- Four things really
matter when choosing a binary newsgroup server provider:
- What you need to know:
- Unlimited Access Usenet Account
- If you plan to use a newsreader program to
download lots binary files (note, we did not say Warez),
an unlimited newsgroup account is a no-brainer. A
good unlimited account with Newshosting
will set you back $15 a month, while a metered account with most
providers will run $10. Rock-solid, super long retention
unlimited usenet can be found at Giganews
from $25 a month.
- Unlimited plans sometimes are often
offered with different server options. One example is
Newshosting, which offers a medium and a long retention
service. Typically, the longer retention service also gets
faster updates from peers and may have more redundancy built in
to it to reduce the likelihood of hardware failures.
- Some "unlimited" usenet
accounts will actually slow down your connection or cut you
off altogether if you pull down too much during the
month. This is especially a danger when buying through a reseller,
who has to pay the actual service provider for whatever their
customers download.
- Unlimited usenet accounts at most providers are
often bare-bones, with no special web interfaces or
add-ons. Those extras are usually reserved for their metered
or block account users.
- Metered use newsgroup providers: .
- Metered use accounts are generally
considered accounts that allow a set amount of downloading either
daily or monthly. Accounts spanning more than a month are
typically considered Block accounts.
- The most common type of metered account allows
a user to download up to a specific amount (pricing depends
on the limit selected) per month. When that limit
is reached, you cannot download any more until you pay again (either
automatically with an "auto-refill" option, or wait until
the next monthly billing cycle.)
- Another type of metering limits you to a
specific amount per day. We particularly hate this
type of packaging. On paper it looks good because the
total available over 31 days can be much more than the monthly
plans, but you only get that if you log on every day and download
to the limit. No-one does that in the real world. We
recommend you stay away from daily limit plans.
- Most metered accounts are "use it or
lose it", but some do roll your unused GB into the next
month. This is a particularly valuable feature - although
keep in mind that most companies only let you keep the extra as
long as you are a paying customer. If you cancel your
account, you usually can't live off your excess into the next few
months.
- Some of the usenet companies let you build
up extra GB's by answering surveys, recommending friends, or
contributing CPU time to charity.
- Metered accounts are the VIP accounts at
most usenet companies. If there is a special web interface or
priority help desk, it is often restricted to metered account
users only. Easynews'
thumbnailer and zip manager tool can really save you alot by letting
you preview pictures and movies, then having them compressed into
zip files for easy downloading (of course they have traditional NNTP
newsreader access too)
- Block plans
- Block plans let you buy a specific number of GB
with no time limit, or a time limit of more than a month (3,
6 or 12 months) on when you must use them.
- These plans are really nice as a backup
to another monthly plan, in case the other plan has a hardware
failure, you always have something to fall back on.
- Block plans are also a good supplement to a
standard ISP newsgroup server. If your ISP's usenet server
is fairly good, but retention or completion are a problem, consider
picking up a block account and configuring your newsreader
software to read from both services, with your ISP as
primary.
- A few words
about the number of connections:
- Most premium Usenet providers allow
you to use somewhere between 3 and 20 connections at one time.
- These connections are not to be shared with
other users - most providers require (and technologically control)
that all connections be from the same IP address at any given
time. Connection attempts from more than one IP addresses are
usually blocked.
- Having multiple connections allows your
newsreader program to do multiple access at once. For
example, you may be loading 100,000 message parts from a DVD group,
when you decide you want to also download headers from an MP3 group.
While the headers download, you may also select an album cover art
file for "over-ride" download. If you were limited
to only one connection, the DVD messages would have to stop
downloading to allow the headers to be retrieved, and that too would
have to stop when you requested an over-ride download of the album art
file. But if the usenet provider allows multiple connections,
you can do all these things at once.
- Multiple connections may also speed up the
download of large message queues. By opening 3 or 4
connections between your newsreader and the newsgroup provider,
different message parts may travel different paths to your PC, avoiding
some bottlenecks and creating a faster overall speed than
downloading each message part sequentially. Our experience is
that the impact falls off sharply after about 4 connections though
- in fact Giganews can fully fill our 12 Mps cable connection with a
single connection most days.
- Web-Interface / Thumbnail preview services
- Some users just don't want to be bothered with
setting up newsreader
software, or downloading headers to pick from. Usenet
services are now available with web interfaces that let you browse
thumbnails of pictures and movies so you can easily pick and choose
the specific ones you want.
- Often times a newsgroup may see a flood of 1000
attached pictures or videos. While only 20% may be of interest
to you, with a traditional newsgroup program you must download them
all, or at least an index picture (if the poster uploaded one) to
select which messages to download. That's a lot of wasted
bandwidth. Thumbnail previews let you use your time and
bandwidth wisely.
- Multi-part messages are pre-joined to
create complete files on the server. No need to learn how to RAR,
PAR, HJSplit,
etc.
- Two very good options for this type of service
are Skin
Video and Easynews.
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