Just wondering what a rough split is of people using either Usenet, torrents, or both?
I’ve only just discovered Usenet and while it is paid, it is very cheap and much more convenient than torrents.
Using torrents as well with the *arr suite set up for my various Linux ISOs.
I’m mostly downloading fairly recently released stuff, so there’s no shortage of torrents on public trackers.
I also don’t want any payment details associated with anything not explicitly legal, so that’d be a further deterrent from Usenet. Sure, I could use crypto, but even that links me to a wallet that might someday be traced back to me, so I’ll pass.
You can get free accounts from sites like Eternal September, but you only get access to text groups, which are mostly full of spam anymore. If you don’t download much, it’s best to just get a block account.
It’s funny you put it that way, because torrents are based fundamentally on the idea of freely hosting the data so nobody has to pay to access it.
I have wondered this as well. Seems like it is pretty linked.
Tbf, Usenet and indexers are strictly speaking, legal.
Right, but whatever I’m doing on there really isn’t.
As a matter of fact my current jurisdiction doesn’t even pursue copyright infringements, but I still don’t want to be linked to anything commonly seen as shady.
Fair enough, I was under the impression that if you are using SSL, all an ISP or VPN provider could see is that you are connected to whichever backbone provider you were connected to. I.e. The content of what you are downloading is encrypted.
You could be downloading stuff that is not illegal, and I don’t think that is necessarily knowable by anyone except yourself.
I may be way off here, I’m not an IT person, but that was my understanding of SSL.
This is incorrect. What you’d are doing while purely downloading is legal.
Bit torrent exposes you to liability not because you are downloading but because you’re sharing which courts have decided is distributing/performing, no matter how small the block you upload.
This is not an issue with Usenet.
Usenet as daily driver works 99% of the time. Only use VPN/torrents for extremely new or very obscure shows. $5/month pays for unlimited Usenet and VPN.
Only use VPN/torrents for extremely new or very obscure shows
Interesting, I would have thought torrents would be better for older stuff due to their theoretically infinite retention. Like, can you find, say, LOTR: The Return of the King on Usenet at the moment? Someone has to have uploaded it in the past ~2 years (retention period) or something for it to be available, right?
Afaik most usenet providers have a retention period of 3000+ days (some even reaching 4000+). I’ve downloaded multiple things from the 90s without any problems. The oldest media in my collection is from 1957, so retention really isn’t a problem I would say.
LOTR = anything from 4K HDR 7.1 Atmos, down to DVD is available (theoretically, as you can have items that exists, but can’t be fully downloaded so don’t work, because of DMCA and other things). The oldest release I see is 5800 days old and the newest is 4 days old. So people keep reuploading stuff if it’s popular enough. (I still can’t find some episodes of Ben 10 tv show lol)
This UsenetServer discount link gives you 1 trial month for $1, then $50/year after that, and includes a 1TB TweakNews block and a paid PrivadoVPN account.
Just want to let you know that Privado VPN is not a private vpn, please read their privacy policy before buying into their services.
20% torrent and 80% stremio with real debrid.
Stremio and RD is just so easy. Torrent for anything I really want to keep forever in very high quality.
I use both. It depends on what I need, really.
Always went for the free option
