). I
recommend browsing a bit for coupon codes for all providers, as I found
one that permanently dropped my Supernews cost in half. Several more
choices exist, such as GigaNews. These are all good options, but you can
choose whatever Usenet provider you'd like. When comparing providers,
here are a few things you'll want to look at:

 Days of Full Binary Retention - With massive amounts of data being added
to Usenet servers every day, it can't all be stored forever. Retention is the
number of days you're guaranteed to have access to a file after its original
posting date. Most providers offer something around 1000 days, and in most
cases that's sufficient, but there will be circumstances in which you'll want
access to older data. A year is usually sufficient for most people, but some
providers (like SuperNews) offer very high retention rates as high as almost 5
years. It's important to check the type of retention advertised. Some providers
will separate their binary retention from their text retention when their text
retention number is significantly higher, essentially false-advertising.
 Monthly Transfer - Generally measured in GB, this is the allotment of data
you can download for the month. In most cases you're going to want a plan
that offers unlimited transfer, but most Usenet service providers offer plans
with data caps generally ranging from 5 to 50 GB. You also want to look into
carry-over of unused GB's as some offer this choice, others don't. If for
example, you choose a plan with 400GB a month, but your shaw or telus
account is limited to 300GB, you won't be able to use it all, and that last
100GB disappears forever.
 Connections - Every Usenet service provider caps the number of simultaneous
connections you can make at a single time through your account. This is
relevant for a couple of reasons. First, most of the files you'll download are
split into parts and you may want to download those parts concurrently, as this
can often be faster than downloading one file at a time. The number of
connections you pay for is directly related to the number of files you can
download at a given time. Also, if you want to use your account from different
locations at the same time or share your account with someone else, you can
split up the number of connections between locations so only one account is
needed. Personally, I use eight connections at a time, but my accounts include
20-60. Generally, no matter what type of account you choose, you'll end up
with a sufficient number of connections—if not more than you'll ever need.
 Security - In most cases SSL and other security options don't cost extra but
don't even require consideration. You want to take any extra measures to
encrypt the data moving between your Usenet service provider and you.
 Support - While it's unlikely you're really ever going to need to contact
support, it's good to know it exists with a decent response time. Generally the
contact method is only via email, but that should be good enough so long as
they promise to get back to you within a day.
 Cancellation and Trial Periods - When trying out a new provider for the first
time, make sure you can easily cancel your account without incurring any fees.
It's best to not pre-pay for several months (or years) of service ahead of time
until you've tested out the waters for a month or two to make sure the provider
will work well for your needs.

Once you've chosen a provider and completed the signup process, there
are a few pieces of information you're going to need before moving on.
First, get the server address (i.e.: unlimited.newshosting.com) and port
you'll need to connect (563, 23, 119 etc.). This information should all be
easy to find from your service provider, or the signup email they would
have sent. If your account includes SSL, make sure you get a port
 number for SSL. After that you'll just need your username and
password, which you'll presumably know since in most cases you'll have
chosen them yourself.

Step Two: Setting Up Your Usenet Client

Just Downloads
This section is going to cover using the free, open-source Usenet
client SABnzbd+. If you're just in it for the binary downloads and couldn't care less
about the text-based Usenet content, SABnzbd+ (from here on, I'll refer to it as
SAB) is what I'd recommend you use. But SAB isn't the only download helper out
there. There are too many to cover and since SAB is my favorite, that's what I'm
going to concentrate on here.

Setting Up SABnzbd+

SAB runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux because it's basically a collection of
Python scripts. It runs as an application, but you control it from your web browser
—either on your local computer or, if you've set it up, from any web browser via a
remote connection. Before we go any further, you'll want to download it.
Setting up SAB is really easy, especially now that SAB walks you through the
process with its new setup wizard. SAB's site has a great quick setup guide but I'll
give you the short version:
1. Launch SABnzbd+ and, if it doesn't do it for you, go to http://localhost:8080 in
your web browser.
2. Select a language, then a theme. After that I'll get to the important stuff.
3. In the Access Options screen you'll be asked if you want SAB to be remotely
accessible or just accessible on your local network. Enabling remote access
will give you some other neat options that I'll discuss later. If you do, be sure
to set a username and password for security purposes.
4. Next is Server Setup, where you'll need the server information you set aside
from before. Here you'll enter your Usenet service provider's server address,
the corresponding port, whether SSL is on or off, and your username and
password. This is also where you set the number of connections you want to
use. Remember, when you signed up for Usenet service your provider gave
you a finite number of connections to use—you can enter any number up to
that maximum here. Don't over-do it. You have a limited number of
 connections from your ISP and setting something like 10+ will only slow
down the rest of your internet access. Feel free to test and play around with
the number of connections until you find a setting that works well between
download speed and browsing with your computer.
5. Index Site Options is the final screen to fill out, but we haven't discussed
content yet so you can skip this for now.
6. You're done! Restart SAB and it'll be ready to go.
Fine-tuning SABnzbd+

Once you've completed SAB's basic setup, you've still

got a few more things to do. SAB comes with a ton of settings, and we're going to
explore some of the most useful ones. First, visit SAB
at http://localhost:8080 (unless you set it up elsewhere) and click Config.
Then click General. First you'll find the configuration for the SABnzbd web
server. A little ways down, in that category, is the API key. It'll be a long
alphanumeric string and won't be terribly useful to you at the moment, but copy it
and put it aside. You'll be using that later.

All the way at the bottom you'll see a setting called Cleanup List with a couple of
file extensions filled in. Much of what you download will come with superfluous
files and SAB will automatically delete them during processing if their extensions
are specific here (My list for my PC thatonly downloads movies and TV
shows is .nfo, .nzb, .sfv, .srr, .txt, .idx, .sample, .sub). As you find files in your
downloads that you don't need, you can add their extensions here.
Moving on to the next Config sub-category, Folders, you'll find options to
set where your downloads go. SAB will default to a Downloads folder on
your main hard drive, but you can set it to any path you want. If you set it to
a path that, in part, doesn't exist, SAB will create the necessary folders.
When setting a custom download path, be sure to set the Temporary
Download Folder and the Completed Download Folder. Generally these folders
are called Incomplete and Complete (respectively) and reside in the same
parent folder. You don't have to do it this way, but that's how it works by
default. You'll also find an option to set a Watched Folder. Although I'll look
at easier methods, one way to easily add downloads to SAB is by
downloading NZB files (more on this in the next section, but basically NZB
files are file pointers—the equivalent of torrent files for Usenet) to
the Watched Folder and SAB will pick them up automatically. It's important
to understand that you need to have your Watched folder and your other
folders separate. If you have your Downloads folder as watched
(Recommended), make sure you set a different Temporary and Completed
Downloads folder as well, otherwise it could very easily download the same
file, over and over. Look at my settings in the picture above to see.

The next sub-category we want to look at is Switches. There may be several things
you want to look at here, so check them all out. Whether or not you want to turn
something on or off here is mainly going to be your personal preference.
I'll skip the Servers (you've already set this up by now), Scheduling, RSS,
and Email and Sorting subsections, but feel free to explore them on your
own. Index Sites is basically what we skipped during the initial setup of SAB, and
I'll skip it again here, but make a note as you'll be coming back later.
In Categories there really isn't much to do, but should you want to make a new
category later that SAB doesn't cover you can do that here.

Step Three: Finding Content

Now that you've set up SAB, it's time to give it something to download. SAB
downloads and processes files via NZBs, which are pointers to binary content on
Usenet. Because most binaries on Usenet are split into several (hundreds or
thousands of) pieces, NZBs allow you to download a single file that holds the
location information for every piece. SAB takes this file, downloads all the pieces
it points to, then assembles them into the file you want so you don't have to do any
of the heavy lifting. Finding NZBs isn't hard to do, but there are a few things to
understand before diving in.

Newzbin created the NZB format, but it lost in a trial against the MPA and
no longer exists as it once was. It's current incarnation is limited to
members of the previous site. The other popular Usenet binary search site
is NZBMatrix (DEFUNCT), which some (I) prefer to Newzbin anyway.
Updated: I run my own indexing server free of charge. Ask me for access.

Outdated: Both sites require that you pay for the sort of premium access
you're going to want, but the cost is pretty minimal. Newzbin operated on a
weekly credit model, where you'd pay very little (around $0.50) per week to
download NZBs. NZBMatrix will allow you to download a few NZB files for
free with limitations, but for $7, you get a premium NZBMatrix account
that's good for ten years.

This gives you access to an API key and will let you integrate more closely
with SAB. (Note: you may also need your SABnzbd+ API key for better
integration with NZB search sites.) If you sign up for either site, you'll want
to enter your credentials (and your API key in the case of NZBMatrix) in
the Config - Index Sites section of SAB. If forking over any more cash for
Usenet isn't appealing to you, you can also try using free options
like NZBs.org, Binsearch, or Newzleech.

If you have access to Newzbin or have signed up for NZBMatrix, however,

you have more options in how you acquire content. Rather than
downloading NZBs, you can use SAB's add-ons to facilitate downloads with
less effort. For example, nzbstatus (Firefox) and SABconnect++ (Chrome) will
both monitor your SAB queue and also add SAB download buttons to
Newzbin and NZBMatrix so all you have to do to add a download to SAB
from one of these sites is click one button. Even better, if you've enabled
remote access to SAB you can queue up downloads using this method
regardless of whether you're on your home network or not.

Another cool add-on that requires remote access is the myNZB iPhone App. For
$2.99, you can search Usenet index sites and add downloads to your SAB queue
from your iPhone. NZBdroid and SABDroid+ are options for Android, but they're
not yet as mature in their development as myNZB.
With your search sites set up for easy use, you're all set. Now you can take
advantage of Usenet.

Extra Stuff

This guide just scratches the surface of what you can do with Usenet. There are
other great projects like Sick Beard that add a lot of awesome new features to your
setup.
I'll only be covering more Usenet tools such as SickBeard (TV without the
commercials) and CouchPotato (Movie release watcher- downloads the movie at
the quality you want) if I get demand, so comment and check back.

If you have any Usenet tools or suggestions, or if you liked this article, share your
thoughts in the comments!