# Giganews or Newsdemon?



## nloding (Mar 2, 2007)

I just raped my Comcast newsgroup account (2GB/mo download limit ... I'm just finishing downloading over 30GB).  I ain't getting my Comcast newsgroups account working again for quite some time!  So I'm gonna sign up for a service, now that my Wii is almost modded and I plan on getting a 360 too.

I'm trying to decide between Giganews and Newsdemon.  The prices aren't that far apart ($10/mo), but I want to know if it's worth it paying the extra for Giganews and having 100 days retention instead of 87?

How important is that extra 13 days?


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## Costello (Mar 2, 2007)

13 days don't make much difference IMO...
I've never heard of newsdemon so I can't really tell but Giganews have a damn good service. I've been using 4 different usp and the best one by far is Giganews


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## iza (Mar 2, 2007)

what are these anyways? premium download services?


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## ASK (Mar 2, 2007)

They're USENET providers. They give you access to binary newsgroups. Generally, if you don't have topsite/dump access, the quickest way you're going to get a release is via Usenet.


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## ceevee (Mar 2, 2007)

Newshosting @ 14.95/mo.  Unlimited bandwidth, 8 connections, 45 day retention, 75 day retention with nzbs.


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## strummer12 (Mar 2, 2007)

I like Giganews and pulled most of my stuff off there.  It's very easy to cancel too so you don't have to play phone hockey.


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## thegame07 (Mar 2, 2007)

newsgroups lets you download stuff really fast i can download a psp game in 20 mins


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## DrKupo (Mar 2, 2007)

Neither, UseNetServer.com


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## iza (Mar 2, 2007)

whats wrong with fserves and torrents? they download fast enought for me... and free.


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## thegame07 (Mar 2, 2007)

torrents take far to long and there no need to pay for newsgroups. Also sometimes when your downloading a torrent it will just stop and not  finish for ages. Newgroups dont do that. I use a programme called grabit and download nzb from sites.


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## flowbee (Mar 2, 2007)

i use giganews for usenet and www.binsearch.info to search for nzb's. handy! and also newsleecher as my newsreader program (can import .nzb files).


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## iza (Mar 2, 2007)

hmm... i havent had that problem w/ torrents, but i realize iso's are too big for a good IRC transfer...


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## zerathul (Mar 2, 2007)

good private trackers (not the best and hard to get access ones) have scene releases max 2-3 days after they are out, generally the same day, 100-150 KB/s per torrent the first couple days, 250-300 after. i don't get having to pay for something more than this, unless u have really "special" needs


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## squirt1000 (Mar 2, 2007)

Newsgroups are also good as you arent required to upload like you are with torrents


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## Dirtie (Mar 2, 2007)

I was very happy with Newsdemon when I was subscribed, prices, retention, etc. are all very nice (and it always maxed out my connection speed).

13 days in retention is not that big of a difference at all. Not too long ago 50 days was very very good, and 70 days was excellent


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## Strokemouth (Mar 2, 2007)

QUOTE(zerathul @ Mar 2 2007 said:


> good private trackers (not the best and hard to get access ones) have scene releases max 2-3 days after they are out, generally the same day, 100-150 KB/s per torrent the first couple days, 250-300 after. i don't get having to pay for something more than this, unless u have really "special" needs



I couldn't put up with downloading something at only 200 KB/s. With usenet I pull ~1100 KB/s down with 8 connections, plus most releases are posted same day.

Not to mention I'm old skool and actually still use usenet for what it was intended!


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## friedchicken (Mar 2, 2007)

comcast uses giganews, which is very good but also very expensive. newshosting is still the best bang for buck. i'd take high retention low price over high retention higher price any day.


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## iza (Mar 2, 2007)

whats retention? i mean i know the definition.... 
they just hold on to your bandwidth,file, or what?


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## Dirtie (Mar 2, 2007)

QUOTE(friedchicken @ Mar 3 2007 said:


> comcast uses giganews, which is very good but also very expensive. newshosting is still the best bang for buck. i'd take high retention low price over high retention higher price any day.


It depends what plan you're on. For instance, my ISP limits my bandwidth to 10GB a month before it lowers my speed to that of dialup (yeah I know, it sucks), so the very maximum I'd be downloading a month is 10GB - and Newsdemon is (considerably in relative terms) cheaper than newshosting for the 10GB plan.

At the moment I don't pay for any usenet though, since I've found 2 free servers and I've added my new ISP one on top of that 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	





Edit: Retention is the length of time the files are available on their server.


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## Katalyst (Mar 3, 2007)

I think someone said it earlier, but I'd go for the $15 Unlimited package with Newshosting. That's what I've always had. Best deal I could find around and the retention is decent. I've never found the need to have a longer retention and I use usenet to get just about everything. I've only recently cancelled my Newshosting account because like Dirtie mentioned, I found a few free nntp's combined with the 2 connections my ISP offers. Retention is nowhere near as long as Newshosting but the speed is still fast as hell and since I don't need long retentions anyway, that's $15 in my pocket.


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## Xcursion (Mar 3, 2007)

QUOTE(-MTW- @ Mar 2 2007 said:


> Neither, UseNetServer.com


I have been using usenetserver.com for over a year and have been happy with them. I love that they are currently up to 90 days of retention for just $14.95 a month or $39.95 for three months. I use UNS along with newzbin for nzbs and also NewsLeecher for downloading and have never been disappointed. I can easily max out my 10mbit connection while download from usenet.


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## zatelli (Mar 3, 2007)

Neither Giganews which has the best available service ever (SSL support,  nor newsdemon or UNS: if you're on a budget & still want a pretty good service you should go for block accounts: a 100 GB block would cost you less than a monthly subscription if you don't use all your monthly bandwidth.
Just to make it clear: if money is a concern : go for a reputable block account news feed provider, else go for Giganews.


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## T-hug (Mar 3, 2007)

www.newshosting.com


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## Xcursion (Mar 3, 2007)

QUOTE(zatelli @ Mar 3 2007 said:


> Neither Giganews which has the best available service ever (SSL support,Â nor newsdemon or UNS: if you're on a budget & still want a pretty good service you should go for block accounts: a 100 GB block would cost you less than a monthly subscription if you don't use all your monthly bandwidth.
> Just to make it clear: if money is a concern : go for a reputable block account news feed provider, else go for Giganews.



UNS has SSL support at no additional cost unlike Giganews. UNS offers a flat fee for unlimited acceess. It is quite beneficial for people that download a lot of stuff a month like I do. Giganews gives you one month at $19.99 for unlimited downloads with SSL and is $29.99 after that. UNS offers it at half of Giganews' regular price all the time.


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## nloding (Mar 3, 2007)

I just got an email notice from Comcast: "Notice of Claim of Copyright Infrigement" from a stupid movie torrent I downloaded two months ago.  I'd rather use newsgroups right now, vs. public torrent trackers.

The private trackers usually have excellent files and speed, but require high share ratios.  I downloaded 25GB from Blackcats, and it took me 4.5 weeks to get my ratio back up to .75 to download more torrents.  That's a bullshit amount of time to seed.

I think I'm gonna check out UNS.  Thanks guys.


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## nloding (Mar 6, 2007)

Heh, I'm sticking with usenetserver.com ... $3 for 3-days w/ 10 connections and no limits is absolutely unbeatable.  In 3 days, I can leech so much crap!

Testing all 10 connections I downloaded Trauma Center Second Opinion (Wii ISO) in about 49 minutes, which is my personal record (averaged 777KB/s the entire time, spiking at 1.78MB/s, no lower than 600KB/s).

From now on, I'm only using torrents for TV shows and ebooks!  And maybe anime.


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## adgloride (Mar 6, 2007)

I've used both giganews and newsdemon.  Giganews is the best usenet provider but charge you for it.  I took up an offer on newsdemon and get unlimited for just under £6.50 a month which is 1/2 the price of giganews.  Newsdemon has most of the newsgroups, the only newsgroups I've found missing is the GBA one and some of the pron newsgroups.  You also need a credit card for giganews with newsdemon you can either use a credit or debit card, it even takes paypal.


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## Perplexer (Mar 7, 2007)

QUOTE(Xcursion @ Mar 3 2007 said:


> UNS has SSL support at no additional cost unlike Giganews. UNS offers a flat fee for unlimited acceess. It is quite beneficial for people that download a lot of stuff a month like I do. Giganews gives you one month at $19.99 for unlimited downloads with SSL and is $29.99 after that. UNS offers it at half of Giganews' regular price all the time.


This is ABSOLUTELY the correct answer 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





  You will probably want to go with a provider who offers SSL (even if you don't have a need for it right now)

In layman's terms, SSL essentially means that your ISP will not be able to sniff your packets.  This is important for two reasons:

1. Privacy.  They will only see "noise" and not know what you are downloading.
2. Traffic shaping.  ISPs will soon limit your download speed for certain traffic, i.e. Usenet traffic, bittorrent, etc.  With SSL, once again, it is just "noise" and you won't be affected.

That said, I'm with Newshosting at the moment (I'm paid up through the rest of the year, then I'm going to Usenetserver.)


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## thegame07 (Mar 7, 2007)

i use free software to download nzbs is there any need to pay for anything whats the diffrence.


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## xiaNaix (Mar 7, 2007)

If you can afford it, Giganews is the top of the mountain.  Newsdemon is just a Newshosting reseller.  I gave up on them and now go direct through Newshosting.  The problem with Newsdemon is that they put a bandwith limit on your account so, if you are a heavy downloader, every few days you have to contact support for them to un-cap your supposedly "unlimited" account.  Apparently "unlimited" doesn't mean "uninterrupted."


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## thegame07 (Mar 7, 2007)

using free software "GRABIT" you can download how many times you want aswell i dont see the need to pay money. All you need to do is find nzb sites.


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## CJL18 (Mar 7, 2007)

if you can get on private trackers.... with 100mb seeders its the best easy FREE!!!! way of getting movies games apps, music...i always max out my download speed 900kbs a sec on private trackers, but if you dont have a good upload speed and dont like seeding what you take newsgroups are your best option  imo.


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## Xcursion (Mar 8, 2007)

QUOTE(nloding @ Mar 6 2007 said:


> Heh, I'm sticking with usenetserver.com ... $3 for 3-days w/ 10 connections and no limits is absolutely unbeatable.Â In 3 days, I can leech so much crap!
> 
> Testing all 10 connections I downloaded Trauma Center Second Opinion (Wii ISO) in about 49 minutes, which is my personal record (averaged 777KB/s the entire time, spiking at 1.78MB/s, no lower than 600KB/s).
> 
> ...



Private trackers are not as private as you think they are. The MPAA, RIAA and other groups hire companies to monitor the traffic and to download torrents to gather the IPs of people downloading the content. Torrents are also not that good since you have to have at least 100 active connections for a single torrent to download at high speeds. You can easily max out your connection with 4 connections to different usenet providers.


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## mccord (Mar 8, 2007)

i'm using giganews, the 100day retention is great.
for downloading i use sabnzbd (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sabnzbd/) tucked away in a screen session
the frontend is your browser so you can manage downloads from anywhere in your network
downloading is easy, just select the nzbfile, type in the msgid from newzbin or just drop a nzbfile in the dirscan directory
it's even easier (1 click) if you use the greasemonkey script for newzbin 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



everything beyond that is automated: downloading, par2checks, getting pars if repair is neccessary, unpacking and cleanup

great software and it's free 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




if i want to browse the headers of groups manually i use grabit, though...


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