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Usenet General Information

Usenet is the biggest resource of information and files on the internet. It is really a giant size forum and holds around 8 terrabytes of information, video, photos, applications, music, at any one time, just about everything you could ever need will be there somewhere. Usenet holds its information and files for download in "newsgroups" there are two types of newsgroups, text and binary groups.

Text Only
These groups which are just like a normal forum and can be accessed with Outlook Express and are provided free via your ISP like e mail. This is where any information on any subject is exchanged, the list is endless and fascinating but read a group before you post anything, if you upset the groups etiquette police you will be ignored or abused, there are no moderators on most of Usenet it is a free for all. Text groups are pretty safe security wise as they are only text files and the audience on the bigger groups is vast especially the Windows Public groups.

Binary Groups
This is where all the Video, Music, Software and Images are: almost anything you want is in Binary Newsgroups somewhere. Binary Groups are only available via paid premium newsgroup services, the paid services are pretty cheap, I use the Octanews service which I buy in 30Gb download blocks, this means I can download 30Gb of files for a few dollars and top up when the block runs out. Downloading binary files is risky because there are a lot of fakes and infected files about, getting the files in a useable state after downloading is also a nightmare for the uninitiated. Full tuorial with screenshots is available in the Tutorials Section

Be warned everything good, bad, legal, illegal is on usenet and available for free in Binary Newsgroups, anything you download or post is not secure and some of the more outrageously illegal groups are monitored or set up deliberately to catch downloaders.

Why bother using a premium newsgroup download service when you can download torrents or from file sharing networks? Firstly speed, usenet on a premium service is far faster, secondly retention in that files are there for weeks not a few days and don't rely on somebody sharing and lastly you are in control of what is uploaded in return, ie nothing unless you want to post files its up to you, therefore you do not have to "share" your downloads.

Newsreaders
The software used to access newsgroups is called a Newsreader, there are many about. Outlook Express can be set up as a Newsreader but I would only use it for text. In the Usenet world people posting with Outlook Express are obvious newbies (the only thing worse than Outlook Express is using AOL), this can lead to you getting little response to posts on some of the sniffier groups. Outlook Express is good to start with but a better Newsreader is Forte Agent the version on that link reverts to a free newsreader after 30 days which is fine for general browsing use. Forte Agent can also be used to download binary files but it is very complicated for Binary files I would recommend a specialist binary newsreader called Newsbin Pro which makes things much easier.

News Servers
A little more about this, the News Service providers fall into 2 groups, free and subscription.

Free services
Generally provided by your ISP for free these carry very few of the total amount of newsgroups available and they keep the headers for a few days - this is known as "retention rate" and means that anything posted will only be available for a few days at most. There are free services around but most are not much better than your ISP and they only carry text services ie forums. Cable & Wireless news server address is news.cwgsy.net other ISPs will be similar you will have to check with whoever your ISP is for the correct address. Full tutorial for reading Newsgroups in Outlook Express is here

Subscription services
Providers such as Octanews or Usenet.com carry the vast majority of all news groups including Binary Groups, the retention is around 30 days, so if someone posts a video you want you have 30 days to download all the parts you need. Also paid services have fast connections, I regularly get 75Kbs far faster than torrents or file sharing networks.

Secure Usenet
It is also possible to download anything you want from usenet via secure encrypted connections, these are expensive but what you download is heavilly encrypted and cannot be traced to the source or the content read unless you happen to be the NSA, then it would still take a few years to de-crypt the files. All it looks like to observers is a run of the mill secure network connection for business networked machines. Good for the super paranoid downloader, you get these services from usenet.com but you need a secure tunneling application, a subcription to a secure server and a usenet account - costs around £100-00 to set up. Anybody interested contact me if you need help, it is pretty heavy duty geek stuff to do.

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