While the cheapest reliable option is probably Frugal Usenet, I switched to Eweka while their Black Friday sale was active since its retention goes further back. I also use a Newsdemon block plan as a secondary usenet provider for releases that Eweka is missing portions of.
this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Yes, frugal usenet. Buy a year for 40 or 50 bucks, get a free block. US servers, EU servers and a backup server too. All for less the 5 smackers a month.
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newsdemon is sadly just not that good with their selective retention when better alternatives are there at a similar price.
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if you just want the popular stuff they will be fine since they keep that since many download it but if you veer off that path they have poor completion since their system does not keep everything. but even then with other services at similar prices you can get better for the same price.
blocks could be a bit restrictive unless you reliably download the same each month so you have predictable usage. if you ever deviate or find yourself having to hold back so you dont burn up your block, an unlimited account may be better and then you dont have to worry. unlimited is cheap enough now.
Thank you. I am seriously considering this instead as I think I minimum spend around $40usd buying 4tb blocks on sale. If I forget to grab during a sale, that bumps to $45 per tb
I mainly use torrents but do have Usenet as a backup. I solely have a 4tb block also from NewsGroupDirect. I got it for like 7$ a couple years ago and am still working through it. It'll last a while. I've been pretty satisfied with availability and retention, although YMMV. if I could give advice it's that a lot of places do really good holiday/black Friday deals.
Paying for piracy is pointless and stupid. Piracy means free and solid access to content and paying for it means the complete subversion of that. 👎 👎
For that I would be better by just paying for some stupid streaming service and having something more convenient / not having to deal with anything.
Long live torrents.
Are you 14?
Are you 12?
Nope. I'm asking because your writing pattern and general stance is extremely juvenile. So I'm wonderimg if you're a child or not.
Nope, not a child. I just don't care specially when it comes to certain topics, or my English is actually bad.
But seriously, why would we pay for piracy by financing greedy VPN companies when you can get 98% of the security for free by using a good private tracker + requiring encryption?
For many of us, paying for these services are more convenient that putting up with the bullshit of services like Netflix and Amazon etc... There are so many streaming sites now that it really isn't convenient anymore.
But yes; Just like there are greedy streaming services there are greedy VPN providers. So folks should keep up-to-date on who to choose. (If you ask me, stick with either Mullvad, IVPN or Proton VPN. I've done a lot of research and still am on the landscape of VPNs for my master thesis, and it's a pretty nasty corner of the internt..)
Piracy isn't purely about getting things for free, it's about convince and preserving digital media too.
Piracy isn’t purely about getting things for free, it’s about convince and preserving digital media too.
I agree with you when when it comes to preservation and sometimes even quality. But when it comes to convince nothing beats Netflix.
They certainly convinced me to stop using the account I was password sharing off of and dusting off the old hat and peg leg.
I used to pay for a VPN and torrent everything but I'll be honest, $ for $ it costs the same or less AND there is way more selection. I'm ok to pay a little for a better service. I don't have to figure out what's streaming on what and I get high quality tv and movies for pennies on the dollar. Even if I went the "free" route I still have to pay for a vpn
I won't pay for piracy and that includes a pointless piece of shit VPN that won't protect you anyways if things get serious.
I imagine it must be nice living in a place where your government doesn't care. Enjoy your free torrents. I'm ok with a few bucks here and there
C'mon you've plenty of private trackers you can join with an invite from someone else and nobody will easily track you like they can do in public torrents.
I'm kinda over this conversation. I posted asking for input, not someone being argumentative. If you had a stronger argument, maybe I'd change my ways and look into what you're saying. I politely tried to say I hear you, but I'm good with what I do and you keep digging. At no point have you said anything that makes a strong case, helpful to what I asked or isn't dismissive. Have a good night
I do have an argument: https://lemmy.world/comment/7648533
Any free private tracker worth your time has DHT/PEX disabled thus making their torrents invisible for your typical govt / private entity searching for pirates. If those torrents aren't public and can't be searched indexed via DHT then the ISP or whatever knows you're using the bittorrent protocol but they don't know for what content. This particularly correct if you use sane settings in your torrent clients such as a blocklist + requiring encryption for all connections.
If you do those simple things and a use a private tracker you trust then your ISP/Govt can't point fingers at you, they've no way of knowing what you're downloading.
Are you saying that you haven't heard of media company affiliates prowling in such groups from invites given to them?
https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/en/peer/ -- Plug your IP into that. Private tracker torrents are still visible to the public.
https://iknowwhatyoudownload.com/en/peer/ – Plug your IP into that. Private tracker torrents are still visible to the public.
What you're saying isn't correct, at least for properly configured private trackers and clients.
I did try that website and that's the thing, the only torrents that show up are public ones. Torrents from private trackers like iptorrents are not showing on that list as expected. They don't show, because they can't access them, just read their about page and you'll understand why:
Our system collects torrent files in two ways: parsing torrent sites and listening DHT network
Any private tracker worth your time has DHT/PEX disabled for their torrents because if they didn't then the torrents were essentially public.
What you're saying isn't correct, at least for properly configured private trackers and clients.
That's exactly what I said it's for "to check and make sure your configuration is correct". (here: https://old.lemmy.world/comment/7654711) I used it in the past and found out my split tunnel was leaking info on the DHT. It can help others make sure they aren't leaking data too.
That’s exactly what I said it’s for “to check and make sure your configuration is correct”.
What you said was: "Private tracker torrents are still visible to the public" and this isn't true.
I provided the link - if you want to be disingenuous that is your prerogative.
Private tracker torrents are still visible to the public. Just because it's not on THAT particular website, doesn't mean that someone isn't on that private tracker leaking all the data. Bittorrent is not a private protocol.
That is a shady sketchy as fuck Russian site. Please, if anyone is reading this, DO NOT access it or put your fucking IP in there.
You're a fucking moron my man. It's a site for checking if your IP can be seen by the public for torrenting. If you don't torrent, or if you're properly setup through your VPN, nothing shows up. If you are leaking torrenting data to the public, this guy catalogs it and if it sees any of that public data it'll show you what you've been torrenting -- this same data is available to hollywood and they use it to issue C&Ds, warnings through your ISP, etc.
I didn't put anything in. But I went there (on mobile). Any real risk?
It's a site that simply catalogues every IP address seen on the DHT. If you're torrenting, and you're leaking that data publicly, this site simply compares it.
https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=iknowwhatyoudownload.com
The site is registered through godaddy, and claims of it being a Russian site is simply meant as a scare tactic. Any website you connect to without a VPN immediately knows your IP address anyways - it's not some sacred thing you have to protect against people knowing.
Hell, if you're concerned with it - plug your VPNs IP into it; you'll see the torrents that others on the VPN are seeding from the IP address you're using.
If you're using it on mobile, it's not likely that anyone is torrenting on mobile, so unless someone is really doing dumb shit - it's not likely it'll list anything. It's a useful tool to have under your belt to see if your bittorrent client is leaking data.
Thank you taking the time to respond with such a detailed response. I wasn't too worried about it as I don't do my shady stuff on mobile but figured it was worth the ask.
Other than a couple of bad faith actors here and there, I've found this community to be super tolerant and helpful - thanks!
Your ISP is logging you. And everybody's just sitting around waiting for the day that the feds decide to do something about piracy beyond icing a few domains there's a difference between them knowing what you're doing, and then being the handle the hand over exactly what you're doing.
If "feds decide to do something about piracy" I'm sure as shit your cheapo VPN isn't going to protect you against them. People bought into all the marketing from VPN providers, that's what's really going on.
Besides solid access to content piracy is also about a message, a statement about sovereignty, rights and freedoms and paying for it means the complete subversion of the ideal.
Bruh, it's just stealing movies. You're not taking down The Man with your sick seed ratios. This line of thinking is how people become radicalized lmao
But man, paying for pirated content? Even if you ignore everything else, it's over the line.
You're not paying for the content, you're paying for the server upkeep. I assume you don't donate to people who rip your favourite albums/films either or to people who seed a lot.
You could just physical if you wanted to not pay a few dollars to piracy services, but those will be more expensive
You’re not paying for the content, you’re paying for the server upkeep.
This is a very, very questionable statement, we all know that people do profit from selling access to piracy.
Don't know why everyone is shitting on you. You raise a good point. When did piracy become something you pay for?
Do you have a beefier internet connection than you would have without pirating?
Is the same true for a NAS/HDD?
Lol, No and No.
Why would you pay for a 'beefier' internet connection AND pay for Usenet and then pay even more for a NAS.
I pay for Usenet so precisely so I don't need those things.