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Tutorials - Binary Newsgroups
Disclaimer - you are breaking the law by downloading and using copyright protected media or by downloading media that is illegal in your jusisdiction. I am providing information only, what you choose to do with it is up to you. I am not responsible for anything you download using this information or for any damage done to your computer operating system, or for any content you find and download that is illegal. - Jonah
1. Introduction
2. Setup Newsbin
3. Download Files with Newsbin
4. Convert Downloaded Files
5. Music and Other Types of Files
1. Introduction
Downloading Software, Movies, Music, Pictures etc from Usenet is not illegal, as long as you do not download cracked software or copywrite protected material, or anything that is illegal in yor jurisdiction you are fine. Having said that Usenet is the largest repository of all the above on the planet and also the largest repository of information, fixes, free software, video, images, music etc so everything is there but its up to the individual to decide what to download or not. There are no rules on usenet anything goes it is anarchy. Sometimes called "Darknet" because it is under the radar of 90% computer users who think Limewire or Bittorrent are the best download services available, usenet is where the real action is.
What are Binary Newsgroups?
Bit of history, long before the internet as we know it was born there were various networks, these were very low capacity and only supported the sending of text, there were no pretty pictures, no web browsers, nothing, the only places to visit were bulletin boards (like forums) and if you wanted to visit a bulletin board you had to dial the correct computer directly. Some people on these bulletin boards wanted to send each other photos and audio tracks, but because the bulletin boards only accepted text and only a fixed limit of text per post they came up with a way round the limitations. By converting the picture or whatever to a text file (binary) chopping it into small bits, compressing it and then uploading it in sequential parts the bulletin board would accept the uploads as normal text files. The recipient downloaded all these sequential parts from the bulletin board and rebuilt the original file by performing the reverse actions the uploader used to post the files. Filesharing was born long before Kazaa and Limewire were even thought of, it was time consuming and difficult but it worked.
So its a bit like wanting to e mail a video to a friend, the video is too big for an e mail which normally has a 10Mb attachment limit but if you could chop the video into several parts less than the 10Mb attachment limit and send them one at a time your friend could then download the mail, copy the attached video files, stitch them together again and end up with the original video.
This is what a Binary is, just a lot of small attachments uploaded to a Newsgroup, you download the attachments and re-build the files. However doing this is still as much a black art as it ever was, its just a lot faster and there is software that takes care of the most complex parts for you.
Required Software for Downloading and Using Binarys
Octanews Usenet Service - Essential
In order to access Binaries in the first place you need a premium usenet subscription which gives you access with a user name and password. I use Octanews because it allows me pre pay blocks of downloads (like a moby phone pre pay card) which I can top up when I need to, most services give you a download limit for a monthly charge. When you buy a block of downloads remember a video is about 5Gb so you need to go for 8Gb minimum. See Octanews here for more info. I usually get a 30Gb block, lasts me months.
Newsbin Pro v5 - Essential
Newsbin is my choice of usenet binaries downloader (client), there are others but this one is very easy to use and I am basing the setup / how to on this version. Download here
Winrar - Essential
Winrar is an archiving tool, it compresses and decompresses files. Most Binary files are uploaded to Usenet in Winrar or Zip formats, Winrar extracts the files, it is essential. Download here you need Winrar 3.62 about half way down the page.
Quickpar 9.1 - Essential
Quickpar is the true magic bit, it is a free utility and how exactly it works is a total mystery to all but PHd Computer Science guys. When you download a large binary file from Usenet sometimes the files will be incomplete or corrupt. Having taken hours to download this stuff and ending up with a useless files is not funny. A lot of the download headers will have files called "PAR2" with them. Quickpar reads these files and if any of the actual downloaded files are corrupt or incomplete it will rebuild them for you - pure magic. Download here
Power ISO - Recommended
Occasionally you will download a file that is a CD/DVD image, you have to burn this image to a CD//DVD. If you already have Nero Burning Rom installed or any other commercial CD/DVD burning tool you do not need this.
A CD image is like a printing press master, it is the mirror image of a CD, when you burn the image to a CD it is just like using a printing press to "stamp" the image the right way round on a CD which you can then put in the CD/DVD drive and it will be a normal CD/DVD. Image files are generally used for software like Linux Distros and of course "free" software 8-) There are many different image formats, Power Iso handles 95% of the ones you will come across, most commercial burning software will handle only some of them usually not the one you need at the time. There will be a how to on burning images with Power Iso later. Download here
2. Newsbin Setup >>>
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