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NZBMatrix Closes Their Website
An anonymous reader writes "Hot on the heels of the closure of Newzbin2, this morning the usenet NZB indexing website NZBMatrix closed shop in the face of another DMCA notice. NZBMatrix allowed users to sift through messy usenet groups and quickly find data for download. NZBMatrix's API allowed automated polling from various clients, making it one of the more popular NZB sites. This is one of the last public NZB indexing sites, leaving mostly invite-only underground sites. A sad day for usenet users everywhere."
You could always rely on a decent number of comments for popular releases to filter a good download form a bad one.
Sad to see this one go, as I had relied on it more and more well before Newzbin closed its doors.
How nice of them to accept premium payments up to the day they closed.
*.binaries.* downloaders are a much smaller set than "Usenet users everywhere."
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
The best combo is predb.me / nzbindex.nl
Astranews sucks now too much content is missing.
Going to need to use a NL only provider without US Servers.
They're going after the Usenet providers as well, via automated DMCA takedown requests. The providers have no choice but to comply (and to keep up, also automating the process), which means content is effectively gone within hours of being uploaded.
The irony when it comes to TV shows/movies is the same as it used to be with the music industry: the stuff being downloaded is largely not available to buy online legally. I wish they would put their efforts into making this content available for purchase instead of wasting their time trying to stem the flood of copyright infringement.
How is this moderated up so high. No provider was forced to shudder their doors because of the huge size of the binaries groups. Just dont carry the group. Usenet discussion died because of spam and web forums.
Binsearch.info is coming back with relevant results still, that's what I've always used, and it does an acceptable job.
This comment is factually correct, although it's modded down because it is contrary to someones worldview, that's often the case with Slashdot negative moderation. I used to run a NNTP server for a small ISP in 1994. I just filtered out the worst offending binary groups when the cost became prohibitive. I ran an NNTP server on a 486 with a couple scsi drives just fine with just the text groups. I can't imagine it being a "huge cost" to any ISP without the binaries.
Too many people violated the first rule of USENET.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
There are some good newznab based providers that I tend to rely upon the most. They work great, and there's basically nothing stopping anybody from building their own.
There's also binsearch.info. Binsearch is easily the most comprehensive nzb index in existence, only downside is that it is also unfiltered, but the bad stuff is easy to spot (e.g. passworded rars are marked as such, and NZB's that aren't anywhere near large enough to be what they claim to be are obviously not what you're looking for.) Generally if I need something obscure, binsearch is a great last resort if nobody else has it.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
The text groups are not dead; not by a long shot, and for some topics they're still a great first place to look (Perl questions or Lisp for example).
Go to aioe.net (org?) for a free text group provider. Albasani is another, although the owner, Alexander Bartolich sadly passed away suddenly earlier this year so it's not clear how much longer that site will be around. EndlessSeptember - or something like that - is also providing free text groups.
And the forum at www.dictatorshandbook.net is technically a news server. Connect to it with a news client (Unison, SLRN, Knode, TIN, Pine, Thunderbird) to give it a try and remember how much awesomer NNTP threads are relative to web forums or -- gack -- AJAXy Facebook-type stuff.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
I wish I could convey in words how obvious it is that you have no idea what you are talking about.
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
You've just further reinforced our impression.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Usenet died when it was opened to the great unwashed masses. AOL was the start. .signature footer.
The golden age of usenet was only possible because it was largely restricted to intelligent educated grown-ups. Or at least college students who were a minority enough that they soon got pulled into line with netiquette. That was the day with everyone used their real names, and many had their phone number in the
how much awesomer NNTP threads are relative to web forums or -- gack -- AJAXy Slashdot-type stuff.
FTFY
Care to mention any IRC channels or DCC hubs where I can download stuff. I thought not. I can point you to a number of usenet indexes and servers. That is advantage of usenet is, you dont need secrecy, and you dont get nailed like bittorent.
NNTP is much faster in my experience.
See xweasel for an index.
Alright. Who has nzbs.us invites to hand out?
Erm, this is just flat out not true... I don't know if you're trolling or seriously that ignorant.
let's see...
DCC: Extremely Slow - majority of people have slow upload with their ISP, and on top of that most people who serve files have multiple slots, which cuts your download speed even further. Not to mention download queues, or the file server going offline. Not to mention it is not safe, I used to run an Mp3 channel before and I know people who got pulled up by the RIAA. XDCC is also just as bad.
Bit Torrent: Not as bad - speed can really suck quite often... public trackers are terrible, and you have to upload what you download - which altogether is a terrible idea from a legal perspective. ISP's love to throttle bittorrent connections also. So this is not a particularly great way of getting what you want, but yeh it sure is cheap, at a cost.
HTTP: I guess you mean the likes of Megaupload? Great until it gets shut down, costs money also, overall not bad except that it is a bit of hassle going through forums and finding the stuff.
NNTP: Costs money also, but has been largely untouched by the MPAA, download is extremely fast... you say it is slow? I have a 32 mbit connection and I download at a consistent solid 4 MB/s, which is maxing my line, I'd never get that off bit torrent, not while uploading at the same time for sure. Not to mention I am using a non-standard NNTP port with SSL so my ISP don't know what I am downloading and don't throttle me. I don't have to upload a thing, so I feel far safer from prying eyes. You mention files don't stay for long, you obviously haven't used Usenet in a long time because retention is now over 1500 days. So it wins hands down from HTTP, not even mentioning all the applications out there that automate everything... watch a particular tv show? there are apps that automatically download it as soon as it is uploaded - no need to trawl through indexing sites,.... or forums in the case of sites like megaupload. It will be sitting in your media center when you come home from work.
you say NNTP is costly... I say so is HTTP, and the other ones cannot compete as they are risky territory IMO. $10 a month for unlimited download is hardly a lot. The only thing that sucks about Usenet is the index sites are all closing their doors!